"After one of my plays came out, I had mixed reviews, some bad and some good. One day, it dawned on me. I thought, "I wrote a play and he wrote a review, and that's the difference between him and me." ~~Steve Martin
I love this quote by Steve Martin. He might have meant something entirely different by it, but to me it reads that each writer made an equal contribution to the American Theatre. The difference in their art is one of form. It gave me such peace when I read it. There is a scene in THE HAMPTON YEARS when an art critic admonishes a mural painted by John Biggers. The mural is the Dying Soldier, pictured above. The review is scathing, racially charged and reflective of the prejudicial standards of the time period. John Biggers paints a mural. This art critic writes a review. However, the difference between them is vast. Remember, it's the 1940’s. Jim Crow laws dictate every aspect of race relations and the world is not yet ready for Black Artists to paint their experiences or reflect society in a critical way. The critic upholds the status quo and I believe he’s doing so in an attempt to save the future of art. It was a thrilling scene to write. Because, however much I agree or disagree with the critic, this is a scene about honor, integrity, a desire to uphold a standard and a great love for art. On Wednesday, my play THE HAMPTONS YEARS will open to previews at Theater J. Set at Virginia’s Hampton University during World War II, my play follows the growth and development of African American artists John Biggers and Samella Lewis under the tutelage of Austrian Jewish refugee painter and educator Viktor Lowenfeld. The process of getting this script from page-to-stage has been nothing short of extraordinary. My values and writing skills have been tested, honed and defined. What’s more, I’ve found myself living the plot of my play when UDC announced that it was discontinuing the Theater Arts Program. And working with Shirley Serotsky (Theater J’s Associate Artistic Director) and Otis Ramsey-Zoe (Dramaturg) has been … well, every playwright on this planet should be so fortunate. As with every play I’ve ever written, I have such great hopes for it. I hope that the lives and experiences of these artists inspire everyone who has ever had a dream and faced great challenges to see them realized. I hope that writers of color feel empowered to tell the stories of their people. I hope that theatres feel encouraged not only to program plays written by women, but also plays written by Black playwrights that explore Black history and culture. We have four preview performances before opening night. Four performances to work out any last minute kinks in the production or the script before press is invited. Each night, audiences will have two hours to experience and evaluate what it took me a year and seven months, but really my entire life, to write. I plan to watch it Wednesday and Thursday before working through additional rewrites. I’ll repeat this process on Saturday and Sunday into Monday. This way, I’m not writing on impulse. And this way, I can meet opening night with equal amounts of joy, fear, and confidence. Joy, because this will be my first regional production. Fear, because this will be my first regional production. Confidence, because I’ve worked my ass off and so has everyone else on this artistic and production team. Three months after the play closes, I will read what the critics have said about it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy critical analysis. I believe the role of the critic is essential. I believe that artists and critics should be conscious of the work we create and know how to frame it within a contemporary, historical, socio-economic, political, racial/ethnic and geographical context. However, because art is inextricably linked to commerce, the relationship between the artist and the critics is a troubled one. The weight of a review is measured in dollar signs and its merit is based on how well or poorly a playwright can trade their efforts on audience attendance, grants and donations. And just as problematic, for a woman playwright of color, is America's longstanding issues with race and gender. Especially, if a reviewer lacks social awareness and race consciousness. But I believe our very best theatre critics write from a place of honor, integrity, a desire to uphold a standard and a great love for theatre. And this is why I've been so excited to connect with the Women Theatre Critics of D.C. and present this series. In my next post, I'll introduce you to the women being featured and share their stories with you over the course of the next few days. I hope you'll enjoy learning about their lives, careers and ambitions as much as I have.
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Welcome to the Women Dramaturgs of D.C. Series! Over the next few days, you'll be introduced to an extraordinary group of women working in the American Theatre as freelance and resident dramaturgs, literary managers, and directors of new play development. You'll find these women in the rehearsal halls of local, regional, and national theatre. And I hold each and every one of them the highest esteem. While there is no one way to define the role of a dramaturg, the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of Americas has an excellent definition and informative list of duties here. My favorite parts of dramaturgy have to do with working with playwrights on new plays; speaking to audiences about a production and the process of bringing a play to the stage; teaching young people about how complicated ideas and different worlds can be explored through theatre; and bringing together the world of the play in the form of cultural and historical research. Now, as with my previous series on Playwrights, Directors and Artistic Directors, it is my hope that these interviews will serve others who are making their way as dramaturgs in the Nation's Capital, and beyond. And as all of you playwrights and directors begin to work on new plays this season, please consider reaching out one of these amazing, smart, talented, and hardworking women dramaturgs. FAEDRA CHATARD CARPENTER Faedra Chatard Carenter (B.A., Spelman College; M.A. Washington University; Ph.D. Stanford University) is an assistant professor of theater and performance studies at the University of Maryland, College Park and a freelance dramaturg. A former resident dramaturg for Arena Stage in D.C. and Crossroads Theatre Company in New Jersey, Dr. Carpenter has also worked as a professional dramaturg for Centerstage, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the African Continuum Theatre Company, Theater J, Black Women Playwrights, and TheatreWorks. Carpenter is an Advisory Editor in Drama for Callaloo, an Editorial Board Member for The Southern Quarterly, and is on the Board of Directors for Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA). Her scholarly interests include the study of race, sexuality, and gender in contemporary performance and her work is published in Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy; Theatre Topics; Women & Performance; Text and Performance Quarterly; and Callaloo. ANN-MARIE DITTMANN Ann-Marie Dittmann works as a Library Associate at the Arlington Public Library where she plans and facilitates a wide variety of adult programs including theater and dance performances, feature and documentary film series, and author talks. She also curate, Down Stage Center, is a meet-the-artist series featuring theater artists in the metro DC area, with a concentrated focus on those in Arlington County. Recent professional theater activities include: Production Dramaturg, Chess and Sunset Boulevard, Signature Theater (Arlington, VA); Since January 2011 I have served as a Helen Hayes Awards Judge for Theater Washington. Additional volunteer activities have included sitting on the grant review panel for the Arlington Community Foundation’s Community Enhancement Grants for the Arts and Humanities. Previous dramaturgical positions have included serving as the Audience Enrichment Manager at Arena Stage and Literary Assistant at Goodspeed Musicals. LAUREN HALVORSEN Lauren Halvorsen is the Literary Associate at The Studio Theatre, where her dramaturgy credits include The Motherfucker with the Hat, The Aliens, Bachelorette, The Big Meal, and Time Stands Still. Previously, she spent three seasons as Literary Manager of the Alley Theatre in Houston, TX. Lauren is also an Artistic Associate with WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory, where she facilitated the development of 38 plays over a five-year period. She has worked in various artistic capacities for City Theatre Company, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, First Person Arts Festival, and The Wilma Theater. Lauren is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College. ADRIEN-ALICE HANSEL Adrien-Alice Hansel is Literary Director at The Studio Theatre, where she oversees the expansion of their new play and international programming and new audience engagement initiatives. At Studio, she has dramaturged An Iliad, Dirt,Invisible Man, Sucker Punch, The Golden Dragon, Lungs, The History of Kisses and The New Electric Ballroom, among others. Previous to joining Studio, she spent eight seasons at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she headed the literary department and coordinated project scouting, selection, and development for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She also served as production dramaturg on roughly 50 new, contemporary, and classic plays. Her production work at Actors includes commissions Gina Gionfriddo’s Becky Shaw (2009 Pulitzer finalist), Naomi Wallace’sThe Hard Weather Boating Party, Jordan Harrison’s Maple and Vine, and Craig Wright’s The Unseen, as well as premieres by Rinne Groff, Adam Bock, Charles Mee, Lisa Dillman, and John Belluso. Ms. Hansel also has extensive experience in developing projects with ensemble theatres, including The Method Gun with Kirk Lynn and Rude Mechs, This Beautiful Citywith The Civilians, Cabin Pressure with Anne Bogart and SITI Company and Batch with Alice Tuan and New Paradise Laboratories. She has also worked in the literary offices of Yale Repertory Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre, and has served on funding panels for the Joyce Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and Creative Capital’s MAP Fund, among others. She is the co-editor of eight anthologies of plays from Actors Theatre and three editions of plays through Studio Theatre. Ms. Hansel holds an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama. JENN BOOK HASELSWERDT Jenn Book Haselswerdt is a dramaturg, writer, and theatre education professional in the Washington, DC area. She is an Advising Dramaturg/Producer with The Inkwell, where recent dramaturgical work has included The Body (Steve Moulds, playwright), The Snake Charmer (Eric Loo, playwright), Terminals (David Robinson, playwright), Forgotten Kingdoms (Randy Baker, playwright), Where the Whangdoodle Sings (Kristopher Frithjof Peterson, playwright), Twigs & Bone (Tiffany Antone, playwright), and Crown of Shadows (formerly strive/seek/find, Jason Gray Platt, playwright). Dramaturgy with other area theatres includes TETHER (Doorway Arts Ensemble), Bleed and An Ordinary Afternoon (DAE’s Playground series), Off the Block (Active Cultures), Eulogy (Imagination Stage), and Sing and Never Tire (KUUMBA Players). Jenn received her MA in theatre history and criticism, dramaturgy focus, from The Catholic University of America. She has been the Education Program Manager at Imagination Stage (Bethesda, MD) since 2007, where she has had the opportunity to teach creative drama and music, as well as write plays for young actors. Jenn has also taught with C2 Educational Centers and the DCJCC. Jenn lives in Silver Spring with her husband, their son, their cat, and their turtle. HANNAH J. HESSEL Hannah J. Hessel is the Founder and a Creative Trainer at the Project Gym, a space for creative development. She spends her days as the Audience Enrichment Manager at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. At STC, she runs the Creative Conversations discussion series which includes a range of discussion formats including the innovative Twitter Night providing an online conversation before and after a performance. She also oversees the free weekly performance series Happenings at the Harman. Outside of STC, she serves as the Senior Dramaturg at Forum Theatre. She was the Literary Director, Outreach and Education Associate at Theater J. She serves on the board of the Association of Jewish Theater. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she holds an MFA in dramaturgy from Columbia University. TAYLOR LEE HITAFFER Taylor Lee Hitaffer is a Washington, DC based freelance dramaturg and arts administrator. Educated in Theatre Studies from Towson University, Taylor has served as dramaturg for some of the District's finest nonprofit performing arts organizations, including Constellation Theatre Company, Theater J and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She is an advising script reader and core dramaturg for The Inkwell, DC's premiere resource for new play development. Currently, Taylor is the Program Assistant for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, where she's spent the last four seasons coordinating the KCACTF National Festival, the MFA Playwrights' Workshop and the New Play Dramaturgy Intensive. Taylor is a proud member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, Theatre Communications Group, Write Local. Play Global. and The Playwrights' Center. MEGHAN LONG Meghan Long is a theatrical producer, manager, dramaturg, and arts administrator. She recently moved from D.C. to New York in July 2012 to pursue an MFA in Theatre Management and Producing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. During her time at the School of the Arts, she has associate produced No Boundaries: New Short Play Festival and is currently associate producing Paulina Barros’ thesis production of THE COMFORT OF NUMBERS. Meghan is the producer for Junesong, a D.C.-based arts collective, which she co-founded with Timothy J. Guillot. With Junesong, she recently produced the premier of Timothy J. Guillot’s THE WEBCAM PLAY at the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival, and the premiere production of Timothy J. Guillot’s WE FIGHT WE DIE through the Mead Theatre Lab Program at Flashpoint. In addition to her work with Junesong, she is a Partner-in-Ink and seasoned dramaturg at The Inkwell. Meghan has worked on numerous Inkwell projects over the past three years, including two Inkreadings: Clarence Coo's BEAUTIFUL PROVINCE (BELLE PROVENCE), which was presented at the 2011 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and Henry Murray's MONKEY ADORED (98% HUMAN), which received a premiere production at Los Angeles' Rogue Machine in September 2011. Most recently, she was an Inkwell dramaturg for a showcase reading of Mariana King’s OFELIA’S LOVERS. Meghan has also worked administratively in many D.C.-area theaters, including Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Round House Theatre. LAURA ESTI MILLER Laura Esti Miller is a dramaturg, literary manager, writer, and educator. She is the Literary Manager for Forum Theatre in Silver Spring, MD, and a Partner-in-Ink with The Inkwell, the resource for new play development in the nation's capital. Recently, she was named an associate member of Pinky Swear Productions in DC and her co-created devised dance-theatre piece, Mark Twain's Joan of Arc, was featured in Burning Coal Theatre's Politheatrics festival in Raleigh, NC. She has worked as a dramaturg, writer, or researcher for numerous productions along the East Coast including The Public Theater's 2007 production of Romeo and Juliet. Laura is the former Creative Development Director of the off-Broadway company Electric Pear Productions, and has had the honor of working with The Kennedy Center, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, The Princess Grace Awards, Drama Dept, g14 productions, Rorschach Theatre, Urban Garden Performing Arts, Premiere Stages, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, visual artists Sherrard Bostwick and Juliana Cope, and collaborating musically with the groups Casual Occupation and The Working Effective. She is a proud alumna of Brooklyn College and James Madison University. MICHELE OSHEROW Michele Osherow is Associate Professor of English and Affiliate Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park. Areas of specialization include Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, Biblical Literature, Jewish American Literature, Dramatic Literature, and Women's Studies. At UMBC she has enjoyed collaborating with faculty in the departments of Theatre, Mathematics, Visual Arts, and the Imaging Research Center. Her experience in professional theatre includes serving as Resident Dramaturg at the Folger Theatre and serving on the Board of and performing for the Quotidian Theatre Company (most recently in Brian Friel’s Afterplay; summer, 2012). Publications include "Crafting Queens: Early Modern Readings of Esther," in Queens and Power in Early Modern Europe (Nebraska UP), "She is in the right: Biblical Maternity in All's Well that Ends Well" in Routledge's Accents on Shakespeare Series, and "'Give ear o' princes': Deborah, Elizabeth, and the Right Word," in Explorations in Renaissance Culture. Her book Biblical Women's Voices in Early Modern England was released by Ashgate Publishing Company in 2009. She is co-writing a text with theatre director Aaron Posner on staging Shakespeare, is co-editing an encyclopedia on Early Modern Englishwomen, Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts, 1500-1650 (Ashgate) and is currently researching contemporary American productions of Shakespeare for the volume How We Make Shakespeare Mean, co-authored with Gary Waller (SUNY Purchase). Michele has served several times as Interim Executive Director of the Shakespeare Association of America. AMRITA RAMANAN is the Artistic Associate/Literary Manager at Arena Stage. Her production dramaturgy credits include Mary T. & Lizzy K., My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Trouble in Mind, Ruined, Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies and Crowns (Arena Stage); Skywriter (2009 Cap Fringe Festival); and Cymbeline (Great River Shakespeare Festival). Prior to her position as Artistic Associate/Literary Manager, Amrita was the New Play Producing Fellow and Dramaturgy Fellow with Arena Stage, the School Programs Intern at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, and wore a number of hats at the Great River Shakespeare Festival, where she worked in education, outreach, publicity and marketing during her four-season tenure. For two years, Amrita has served as an adjudicator for the D.C. Commission of Arts and Humanities Larry Neal Writer’s Competition and as a script reader for The Playwrights’ Center. A West Coast native, Amrita holds a B.F.A. in dramaturgy and theater history from the University of Arizona. JAMILA REDDY Jamila Reddy is director, poet, dramaturg, and teaching artist. She is an alumna of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she received BAs in Dramatic Art and Sociology. She directed several productions at the undergraduate level, including the premier of Kind of Blue, an original play by Kuamel Winston Stewart, and Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. For her contributions to the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC, Jamila received the Richard and Christopher Edward Adler Award for Excellence in Dramatic Art (2010) and the Louise Lamont Award for Excellence (2011). Jamila was a member of the 2008 Bull City National performance poetry slam team. She served as artistic director (2008-9) and two-term president (2009-11) of Ebony Readers Onyx Theatre, a spoken word/theatre performance ensemble at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jamila served as the inaugural Artistic Apprentice at The Studio Theatre in Washington, DC where she assistant directed five main stage productions and worked in the literary department. She served as dramaturg for the workshop and staged reading of Danielle Mohlman's Stopgap, and directed the World Premier production at the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival. Jamila is currently living in Washington, D.C working as an Assistant Resident Director at The American University and serving as a Teaching Artist and Poetry Slam Team Coach for the Woodrow Wilson High School Slam Team with Split This Rock. Jamila recently worked as Dramaturg on David Mamet's Race at Theater J in February of 2013. LARONIKA THOMAS LaRonika Thomas is a doctoral student in the Theatre and Performance Studies Department at the University of Maryland. She holds an MA in Theatre from Purdue University and a BA in Theatre and Anthropology from Indiana University, and also serves as adjunct faculty in the Theatre and Communications departments for the Community College of Baltimore County. Her research interests include cultural space and cultural policy, particularly in 21st century Chicago, site-specific performance, performance and identity, online archiving and databases in the new play world, and digital performance. LaRonika is currently the Vice President for Regional Activity for the Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), having previously served in several positions for the organization. She has worked in various capacities with the Goodman Theatre, the Public Theater, CenterStage, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, The Playwright’s Center, Neo-Futurists, and Writers’ Theatre, among others. She has presented papers and chaired panels at several LMDA conferences and at ATHE, where she was elected to the one-year position of graduate student representative for the Dramaturgy Focus Group during the 2012 conference. LaRonika’s short play, J-Rots, was a finalist for the 2012 Heideman Award at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. She is a recipient of an LMDA residency grant as well as three Chicago City Arts Assistance Program Grants for her individual work. MIRIAM WEISFELD Miriam Weisfeld is the Director of Artistic Development at Woolly Mammoth, where she was lead producer of the 30th anniversary conference on Theatre, Democracy, and Engagement, and has dramaturged several world premieres including Anne Washburn’s MR. BURNS, David Adjmi’s STUNNING, Robert O’Hara’s ANTEBELLUM and BOOTYCANDY, and others. Additional credits include work for New York Theatre Workshop (projects with JoAnne Akalaitis, Ivo van Hove, and Universes); A.R.T. (with Robert Woodruff, Anne Bogart, and Paula Vogel); Two River Theatre/Folger Theatre (with Teller); Steppenwolf Theatre; Actors Theatre of Louisville; Lookingglass Theatre; and the Banff Playwrights Colony (upcoming). She has lectured on theatre at Harvard University, MIT, George Washington University, Suffolk University, Northwestern University, the Kennedy Center, and the Moscow Art Theatre School. She holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from the A.R.T./MXAT Institute at Harvard University. She is a contributing author to the next edition of the Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. In December of 2004, I was living in Baltimore and had completed a brief stint at CENTERSTAGE. By January of 2005, I was working as a temp at Catholic Relief Services. For three weeks that winter, I walked to and from work; a total of three miles. I worked from 10:00am to 6:00pm. When I got I came home, I cooked dinner and wrote from 8:00pm to 11:00pm. I liked my work. I liked being in service to the greater good. I was working there during the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. I liked the stability of my schedule and the steady salary. So much so, that I considered shifting my life and career. But theatre had saved my life after a series of traumatic experiences (that I'll write about one day) and I knew I wasn't ready to leave it. And as much as I missed Austin and missed being surrounded by artists of various disciplines eager to work and create with together, I knew that moving back to Texas wasn't an option. Mainly, because I had spent a fortune getting to the East Coast. So, I kept plugging along. Towards the end of January, a dear friend sent me the notice for the Literary Internship at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. His message read: "Don't think about it, just apply. Don't try to figure it out, just apply. Don't freak out about all the reasons why it'll hard as hell to make work, just apply." So I did and by the grace of divine providence and all that is meant to be, I got the internship. Later, I learned that my boss, Mary Resing, who was then Woolly's Director of New Play Development, had gone to school with the brilliant and amazing Jill Dolan (one of my mentors, references and advocates). Mary figured that anyone who had successfully survived so many classes with Jill had to be smart, hardworking, talented and up for a challenge! And I was, ready for the challenge and eager to absorb everything! So, I went from a lovely mile and half walk to and from work to an exhaustive hour long train commute each way. I went from having a steady and decent income to making barely enough money to cover transportation and had to take a part-time at the Ford's Theatre box office to make rent each month. But I was happy. During those one hour train ride, I read the most amazing and adventurous plays and I met so many wonderful people while working at the Ford's Theatre. Also, I started writing a play, DEEP BELLY BEAUTIFUL. My time at Woolly Mammoth was amazing. The extensive training that I received and the actually professional opportunities given to me went above and beyond my expectations. I learned an approach to dramaturgy that works to serve the playwright's voice and vision. I learned how to ask questions about the playwrights' intention and writing process, which for me, is the first and most important part of the process. I learned how to bring the world of the play to life through research, music, food, photographs, geography, politics, and humor. I learned how to communicate the spirit of the production to the audience. And by working with such extraordinary playwrights as Gina Gionfriddo, Kirsten Greenidge, Sherry Shepard-Massat and Sarah Ruhl, I also learned how to be a better playwright. I completed my internship in August of 2005. From there, I went to work at the Folger Shakespeare Library, but I continued to work as a dramaturg. Eventually, I became resident dramaturg at Active Cultures and African Continuum Theater Company. I worked freelance at the Arden Theater (Philadelphia, PA), Discovery Theater, Ford's Theatre, Howard University, the Kennedy Center, Morgan State University, Redshift Productions (New York, NY), Rorschach Theater Company, Round House Theatre, Theater Alliance and Theatre of the First Amendment. My dramaturgy packets have been used at Ensemble Studio Theater (New York, NY), Interact Theatre (Philadelphia, PA), Theater J, Horizon Theatre (Atlanta, GA). It's been an exciting adventure! In the last two years, my focus has shifted to playwriting, but I truly miss my dramaturgy work. This is why I've been so excited to connect with the Women Dramaturgs of D.C. and present this series. In my next post, I'll introduce you to the women being featured and share their stories with you over the course of the next few days. I hope you'll enjoy learning about their lives and careers as much I as have. Back in August, I launched the Women Playwrights of D.C. Series. It was encouraging to learn about the experiences, challenges, dreams and ambitions of my colleagues in this community. While much has transpired in our respective lives and careers since our last conversation, it appears that for audiences and threatre artists in the D.C. Theatre community opportunities to experience the work women playwrights and playwrights of color remain few and far between. As season announcements have been rolling out, I've received them with a mix of enthusiasm and disappointed. I'm excited about the plays I'll have an opportunity to experience next season. At the same time, it's frustrating that so few opportunities are available for women and artists of color. What's more, I've received numerous emails from beloved friends and respected colleagues expressing their own anguish and despair over the situation. Honestly, it's hard to stay positive and create in an environment that doesn't seem to value the stories of women and people of color. However, it doesn't serve us to sit mired in misery and disappointment. It just doesn't. We must find ways to commune, heal, encourage, nurture, support, and challenge each other and ourselves. If we do, magic can happen. For instance, director Elissa Goetschius is compiling a nationwide list of women directors. What an amazing and extensive resource. Such positive and productive action is inspiring and necessary. For my part, I've invited the Women Playwright of D.C. to Sound Off in a fun, direct and productive way. I mean, what's the use of being sad, angry, frustrated and disappointed in silence, when you can dance, sing, shout and write about it. As more responses come in, I'll post them. For now, please enjoy these submissions from Bari Biern, Allyson Currin, Kitty Felde, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, Kristen LePine, Liz Maestri, Danielle Mohlman, Kristy Simmons, and Laura Zam. JACQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing under a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (ie. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? Bari Biern: This one’s a no-brainer. Please feel free to bill me as Barry Biern. JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? BB: Success is seeing my script or libretto realized onstage exactly—or better than-- the way I envisioned it while I was writing. In the beginning, I imagined success would be getting a company to actually produce one of my scripts. Since then, I’ve witnessed, through the experiences of my fellow playwrights, that, if it’s not the right company, a production can actually break your heart. JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your community of:
JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study its mission and a pitch play directly to them: BB: Okay, Washington Stage Guild. Here’s the elevator pitch, even though you don’t have an elevator. You produce “eloquent plays of idea and argument, passion and wit…enacted by a classical ensemble.” You also present excellent adaptations of classic literature, including this season’s offering, Dante’s Inferno. My adaptation of E.F. Benson’s Mapp & Lucia has all the elements you seek—idea, argument, passion and wit, plus it’s written by a local woman playwright. Who could ask for anything more? If your main concern is the number of characters, Bill Largess can play all the parts! JL. What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? BB: This June, the In Series will present the DC premiere of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, featuring my English libretto, which sets the opera in South Philadelphia in the 1970s (yes, cheese steaks are involved). The Round House Theatre’s HeyDay Players will present my ten-minute play, The Old and the Zestless. This wonderful title was suggested by the actors. I love it. I just completed the English script and lyrics for The Key, and original family musical by Hungarian composer, Tibor Zonai. We’re currently looking for producers. Next up…I’m writing an English libretto for the fall 2013 In Series production of Mozart’s The Abduction From the Seraglio, directed by the wonderful Tom Mallan. You can follow my adventures at my website, www.baribiern.com. JACQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing under a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (ie. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? ALLYSON CURRIN: Oh, I hate this question. I hate it because I can’t pretend to be high-minded and noble when I answer it. I would probably totally do that with all those career certainties in place. Dammit. But here’s the flip side: I have always been extremely proud of my work, and proud that it shows up under my name. I have been tempted before to write under a male pseudonym, and know women artists who do. But in the final analysis, I am too proud of my work. I want my name on it. So, that’s a dream world/real world response. Do with it what you will…sigh… JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? AC: Being a performer has diminished in importance for me, mostly because my playwriting took off in the way that it did. Playwriting was ultimately more gratifying and artistically fulfilling. I have also come to place far less importance on working within “the system.” It feels so good to seize the reins, buck the trends and produce your work yourself. I also think I am more generous and less competitive with my fellow playwrights, and I am better at embracing my theatre community, singing its praises. But most compellingly, I define my success increasingly by the growth of my own expression and creativity. When I started out, I was definitely more content to coast along with what I knew was a sure thing, with what was glib and funny. That was enough then. It isn’t CLOSE to enough now, and I think my writing has really deepened and grown because of that. I think I’m a better playwright now. JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your community of:
JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study it's mission and a pitch play directly to them: AC: Kitchen Dog Theatre! Let’s partner up on my new play CAESAR AND DADA – a dark backstage comedy about a production of JULIUS CAESAR in post-World War I Zurich. The days of Dada are upon them and Dada’s punk rock anarchy starts to infect their production, their dreams, and ultimately their lives. It’s a play about a world blown apart! About tables without legs! “The Huns are coming – disassemble the LOOM!!!!” Come on, Kitchen Dog, you guys like to jack things up – let’s play! JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? AC: I have a lot coming up fortunately!
JACQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing under a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (ie. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? Kitty Felde: Nope. I've been Kitty Felde since I was born. If my stuff isn't good enough, it isn't good enough. Changing my name to Ralph isn't going to help. JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? KF: Seeing my work on a large regional stage would be considered a real success for me. I've written for television, acted in a Woody Allen film, got to interview Colin Firth. Those are successes of another kind. But even though my work is performed around the world, I don't think I'll see myself as a "successful playwright" until the Taper or Arena or some other legacy regional theatre picks up a piece of mine. JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your theatre community: KF: Actors are gold. They are generous with their time and talent, hungry to take on a new play. Bless them all. Directors are like your wise older sister, seeing things in your work and challenging you to defend your stuff. Designers have a gift I wish I had: making words into three dimensional spaces. Playwrights "get it" - they understand the need to sit for long hours at the keyboards for little encouragement and no money. They don't think I'm crazy. Artistic Directors are my cheerleading squad. Even when they don't tackle one of my plays, the fact that they read it or come to a reading or send an encouraging email makes me feel as though I'm part of this larger theatrical community. Audience members keep me honest. If it doesn't work, they let you know with every squeak of their chair, rustle in a purse, even a yawn. And bless them, they laugh to let me know when I get it right. Theatre Critics are the smartest kid in the classroom - even when they're not. The key is to know in your heart when they're right - and when they're not. JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study it's mission and a pitch play directly to them: KF: done JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? KF: My angry response to "Clyburn Park" - a ten minute piece about how desegregation REALLY happened in the 1960's called THE FLIER - gets a reading in LA next month. You can keep up with me at www.kittyfelde.com. JACQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing under a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (ie. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? CALEEN SINETTE JENNINGS: Sure. It would be so much fun and it would prove a point, even if I wouldn't be around to enjoy it. I don't need the public recognition and acclaim. I don't need people to know that a woman wrote it. The buzz would be seeing my work on stage, hopefully getting people to think and engage with ideas. And the money would be nice, of course. JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? CSJ: I define success as being alive and healthy, loving and being loved, learning, taking risks, having time to smell the flowers, doing a meaningful service for someone else. When I can do this through my plays or through teaching, it's more than success, it's nirvana. The day I let go of self-imposed deadlines regarding recognition, awards, or number of productions and embraced success in terms of what I listed above, was the day I felt my writing become freer. Now I can genuinely celebrate someone else's success (without having that secret pang of regret or depression about my perceived lack of progress). I'm successful because students I've taught are working and happy, because actors and directors in this town ask me, "you working on something?", because I'm living in D.C. where I get asked questions by Jacqueline Lawton, and I get to read the inspirational answers of my sister playwrights. Feels like success to me! JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your community of:
JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study it's mission and a pitch play directly to them: CSJ: TBA! JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? CSJ: I'm in progress on a radio play, another ten minute play, a children's play, and a full length play for a college. Send me an e-mail or call me. I don't yet have a website (although I should), I don't post on Facebook and I don't tweet. Thank God for my husband and my friends who are slowly but surely dragging me into the 21st Century. JACQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing under a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (ie. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? KRISTEN LEPINE: The use of a “nom de plume” has a lengthy literary history especially for women writers wishing to disguise their gender often at the behest of publishers who believed it would increase male readership. And although I can think off the top of my head of many women who wrote/still write under male or gender neutral pseudonyms (George Sand, The Bronte sisters, Louisa Mae Alcott, DC Fontana, JK Rowling.), men have used female pseudonym too (Jane Martin and – okay, I can only think of Jane Martin, but surely there are more.) I have mixed feelings about writing under a pen name (Who cares about the gender of the writer? What matters is quality! Aren’t we beyond this? Would a woman really be more successful writing under a pseudonym than her own name? Oh wait, just how many female writers were produced in US theatres in the 2012-2013 season? Still, isn’t using a pen name to disguise gender only contributing to the problem? I fear I am over thinking this. Argh!). At the end of the day, I want to write plays, plays that matter, plays that do not sit on my hard drive, plays that are produced. If having a different name helps, then it is worth consideration. JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? KL: For me, success is the ability to actively pursue what I love to do, what makes me happy, at my own pace. I don’t think my definition has changed, but I what has changed is that I am more secure with my definition. JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your theatre community: KL: I am grateful for the relationships I have built in the theatre community. It is because of these partnerships with supportive actors, directors, playwrights, artistic directors, and audience members that I have been able to continue to pursue my passion for playwriting. What do I need? Continued support :~) JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study its mission and a pitch play directly to them: KL: This was my New Year’s Resolution: to be more proactive in marketing my scripts. This is admittedly my weakness. I have been more proactive. Thank you for inspiring me further! JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? KL: Currently, I am working on a major rewrite of my Greek inspired saga about working mothers titled Leto Legend. I am also in the midst of a new marketing campaign, so perhaps in a couple of months, I will have more news to share with you. Please visit me at kristenlepine.com. JACQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing under a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (ie. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? LIZ MAESTRI: I actually considered doing this when I started playwriting, but quickly decided against it. It would feel deceptive, and I don’t like the idea of not being able to take credit for, promote, or openly talk about my work. (This would also mean having to stay off social media entirely. Hermitage!) My work is my work, and if I had to lie to be recognized or fit into someone’s bullsh** idea of what it means to be a professional writer, well then I guess I’ll be DIYing it for the rest of time. It’s sad that we even have to ask this question in 2013, and even sadder that an industry that fancies itself progressive has a problem with women. That said, I sometimes wish I had an androgynous first name, or used initials or something, because this is what we’re dealing with. All of my leading characters are women, and I know that these characters and their stories would be taken more seriously if it appeared that a man wrote them. Because it’s 1847. JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? LM: This is tough. I continue to fight against my more superficial concepts of success, such as validation and recognition, because they place control of my own pride into the hands of others. This fight is hard to do in an industry that’s so heavily based on awards and contests, but for me, focusing on recognition is an unhealthy and joyless place. I hope to put these feelings to rest. Here is my real, prizelust-free vision of success: Success means having the opportunity to make good work year-round with people I respect, and being able to see clear improvements in my writing as time goes by. JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your community of:
JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study its mission and a pitch play directly to them: LM: This pitch is for Jenny and Randy at Rorschach Theatre in DC. Their mission is in spot-on harmony with the kind of work I do, and I love that they aren’t afraid of out-there scripts and locations. The piece I’d ask Rorschach to consider is called In the Dark of the Sun, a Western about three tough women traveling through the American frontier. The women, Dame, Dean, and Edna, are missionaries for the leader of a strange religion back east. They set up camp on a trail from river to plains to the Rockies, and are fiercely committed to their quest--so much so that heaven help the man or woman who doesn’t heed their word. The women wreak havoc along the way, but when Dean has a run-in with a lone-wolf cowboy and a grieving American Indian that leaves one of her comrades dead, she struggles to decide where her loyalties lie and what her future holds on the other side of the mountains. This play would also help bridge DC’s theater and music scenes; I’m interested in working with a local musician and songwriter (ex-Northern Liberties, Ruffian Records) on a potentially live score. JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? LM: In May, a reading of my new play House Beautiful at the Locally Grown Festival and a run of Condo Condo Condoland at the unstoppable EMP Collective in Baltimore. In July, DC’s Field Trip Theatre is doing a run of my play Fallbeil at Capital Fringe. You can also check in at www.lizmaestri.com to see what’s going on, and follow me on Twitter (@lizmaestri) if you are so inclined. JACQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing under a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (ie. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? DANIELLE MOHLMAN: Never. I'm not ashamed of being a woman. JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? DM: I measure my own success by the creative work I'm doing. As long as I'm writing, developing, or working on a production of my plays, I know I'm doing something right. It's wonderful to be validated by a theatre and the recognition that comes from all that is incredibly flattering, but if I let others define my success, I would never be able to get out of my head. JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your theatre community: DM: I have been incredibly happy with all the smart and talented actors, directors, designers, and playwrights I've worked with here in DC. The audiences who've seen my work have been incredibly receptive and the critics have asked thought-provoking questions. However, I want the artistic directors here to be fearless. I'm sick and tired of seeing theatre companies importing talent from New York. If DC truly wants to live up to its status as the second-largest theatre town in the US, this town needs to embrace the diverse voices and talent here. JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study its mission and a pitch play directly to them: DM: Let's go with Woolly Mammoth, since I have a massive theatre crush on them. Dust is a reverse-gender Vietnam-era adaptation of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. This piece has one foot firmly rooted in reality and another buried in the fantastic -- teetering between an untouched tribe of misfit women and the reality of the Vietnam War. JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? DM: An open movement workshop of Dust with Artists' Bloc on May 26 at the Forum space at Sidney Harman Hall and a staged reading of Nexus with Field Trip Theatre at The Wonderland Ballroom on June 9. And a couple more things I can't announce just yet. (I've always wanted to say something like that.) JAQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing in a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (i.e. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? KRISTY SIMMONS: While I think it would be fun to dress in men’s clothing and have an inner wink going all the time at my male-won success, the drudgery of having to live this double life would be less comfortable than donning a pair of high heels. I’d prefer to be obscure and valued by my friends and colleagues. The joy I feel in my writing is as valuable as gold compared to the daily removal of men’s clothing and identity. JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? KS: I define success as writing the plays I want to write, having them be valued as moving and thought-provoking, and earning a livable income from it. At first my definition of success was talent in overcoming the challenges set in my work, gaining awards and having productions. The only difference in its evolution is that now I expect to get paid for all my effort and years of work. JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your community of:
JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study its mission and pitch a play directly to them. KS: I’d like to pitch a play to Theater J. As a fan of their productions I think the following theme would be something they might get excited about. I have a play outline in the works about a female screenwriter who was raised in a secular Jewish family. She receives a specialized grant to mentor an African-American student on a screenplay collaboration. This young writer’s passion for his African-American history, his identity and his trying to understand her lackadaisical attitude about her Jewish ancestry awakens her Judaism. As the plot evolves a convergence of three different worlds collide –that of their daily life, that of the history of blacks and Jews, and then the imagined characters in their story. These ultimately converge on many levels, providing a surreal world for the investigation of Jewish identity in our modern world. JL: What’s next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? KS: Right now I’m writing a play that’s a video-performance piece for a gallery called Doris-Mae. It follows three couples and two characters will be recorded and projected on a video screen behind four live actors. They will respond and talk to each other. The play is about the patterns we have in relationships, at the particular point where one person wants to see a specific change in the relationship. It explores how people try to change one another’s behavior. It will be performed in the gallery in June. You can follow my work on www.kristysimmonsart.com or friend me on Facebook to get updates. JACQUELINE LAWTON: Would you consider writing under a male pseudonym if it guaranteed you a long, successful and sustainable career (ie. awards, critical acclaim and regular productions of your work at local, regional, and national theatres)? The hitch, you could only reveal your identity posthumously. Why or why not? LAURA ZAM: I can't imagine writing under a different name. I write a lot of autobiographical pieces, so this is not really an option for me. But aside from that, if the theater were not interested in my work, I would just work in another medium. I'd just keep going until I found an audience for my my art and for me as an artist -- just as I am! JL: Next, how do you define success? How has this definition evolved over the years? LZ: For the past few years I've been really interested in art and entrepreneurship. However, I never studied business formally until two months ago when I enrolled in a business course at the DC Women's Business Center. It was amazing. The class just finished last night, so I will answer your question still wearing my (well-earned -- that class was hard!) entrepreneur's hat. Success for me is profit. I know that's a naughty word in art spheres. But I see it like this: since I don't run a non-profit organization, my art activities -- by business -- is a for-profit enterprise. Therefore, the health--and sustainability--of this enterprise depend on my ability to cover my expenses, pay myself a salary, and have something left over to reinvest in my career. Since I don't have a day job, there's no other way for me to live as an artist. Therefore, success, for me, is profit. But this is just a more specific way of saying that success is truly making a living doing what I love. JL: As a playwright, what do you need from your community of:
JL: Pick a local, regional or national theatre company, study it's mission and a pitch play directly to them: LZ: Great idea. I'll do that. JL: What's next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work? LZ: Right now I'm working on a memoir that's based on my play MARRIED SEX. I'm also investigating ways of bringing my MARRIED SEX play to New York for a production, which I see extending into a national tour. Eventually I see the memoir and the play reinforcing each other, along with video content I'll be creating for this project (including interviews, performance footage, documentary footage, and monologues performed in character). My vision is to these elements work together with some synergy. I also intend to donate a portion of proceeds to organizations providing sex education. Welcome to the Women Artistic Directors of D.C. Series! Over the next several days, you'll be introduced to a remarkable range of women artistic and associate artistic directors, who are as diverse and varied in their artistic visions as they are in their approaches to leadership. Among these women are leaders at the beginning their careers, boldly defining their artistic visions; mid-career leaders who are challenging and changing the discourse of theatre in the D.C. area and beyond; established leaders who've achieved national recognition and critical acclaim; and theatre legacies who revolutionized the field and have made lasting impressions on the community. Each and everyday with every choice they make, these women are making an indelible impact on the landscape of American Theatre. If you feel that the work you're doing speaks to any of their artistic visions and creative passions, then by all means, get in touch with them. Make a theatre date and change the world. With so many brave, talented, intelligent, savvy, and hardworking women artists and leaders in one city, there's no reason gender parity in the theatre can't be achieved in our lifetimes! Now, as with the Women Playwrights of D.C. Series and Women Directors of D.C. Series, it is my hope that these interviews will serve to inspire, inform, and motivate others who are making their way as artistic leaders in the Nation's Capital, and perhaps beyond. Stay tuned, everyone, and please enjoy! KATHLEEN AKERLEY Kathleen Akerley is the artistic director of Longacre Lea, a small, professional theater company founded in 1998 and devoted to creating physical productions of cerebral works with an emphasis on absurdism and magical realism. As a freelance director she has also worked with Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Solas Nua, Rorschach Theatre, Theater Alliance, Forum Theatre, WSC Avant Bard and Studio Second Stage; as a playwright she has worked with Sideshow Theatre (Chicago), eXtreme eXchange, Source Festival, The Hope Operas, had several plays commissioned by Round House Theatre's Heyday Players, adapted Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for the stage in 2010 and had readings of her plays Only Angels at Theatre J's 5x5 series and The Hungry Dry at Boston Center for the Arts; as an actor she has worked with Catalyst Theatre, Theater Alliance, WSC Avant Bard, Washington Stage Guild and Olney Theatre. She is a recipient of the Mary Goldwater Theater Lobby Award for acting and directing, and a member of the playwriting collective Lizard Claw. KATHLEEN ALVANIA Kathleen Alvania is the founder and Artistic Director of The Disreputables, a theatre company aimed at giving voice to the unheard, the misjudged, and the misrepresented. She is a graduate of the Theatre Lab Honors Conservatory and holds a B.M. in Vocal Performance from Kent State University. She has worked with Repertory Opera Theatre of Washington, Active Cultures, Greenbelt Arts Center, McLean Community Players, and The Inkwell. Since forming the Disreps, she has produced David Mamet's Boston Marriage and Lucy Alibar's Gorgeous Raptors, both at Capital Fringe, and the SLUT Staged Reading Festival. She has also directed Theresa Rebeck's What We're Up Against as part of DC SWAN Day. CATHERINE ASELFORD Catherine Aselford began her professional career performing in Bus Stop at the Source in 1982, graduating with a BFA from Catholic University two years later. She and four other artists founded The Georgetown Theatre Company (now Guillotine Theatre), in order to present classic texts as exciting, visceral entertainment. She has acted or directed at Horizons Theatre; Cherryred Productions; The Shakespeare Theatre; Adventure Theatre; The Center Company; New Works Theatre; Washington Theatre Wing; Notorious Women Productions; and The Georgetown Theatre Company. Catherine founded DC SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day in 2008; DC SWAN Day is one of the largest SWAN Days in the country. She frequently directs staged readings of new work. She has taught theatre in public and private schools, as well as in after school summer programs for 23 years. She has appeared in John Waters' A DIRTY SHAME, Cherryred's silent movie TRAPPED BY THE MORMONS (Google it -- it's real!), West Wing, Unsolved Mysteries, America's Most Wanted and numerous television commercials. Plays she has directed for The Georgetown Theatre Company include John Middleton's The Changeling, Milan Kundera's Jacques and His Master, Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters and John Morogiello's BUSHWA, Jack The Ticket Ripper, and Gianni Schicchi. She has directed or produced at least one Capital Fringe Festival show each year from 2006-2011. CARLY J. BALES Carly J Bales is an actor, producer, media designer, and generally multi-disciplinary artist residing in the District. She is the Artistic Director of EMP, a multimedia arts collective and theatre space in downtown Baltimore. “A hub of artistic activity” that was voted Best Arts Collective in 2012 (Baltimore CityPaper), EMP has been lauded as one of the boldest “visions to change Baltimore” (Baltimore Magazine). As an artistic director, her focus lies in new work development and devised performance for the theatre. From post-apocalyptic wastelands to nightmarish dreamscapes to immaculate rabbit conception, her work at EMP isn't afraid to "go weird". JESSICA BURGESS Jessica Burgess is the founding Artistic Director of The Inkwell, Washington DC’s resource for new plays and new play development. Her directing credits include productions at Active Cultures (Constellation, Petri Dish Circus), Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival (Clarisse and Larmon, Mr. and Mrs.), Adventure Theatre (The Snowy Day, The Ugly Duckling), Catalyst Theater Company (The Flu Season), the DC Beckett Centenary Festival (Come and Go, Rough for Radio II), Forum Theatre (The Language Archive, Kid-Simple: a radio play in the flesh), Hatchery Festival (Snow Falling Fast, Playing House), Round House Theatre’s Kitchen Series (Cherry Smoke), Rorschach Theatre (The Beard of Avon), Solas Nua (The Drunkard, Portia Coughlan), Theater Alliance (Here’s to the Ladies), Theatre Lab (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Cherry Orchard), and The Inkwell (OK). She has directed developmental workshops and staged readings at Active Cultures, Texas State University’s Black & Latino Playwrights Conference, Catalyst, eXtreme eXchange, Hatchery Festival, The Hub, Theatre J, Woolly Mammoth’s PlayGround, Washington Shakespeare Company, Young Playwrights Theatre, and The Inkwell. She has worked as a Teaching Artist at Theatre Lab, Imagination Stage, and Duke Ellington School of the Arts. She has held staff positions at Round House Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. She has sat on the Board of Directors of Active Cultures Theatre, on Forum Theatre’s Artists’ Council, and on the Round House Theatre Artists’ Roundtable. She is a proud alumna of Middlebury College and the 2005 Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab. CECILIA CACKLEY Cecilia Cackley is the founding Artistic Director of Wit's End Puppets, a DC company devoted to telling stories through puppetry. Cecilia has been experimenting with string, shadow and hand puppets for more than ten years. As a puppeteer, she has worked with GALA Hispanic Theatre, the O’Neill Puppetry Festival, the Avignon Off and the Source Theater Festival. Cecilia has directed for the Capital Fringe Festival, Young Playwright’s Theater, Rorschach Theatre and The Inkwell. She taught third grade in the public schools for six years and currently works as a teaching artist for Young Playwright's Theater, The Theater Lab, Encore Stage and Studio and Imagination Stage. Cecilia holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies and Elementary Eduaction from the College of William and Mary. She is a proud company member of GALA Hispanic Theatre and Young Playwright’s Theater. DANIELLE A. DRAKES Danielle A. Drakes previously directed Breath, Boom and Miss Evers' Boys with the Department of Theatre Arts. Ms. Drakes is a two-time Theatre Communications Group Nathan Cummings, Young Leaders of Color Award recipient and Founder & Producing Artistic Director of theHegira Theatre Company. Professional acting credits include: Ford's Theatre, Arena Stage, Baltimore's Center Stage, The Contemporary American Theatre Festival, The Kennedy Center, Round House Theatre and African Continuum Theatre, Imagination Stage, Discovery Theatre, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Currently, Ms. Drakes is the full time Education Outreach Coordinator at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Prior to her joining the Folger she worked as an artist/educator at American University, Bowie State University, Howard University, Montgomery College, The Baltimore Shakespeare Partnership, The Drama Learning Center, Round House Theatre Education & Outreach, The Theatre Lab, and Young Playwright's Theater. She is a Helen Hayes Awards judge and has joined theatreWashington's newly formed Education Advisory Panel. She received her BA from Goucher College and MFA from The Catholic University of America and is a proud member of Actor's Equity Association and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. JENNY MCCONNELL FREDERICK Jenny McConnell Frederick is the co-Artistic Director of Rorschach Theatre. She founded the company in the summer of 1999 with Randy Baker. For Rorschach, she has directed Voices Underwater, Dead City, This Storm is What We Call Progress, Rough Magic, The Arabian Night, The Scarlet Letter, Master and Margarita, A Clearing in the Woods, The Illusion and the Helen Hayes nominated God of Vengeance. She has also directed at the Source Theatre Festival and at Virginia Commonwealth University. Jenny has produced dozens of plays, readings and special events for Rorschach Theatre. She’s a member of the Cultural Development Corporation’s Mead Theater Lab Advisory Panel and The Hub Theatre’s Advisory Board. She produced Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s Size Matters reading series for three seasons as well as the theatre component of 2003′s Art-O-Matic. Jenny was a nominee for the Women’s Information Network’s Young Women of Acheivement Award in 2001. Jenny grew up in Northern Virginia and graduated cum laude from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Theatre. She is married to sound designer Matthew Frederick and is currently the Producer for Cultural Development Corporation’s Source Festival and Mead Theatre Lab Program. ALLYSON HARKEY Allyson Harkey is Co-Artistic Director of Pinky Swear Productions, a theatre company that produces modern plays with strong, engaging women’s roles where people talk to each other and things happen. An actor and singer, Allyson has performed in numerous Pinky Swear productions, including Killing Women, Carol’s Christmas, Be Here Now, Freakshow, Cabaret XXX: Love the One You’re With, and audience favorite Cabaret XXX: Les Femmes Fatales. She has also worked with Taffety Punk, Factory 449, the Library of Congress, Venus Theatre Company, Rorschach Theatre, Cherry Red Productions, and Landless Theatre Company, among others. Originally from Atlanta, Allyson studied at the University of California, Berkeley, DeKalb College, and Mary Washington College. She has lived in Washington, DC, since 2000 and thus dreams of a time when she can winter in the Caribbean. NICOLE JOST Nicole Jost is the Artistic Director of Young Playwrights’ Theater (YPT), the only professional theater in Washington, DC dedicated entirely to arts education. Nicole is a playwright, teaching artist, producer and director. She has worked locally with The Inkwell, dog & pony dc, Forum Theatre, City Artistic Partnerships, Madcap Players and Roundhouse Theatre. Her play The Terror Fantastic was read as part of the inaugural DC Queer Theatre Festival in 2012, featured in The Inkwell’s “Evening of Inklings” (April 2012) and “Through a Glass, Darkly” showcase (December 2012) and recognized as a finalist for the 2013 Source Festival. She received her BA in Theater and Cultural Politics from the University of California Santa Cruz, Phi Beta Kappa. In 2011, Nicole was recognized by The Washingtonian as one of ten “Women to Watch.” She is an alumna of DC Public Schools and YPT’s In-School Playwriting Program. CHRISTINE LANGE Christine Lange is the Artistic Director of Grain of Sand Theatre. She has been active in DC theater for over a decade as a director, performer, and stage manager. Recent productions include - Directing: Raising Cane (2012 Capital Fringe Festival), The Fairy Tale (staged reading, Grain of Sand Theatre), Four Dry Tongues (2011 Madcap Winter Carnival), The Bacchae (2008 Capital Fringe Festival), The Ghost Sonata, Anne of the Thousand Days, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, and James Lapine's Twelve Dreams. Acting: You Can't Get a Decent Margarita at the North Pole (Rita), Socrates the Lover(Heraklides/Chorus), Frankenstein (Elizabeth), The Underpants (Louise), Oleanna (Carol), Richard III (York), The Taming of the Shrew (Bianca), and Romeo and Juliet (Benvolio/Apothecary). Film: Shotgun Mythos (Avery). Christine holds a BA in Theater from George Mason University. KAREN LANGE Karen Lange is an actor, singer, improviser, and Co-Artistic Director of Pinky Swear Productions. Selected credits: Cabaret XXX: Love the One You’re With, Killing Women, Carol's Christmas, Cabaret XXX: Les Femmes Fatales, Be Here Now and Freakshow (Pinky Swear Productions), Romeo and Juliet (Red Eye Gravy Theater Company), Life with Father (American Century Theater), House of Blue Leaves (Dominion Stage), Wonder of the World (Port City Playhouse). Karen has been performing with Washington Improv Theater's iMusical, since 2006, performing in over 150 shows. She is also part of the DC/NY musical improv troupe Vox Pop, who can be seen in festivals around the country. Karen is a graduate of the Studio Theater Conservatory. She teaches improvisation and musical improvisation at Washington Improv Theater and Studio Theater. SABRINA MANDELL Sabrina Mandell is the founder, manager and Artistic Co-director of Happenstance Theater. She has written, produced and performed prolifically since the company's founding in 2006. Works include Prufbox, The Seven Ages of Mime, FarFar Oasis, Look Out Below!, Vaudeville's Late Bloomers, and 3 versions of Cabaret Macabre. Capital Fringe Festival hits have included Low Tide Hotel (voted Best Comedy 2007), Manifesto! (2008 Capital Fringe with a subsequent run at the New York Clown Theatre Festival); Cabaret CooCoo (Best Comedy, 2009), and Handbook for Hosts. Sabrina performs regularly with the Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care Program in DC and Baltimore, and at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. She is also a visual artist and poet. JENNIFER L. NELSON Jennifer L Nelson is currently Director of Special Programming at Ford’s Theatre. Prior to this appointment she was the founding Producing Artistic Director of the African Continuum Theatre Company, Washington D.C.’s only professional black theatre company. During that eleven year tenure, she produced twenty plays, multiple readings and other events. Ms. Nelson is a commended playwright and published poet. Her musical play Torn from the Headlines was awarded the 1996 Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Most Outstanding New Play. Her three-minute telephone play Somebody Call 911 was commissioned by and featured at the 2001 Humana Festival at the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. Her latest full-length play 24, 7, 365 was produced by Theatre of the First Amendment. Her full-length musical Hubert & Charlie was honored by the 2003 Larry Neal Writers’ Awards and was subsequently produced by the African Continuum Theatre. She has received several commissions to write issue-oriented plays for young audiences, most recently by Ford’s Theatre to bring to life historical character Elizabeth Keckly (2011 Washington Post Helen Hayes Theatre Award). She has also been commissioned to write short plays for the Theatre Lab; Active Cultures as part of their Sportaculture Festival; the Cultures-in-Motion Program of the National Portrait Gallery; the Education Department of the Corcoran Gallery; the Kennedy Center Program for Families; and Round House Theatre’s HeyDay Players. She is a three-time grantee of the DC Commission on the Arts Individual Artist program, and a recipient of the Mayor’s Arts Awards for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline. As a director, her recent productions include Raisin in the Sun at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore;Necessary Sacrifices at Ford’s Theatre; The Whipping Man at Theatre J. Upcoming productions include: 9 Circles for Forum Theatre and Top Dog/Underdog for Everyman Theatre. HELEN PAFUMI Helen Pafumi is the Artistic Director and co-founder of The Hub Theatre. Since the Hub's inception Helen has produced several world premier plays, multiple area premiers, an annual free staged reading series and commissioned original work from area artists. Her original plays have been produced by The Hub, and been seen at the Kennedy Center's Page to Stage Festival. In addition to her role at The Hub, Helen works as an actor in many DC area theatres, including Folger Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Theatre J, Forum Theatre, Theatre Alliance, Rorschach Theatre, Keegan Theatre, The Inkwell, the Source Festival, and the Beckett Centenary Festival. She has appeared in numerous independent films and area commercials. Helen also does dialect coaching for George Mason University’s theatre program and coaches acting and public speaking. Helen holds a BA in Theatre from Virginia Tech. She has been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award in Outstanding New Play for her co-adaptation of Wonderful Life. She is the recipient of the Puffin Foundation Award and the Washington Canadian Partnership Award. MARY RESING Mary Resing, the artistic director of Active Cultures Theatre, is a playwright, director & dramaturg. The Maryland State Arts Council recognized her in 2012 with an Individual Artist Award in Playwriting for her signed/spoken musical Visible Language. Her work has been seen around the country at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage, Ann Arbor Rep, Empty Space, New Dramatists, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, and Source Theatre Company. A proud alumna of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Ph.D.Theatre), NYU (M.A. Performances Studies) and Spring Hill College (B.A. Humanities), Dr. Resing was a 2005-2006 US Fulbright Scholar to Armenia. She has served on panels for the Theatre Communications Group, Fulbright/CIES and The Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Resing received a 2009 Individual Artist Award in playwriting from the Prince George’s Arts Council and 2005 Offstage Award in Dramaturgy from the League of Washington Theatres. She is the COO and co-owner with Tim McKeown of the highly successful startup firm ResingMcKeown, Inc. She believes local theatre is fresher, tastes better and is good for the local economy. SUSAN MARIE RHEA Susan Marie Rhea is the Associate Artistic Director of The Keegan Theatre, where she is also a company member and sits on the Board of Directors. During her tenure at Keegan, Susan has directed All My Sons (opening November 2012), The Crucible, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Elizabeth Rex, A Man for All Seasons, Agnes of God, and True West. Working alongside her husband, Keegan’s founder and artistic director Mark A. Rhea, Susan has co-directed the musicals Spring Awakening, National Pastime (a world premiere), and RENT, which was nominated for five Helen Hayes awards, including Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Resident Musical. As a member of Keegan’s acting company, Susan’s credits include Barbara in August: Osage County, Valerie in The Weir, Lorna Moon in Golden Boy, Belinda in Noises Off, Maggie in Dancing at Lughnasa, Carla in Lincolnesque, Maire in Translations (Helen Hayes nomination, Outstanding Ensemble), Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire (Ireland/U.S.), Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Ireland/U.S.), Laura in The Glass Menagerie (Ireland/U.S.), and Beth in A Lie of the Mind, among many others. Through Keegan’s outreach programs, Susan has worked with local youth on theater productions for more than a decade, raising money for Habitat for Humanity and other community projects. Susan received her post-graduate theatre training at Circle in the Square (NY/NY). SHIRLEY SEROTSKY Shirley Serotsky is the Director of Literary and Public Programs at Theater J, where she directed the 2011 production of The History of Invulnerability; The Moscows of Nantucket; Mikveh (which received two Helen Hayes Nominations for Best Actress); and The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall (which received a 2009 Helen Hayes Nomination for Best New Play). She works as a freelance director in the DC area and beyond, and is particularly interested in the development of new work. Recent directing credits include: a 21/24 Signature Lab Workshop presentation of The Break (Signature Theatre); Working: The Musical(Keegan Theatre); Blood Wedding (Constellation Theatre); Birds of a Feather (which won the 2012 Charles MacArthur Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play—at The Hub Theatre); Juno and the Paycock (Washington Shakespeare Company); a staged reading of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo for the National New Play Network at Arena Stage; This is Not a Timebomb (The Source Festival); Reals, Five Flights and Two Rooms (Theater Alliance); Crumble (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake) and We Are Not These Hands (Catalyst Theater); References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot (Rorschach Theater, for which she received a 2007 Helen Hayes nomination for outstanding direction); Sovereignty (The Humana Festival of New Plays); Cautionary Tales for Adults and the Many Adventures of Trixie Tickles (2007 CapFringe); LUNCH (2007 New York Musical Theater Festival & 2006 CapFringe), Titus! The Musical. (2009 Capfringe and Source Theatre). Training: BFA, North Carolina School of the Arts. Shirley was a member of the 2002 Designer/Director Workshop with Ming Cho Lee; the 2003 Lincoln Center Director's Lab; and was a 2001/2001William R. Kenan, Jr. Fellows at the Kennedy Center. MOLLY SMITH Molly Smith has been instrumental in leading the reinvention of Arena Stage, focusing on the creation of the new Mead Center for American Theater as well as major artistic changes. Arena Stage is a center for the production, presentation, development and study of American theater. Ms. Smith has been a leader in new play development for 30 years while at Arena Stage for the past 14 years and at Perseverance Theatre in Alaska, the theater she founded and led for 19 years. She is a great believer in first, second and third productions of new work and has championed projects like Next to Normal, How I Learned to Drive and Passion Play, a cycle. Ms. Smith has directed for Arena Stage Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, How I Learned to Drive, Hot ‘N’ Throbbing, All My Sons, The Great White Hope, Coyote Builds North America, Agamemnon and His Daughters, A Moon for the Misbegotten, South Pacific, An American Daughter, Camelot, Orpheus Descending, Anna Christie, Passion Play, a cycle, Damn Yankees, Cabaret, The Women of Brewster Place, Christmas Carol 1941, Legacy of Light, Light in the Piazza, Oklahoma!, The Book Club Play, and The Music Man. She has worked alongside playwrights Sarah Ruhl, Paula Vogel, Tim Acito, Karen Zacarías, John Murrell, James Magruder, Barry Lopez and many others. Ms. Smith’s directorial work has also been seen at the Shaw Festival in Canada, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, Tarragon Theatre in Toronto and Centaur Theatre in Montreal. JANET STANFORD Janet Stanford has helped transition Imagination Stage from a community-based arts organization to a nationally significant regional theatre for young audiences and arts education program. She has commissioned dozens of American and international playwrights whose plays and musicals have gone on to receive awards and be produced all over the country. Janet travels widely on grants to Europe, South America and Canada seeking artists to work with Imagination Stage. Most recently, she has introduced Theatre for the Very Young to the USA with funding from the Theatre Communications Group and has helped devise two new pieces for the program as well as bringing in other TVY artists from Italy, England and Germany. Janet is also a playwright whose The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, created in collaboration with The Washington Ballet, broke all box-office records this past summer. As a director she was pleased to be nominated as Best Director for her recent production of Dr. Dolittle. ALLISON ARKELL STOCKMAN Allison Arkell Stockman is the Founding Artistic Director of Constellation Theatre Company, which performs at Source, 1835 14th St. NW. She has directed 16 of their productions including Metamorphoses, The Ramayana, The Green Bird, Taking Steps, Women Beware Women, Three Sisters, A Flea in Her Ear and The Arabian Nights. She will direct Gilgamesh this coming spring. Locally, Allison has served as an Assistant Director at the Folger Theatre and Shakespeare Theatre Company. She has directed readings and workshops for Theater J and the Kennedy Center. A Drama League Directing Fellow and a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, Allison holds an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and a BA in Comparative Religion from Princeton. MARY HALL SURFACE Mary Hall Surface is a playwright and director specializing in theatre for families and multi-disciplinary collaborations. A DC theatre community member since 1989, her producers include Round House Theatre, Arena Stage, Folger Theatre, the National Gallery of Art and over 15 productions at the Kennedy Center. Internationally her work has been featured in productions and festivals in Germany, Canada, Japan, Peru, France, Taiwan, Sweden and Ireland. Nominated for four Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play and five Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Direction, she received the 2002 award for her musical, Perseus Bayou. She is the artistic director of INTERSECTIONS: A New America Arts Festival at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. She received the Charlotte Chorpenning Award, presented by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education for an Outstanding Body of Work as a Playwright, May 2006. She was a finalist for the 2011 DC Mayor's Arts Award for Service to the Arts. CARMEN C. WONG Carmen C. Wong is the founding Artistic Director and agent provocateur of banished? productions, an avant-pop performance collective that plays with narrative while creating immersive art experiences. Her projects have been fueled by awards such as the Creative Communities Fund (2012), TCG Global Connections (2011) and the DCCAH's Young Artist Award (2010). Current projects and concepts include the devised dance collage Into the Dollhouse; a sensory gastro-art-performative series that has spun Tactile Taste of Helsinki / Tactile Dinner Morsels / Tactile Dinner Car / A Tactile Dinner; the ballades mechaniques installation series of story-telling machines, and the banished? footsteps series of alternative art audiowalks. Carmen first got her start in interdisciplinary performance in Berlin, working on Constanza Macras’ & Dorky Park’s “Back to the Present” in 2003. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of CityBlossoms, an urban gardening organization, and is on the Board of Governors for Theatre Washington which runs the annual Helen Hayes awards in Washington, DC. When not busy making works that defy easy categorization, she secretly enjoys picking up languages just to make untranslatable puns. JOY ZINOMAN Joy Zinoman (Director) Joy Zinoman is the Founding Artistic Director of The Studio Theatre, where she directed over 70 productions, including A Number by Caryl Churchill for which she received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction. She also received The Washington Post Award for Innovative Leadership in the Theatre Community. Last year she directed Sounding Becket at CSC Rep in New York and is about to direct 4000 Miles at The Studio Theatre. She received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Director for Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink, and has lead The Studio theater through 178 productions which have garnered 225 Helen Hayes Nominations. Ms. Zinoman has received nine Helen Hayes Award Nominations for Outstanding Direction. Recent credits include Moonlight, The Year of Magical Thinking, Rock ‘N’ Roll, The Road to Mecca, The History Boys, Shinning City, Pillowman and American Buffalo, her final production before retiring as Studio Theatre’s Artistic Director. Her numerous honors include the Mayor’s Art Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline and the Washingtonian of the Year Award. She is Founder and Master Teacher of the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory, now in its 38th year, along with Studio’s 2nd Stage program for emerging theatre artists. "There is no “national theatre” in American theatre because our theatre is defined not by a single place, but by singular people, crisscrossing our country like fireflies, with each particular twinkle contributing to the light of the whole." ~Teresa Eyring TCG Executive Director In the Fall of 2006, I worked as the Allen Lee Hughes Fellows and Intern Program Coordinator at Arena Stage. At our first all staff meeting, we were divided into several groups of five or six and tasked with planning a season for Arena Stage. For this exercise, we had to be mindful of the Mission Statement, the demographics of the audience and the production history of Arena Stage as well as other area theaters going back seven years. We also had to consider when each show would run and select the performance spaces. What's more, the five or six of us had to come to a consensus. After twenty minutes or so, we presented our seasons to everyone and shared our artistic vision. It was an arduous, complex and exhilarating exercise, and an absolutely brilliant introduction to the spirit, passion and vision of the theatre. What's more, it taught me one of the most lasting and valuable lessons that I have learned about theatre thus far: Season planning is hard and so is being an Artistic Director. Here is how culture reporter, Robin Progrebin, describes season planning in her article, Building a Theatrical Season, Month by Month: "A nonprofit theater's season planning is a craft all its own, one of mundane logistical maneuvering as well as lofty creative ambition; of sleepless-night angst and pride-swelling triumph; of big-picture matters like building audiences and details as precise as choosing a hat. It's a balancing act of egos, schedules, budgets and creative visions. The planning is conducted at many levels, depending on an institution's finances. And it almost always involves a deep and consuming commitment of passion and time." Since my time at Arena Stage, I've gone on to select plays for theatre seasons and new play development festivals. It's always a challenging, passionate and tiresome endeavor. When theatres announce their seasons, I can't help but applaud, herald and champion the accomplishments of their selections. I know how challenging it was to bring together those 3 to 6 plays, plus additional programming. I know how hard it was to say no to the countless number of plays and playwrights they wish they could have included. Here's a short list of what has to be considered when selecting plays for a season:
For theaters with diversity and inclusion embedded in their mission and values, the following will be reflected in their decisions:
When Theater J decided to produce the world premiere of my play THE HAMPTON YEARS, they hit the jackpot: I'm an (1.) emerging (2.) D.C. based, (3.) woman playwright (4.) of color who wrote a play about (5.) Black and Jewish relations in the arts, military and academia. WooHoo! But even before they established the amazing Locally Grown Festival, now in its second year, Theater J has had a long, rich, and deep commitment to diversity and inclusion. Their continued investment and inclusion of local playwrights makes it really exciting to be a part of the 2012-2013 D.C. Theatre Season. As more and more theatres work to include emerging and local playwrights in their seasons, I am reminded that the very best theatre seasons introduce a wide, more diverse and inclusive, range of plays to their community. It is essential for the vitality, growth, and health of the community that they continue doing so. I'm appreciative that there is no national theatre in the U.S. and that playwrights across the nation are encouraged to write in their own voices, styles, and rhythms about any and everything that moves them. By no means is it a perfect system and it sure takes a while to find your tribe of people, but as an audience member, theatre artist and lover of the theatre:
Basically, I want it all. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another reason why it is so extraordinary to be a theatre artist living and working in the D.C. Theatre community. In my next post and over the course of the next several days, I'm going to introduce you to the amazing, brilliant and talented Women Artistic Directors of D.C. being featured in this series. I'm so excited and can hardly wait to share these deeply powerful and moving stories with you. Please stay tuned! Welcome to the Women Directors of DC Series! Over the next week, you'll be introduced to a wide range of women directors. Among these women are directors at the beginning their artistic journeys, bravely exploring their vision; mid-career directors making a name for themselves in the D.C. area and beyond; and seasoned directors who've achieved critical acclaim and great success. Their ability to bring characters to life on stage, to evoke powerful lasting images and to execute the fine work of new, emerging and established playwrights is what distinguishes them. And each of these women is helping to shape the landscape of American Theatre with their artistic vision, mastery and dedication to theatre. As with the Women Playwrights of DC Series, it is my hope that these interviews will serve others who are making their way as directors in the Nation's Capital, and perhaps beyond. And as all of you artistic directors begin to line up directors for next season, please keep these sharp, talented, courageous, and passionate women directors on your radars! KARIN AMBROMAITIS Karin Abromaitis is a director; performer; movement, fight and dance choreographer; teacher; potter and metalworker. She is currently on the faculty of George Washington University and University of Maryland, and often teaches for Georgetown University, Montgomery College, and the Theatre Lab. From 1999-2007, she traveled around the country leading professional development workshops for the Kennedy Center. Karin has directed and done movement consulting, coaching and fight and dance choreography for many area theaters, including Round House Theatre, Theatre J, Everyman Theater, Constellation Theatre, ACTCo, YPT, Tsunami, Woolly Mammoth, Adventure Theater and Imagination Stage. Movement and choreography credits include Around the World in 80 Days at Round House Theater, Shipwrecked at Everyman Theater, If You Give a Pig a Pancake (Helen Hayes Award), If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse (Helen Hayes nomination), and Twas the Night Before Christmas, at Adventure Theatre. She directed 5 Little Monkeys last season and will be directing The Cat in the Hat this June at Adventure Theater. She is a member of SDC and ATME. LISE BRUNEAU Lise has been a professional actor and director for 25 years, having arrived in DC via St. Louis, the Bay Area, London, and NYC. A founding member of the Taffety Punks, Lise has helmed their All Girl productions of Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure and Romeo and Juliet; Bootleg Shakespeares (full productions rehearsed and performed in one day)Two Noble Kinsmen, Troilus and Cressida, Cymbeline and Henry the VIII; and World Premieres of Owl Moon, Let X, and The Devil in his Own Words. For Pinky Swear she directed Freakshow and Be Here Now, and for the Arena Stage Albee Festival, a more-staged-than-not reading of Tiny Alice. As an actor, previous area appearances include Legacy of Light at Arena Stage; An Ideal Husband, Ion, Othello and The Winter's Tale at the Shakespeare Theatre; My Name Is Asher Lev, The Book Club Play and Alice at Round House; and at CenterStage The Murder of Isaac, Blithe Spirit, Mrs. Warren's Profession, and Mary Stuart. She has performed in regional theatres across the country, such as Cleveland Playhouse, the Old Globe, ACT, Seattle Rep, the Wilma, Triad Stage, Berkeley Rep, and A Traveling Jewish Theatre; and for the St. Louis, Alabama, Chicago, Santa Cruz, and Oregon Shakespeare Festivals. Lise trained at RADA, and is proud to be a Taffety Punk. KASI CAMPBELL Kasi Campbell has directed readings and/or productions for the Kennedy Center, Rep Stage, Theatre J, Theatre Alliance, WSC Avant Bard, Washington Stage Guild, Source Theatre, Spooky Action Theatre, the former National Puppetry Center, Groton Center for the Arts, University of Connecticut, Catholic University and Indiana University of Pa. Her local productions have garnered 31 Helen Hayes nominations (including four for Outstanding Director, two for Outstanding Production and two for Outstanding Ensemble) and 7 Helen Hayes Awards (received Outstanding Director Award in 2004). Of the 34 productions she has mounted locally, some favorites include The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Yellowman, Arcadia, Travels with My Aunt, The Dazzle, God’s Ear, In the Heart of America, Bach at Leipzig, Hamlet, The Seagull, The Violet Hour, Faith Healer, The Mystery of Irma Vep, The Lonesome West, The Judas Kiss, The Swan, Translations, Kimberly Akimbo, Neville’s Island, Da, Jeffrey and The Road to Mecca. She is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Howard Community College and served as the Associate Artistic Director of Rep Stage during its first 14 years. In the past, she has designed masks/props for the Washington Ballet, designed and performed puppetry for 3 years on an NBC children’s series, served as a theatre panelist for the Maryland State Arts Council and worked as a grants administrator for the NEA. She holds a masters degree in theatre from University of Connecticut and a bachelor’s degree in music from Indiana University of Pa. RENANA FOX Renana Fox is a director, performer, and teaching artist hailing from Chicago. Most recently she directed BOOM! for Artists Initiative at Olney Theatre Lab. She has directed staged readings for Spooky Action, Imagination Stage, and Inkwell. She has also assistant directed for Infinity Theatre, Lean & Hungry Theater, Imagination Stage, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater, and New York Stage and Film. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with majors in Theater Arts and Psychology and has interned at the Goodman Theater, Powerhouse Theater, and Imagination Stage. LEE MIKESKA GARDNER Lee Mikeska Gardner is an award winning actor and director who has made D.C. her home base. Her directing career spans from classical to contemporary works, musicals and plays in development. As an Artistic Associate for Woolly Mammoth for 10 years, Lee directed 9 productions and earned a Helen Hayes nomination for Life During Wartime, Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, and After Ashley. With the Washington Stage Guild Lee won a Washington Theatre Lobby Award for her direction of T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party. As an actor Lee has 4 Helen Hayes nominations and won the award for Mary in Charter Theatre’s A House in the Country. Lee was in theatre management for 10 years before she rebooted her artistic passion by earning her M.F.A./Acting from Catholic University in 2011. She is, again, freelancing hither and yon. ELISSA GOETSCHIUS Elissa Goetschius is a multidisciplinary artist with a strong focus on theatre and performance-based interactive installations. In theatre, she recently directed A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at Glass Mind Theatre as well as A BRIEF NARRATIVE OF AN EXTRAORDINARY BIRTH OF RABBITS by C. Denby Swanson and NIGHT SWEATS with the EMP Collective, an interdisciplinary company in Baltimore. In DC, she and developed and directed REFLECTIONS, a tour of short plays written by patients at St. Elizabeths Hospital, with Andrew Wassenich, produced by Wandering Souls and co-directed AMAZONS AND THEIR MEN with Michael Dove at Forum Theatre. Her ongoing collaboration with playwright Liz Maestri includes development of the plays SOMERSAULTING, TINDERBOX, and FALLBEIL. Recent non-theatre projects include collaborating on the inaugural issue of 24 Magazine and “Layered Portraits,” a mixed-media installation piece for the 24 Hour City Project first presented at the Intelligent Cities Conference and again as part of Digital Capital Week. Formerly the Literary Manager at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Elissa developed many world premieres and second productions including Dead Man's Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl, boom by Peter Nachtrieb, and Fever/Dream by Sheila Callaghan. She has worked as a dramaturg at Portland Center Stage, Marin Theatre Company, Florida Stage, Rorschach Theatre, Forum Theatre, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She has also worked for Manhattan Theatre Club, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, studied at the British American Drama Academy, and holds a degree in English from Columbia University. TY HALLMARK Ty is a South Louisiana transplant who has been active in the DC area theatre community for nearly 10 years. She is a resident actor at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) where her prior roles include Lady Fidget in The Country Wife, Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac, and Imogen in Cymbeline. This past summer, she had the great pleasure of Assistant Directing Pride &Prejudice with Isabelle Anderson. Ty recently joined the staff of Pallas Theatre Collective where she serves as Casting Director and will direct The Tragical Mirth of Marriage & Love : Short Scenes by Anton Chekhov in July 2013. In addition to CSC and Pallas, Ty has had the privilege of working with artists at The Studio Theatre, Venus Theatre, Washington Shakespeare Company, American Century Theater, Molotov Theatre Group, Eleventh Hour Productions, Red Eye Gravy Theatre Company, Grain of Sand Theatre Company and The Capital Fringe Festival. Ty has a bachelor's degree in Theare from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN and has trained at The Globe Theatre and The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory. Prior to moving to DC, Ty spent two years in the Education Department at the Hippodrome State Theatre in Gainesville, FL helping run their spring and summer camps for elementary students and team teaching the Hippodrome Improvisational Teen Theatre (H.I.T.T.) program. Ty is also a guide for Washington Walks and leads tours of Lafayette Square Park and Dupont Circle. She lives with her husband in Silver Spring. ELEANOR HOLDRIDGE Director, Eleanor Holdridge has Off-Broadway productions that include Steve & Idi, (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), Cycling Past The Matterhorn (Clurman Theatre), The Imaginary Invalid, and Mary Stuart (Pearl Theatre Company). Regional credits include Gee’s Bend (Arden Theatre); Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Lettice And Lovage, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Taming Of The Shrew (Shakespeare & Company). The Crucible (Perseverance Theatre), Educating Rita, Noises Off and Art (Triad Stage), Julius Caesar and Macbeth (Milwaukee Shakespeare), Two Gentlemen Of Verona (Alabama Shakespeare), Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare St. Louis), Henry V (Shakespeare on the Sound), Betrayal (Portland Stage), and Lion In Winter (Northern Stage). Her DC area productions include Double Indemnity (Roundhouse Theatre),The Gaming Table (Folger) Pygmalion (Everyman Theatre); Something You Did and Body Awareness (Theatre J); and Much Ado About Nothing (Taffety Punk). Eleanor has been as Artistic Director for the Red Heel Theatre Company, Resident Assistant Director at the Shakespeare Theatre and Resident Director at New Dramatists. She has worked at the Yale School of Drama, NYU and the Juilliard School and currently heads the Directing Department at Catholic University. She holds an MFA from Yale School of Drama. Eleanor’s upcoming projects this season are Zorro at Constellation Theatre, and God of Carnage at Everyman Theatre. AMBER JACKSON Amber Jackson works as a director, actor, writer, and producer of both theatre and film. She grew up in North Carolina, where she attended Gardner-Webb University and received her BA in Theatre Arts and Religious Studies. After paying her dues in small theatres in both North Carolina and Ontario, Canada, Amber pursued her graduate studies at Baylor University, where she received an MFA in Directing. While living in Texas, she co-founded the Dallas-based Rite of Passage Theatre company, which is now in its fourth season. She has been a panelist and presenter at the Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC) on two occasions, and published articles and interviews in Texas Theatre Journal and Ecumenica Theatre Journal. Since moving to the DC area, she has been proud to work with Constellation Theatre, Rorschach Theatre, Inkwell Theatre, Source Festival, Faction of Fools, and Active Cultures. She is a company member at Constellation, and the newest member of the team of producers at Inkwell. She works full-time at WILL Interactive, where she has written and directed over a dozen interactive films for clients such as the US Army, the Department of Health and Human Services, and Fannie Mae. She also produces and directs two live, interactive shows in Fort Hood, Texas, which target Domestic Violence and Suicide Prevention to tens of thousands of soldiers each year. www.amber-jackson.com JESS JUNG Jess Jung is a director and teaching artist, as well as serves as Associate Producer of CulturalDC’s Source Festival. Directing credits include the Hangar Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Young Playwrights’ Theatre, Imagination Stage, Adventure Theatre, the Inkwell, Rorschach Theatre, Walden Theatre, and The Theatre School. Dramaturgy credits include Actors Theatre of Louisville, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and Young Playwrights’ Theatre. Jess is a YPT company member and proud recipient of the Drama League Directors Project fellowship. She earned her MFA in Directing from The Theatre School at DePaul University and has also studied with the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin. Check out her website, jessjungdirecting.com. JESSICA LEFKOW D.C. native Jessica Lefkow is a performer and director collaborating extensively on new works. Notably, she directed the World Premiere of the Helen Hayes Award-winning Honey Brown Eyes by Stefanie Zadravec for Theater J, (Best New Play 2009). Other Washington-area directing credits; Hercules In Russia, TETHER, (Doorway Arts Ensemble); Frida Vice Versa, Margarita, Tales of Doomed Love, Not Your Granny’s Revolution, Letters to Clio, Part Two, (Capital Fringe Festivals); Red Herring, Mousetrap (1st Stage), The F Word, (Workshop Production with The Inkwell); Dear Sara Jane, (The Hub Theater); House of Blue Leaves, (Montgomery College, Rockville); BENCHED (independently produced with Allyson Currin, Beth Hylton & Liz Mamana). Jessica’s directing work has also appeared in the New York Fringe, All for One, and Source Ten-Minute Play Festivals. Readings and workshops include projects with Theater J, Washington Shakespeare Company, Theatre of the First Amendment, Spooky Action Theatre Company, WWIT. She is a co-conspiritor with dog&ponydc, appearing in their productions of Courage and Beertown, and serving as a creative conspirator on Separated At Birth. Jessica has also taught, performed and directed in Hong Kong, Beijing, Hanoi, Nicosia, and New Delhi. Jessica holds a BFA Acting degree from The Catholic University of America. She is a Teaching Artist with Young Playwright’s Theater and the Shakespeare Theatre Company, and is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA. www.jessicalefkow.com HEATHER MCDONALD Heather McDonald is a director and playwright. Her plays include An Almost Holy Picture, When Grace Comes In, Dream of a Common Language, Available Light, The Rivers and Ravines, Faulkner’s Bicycle, The Two Marys, Rain and Darkness and, upcoming, The Suppressed-Desire Ball (developed at Sundance Ucross Writers Retreat). Her work has been produced on Broadway and Off and at such theatres as The Roundabout Theatre, Arena Stage, The McCarter Theatre, Center Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Indiana Rep, California Shakespeare Theatre, Round House Theatre, Signature Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Actors Theatre of Louisville – Humana Festival of New Plays, The La Jolla Playhouse and internationally in Italy, Spain, Portugal, England and Mexico. Her most recent work, STAY, is the result of a two-year collaboration with choreographer Susan Shields. Ms. McDonald wrote the libretto for the opera, “The End of the Affair,” adapted from the novel by Graham Greene. She and composer Jake Heggie (“Dead Man Walking”) were commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and the opera premiered at HGO and went on to have several more productions. She has also directed many productions, most recently Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot,” a steampunk version of “The Elephant Man,” “The Cripple of Inishmaan” by Martin McDonogh and the world premiere of “Two-Bit Taj Mahal” by Paul D’Andrea. The production she directed of “Dream of a Common Language” was nominated for eight Helen Hayes Awards (including Best Direction) and won four Helen Hayes Awards including Outstanding Resident Production. Her work has been honored with a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, three NEA Playwriting Fellowships, The First Prize Kesselring Award and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She has written and sold two screenplays “Rocket 88” and “Walking After Midnight” and is at work on a new project for television, “GOLD.” She received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and is Professor of Theater at George Mason University. ALI MILLER Ali Miller is a director with a specialty in devised theatre. She has helmed these collaboratively written projects for Arena Stage’s Community Engagement programs, Imagination Stage’s Speak-Out on Stage Ensemble, Firebelly Productions and the South Asian Performing Arts Network and Institute. Last year, she co-directed the devised musical The Eleventh Face: Ravana’s Untold Story while resident director at SAPAN. She also co-directed and co-produced the yearlong devised project How to Be a Human, which culminated in a critically acclaimed run at the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival. Other directing credits include multiple projects for Active Cultures Theatre, Dust for Imagination Stage, Proof for Firebelly Productions and Toujours Paris at the inaugural Capital Fringe Festival. She trained with The Atlantic Theater Company in Manhattan and holds a theatre degree from The College of William and Mary. Ali is the managing director of American Ensemble Theater where she also works as an artist. JENNIFER L. NELSON Jennifer L Nelson is currently Director of Special Programming at Ford’s Theatre. Prior to this appointment she was the founding Producing Artistic Director of the African Continuum Theatre Company, Washington D.C.’s only professional black theatre company. During that eleven year tenure, she produced twenty plays, multiple readings and other events. Ms. Nelson is a commended playwright and published poet. Her musical play Torn from the Headlines was awarded the 1996 Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Most Outstanding New Play. Her three-minute telephone play Somebody Call 911 was commissioned by and featured at the 2001 Humana Festival at the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. Her latest full-length play 24, 7, 365 was produced by Theatre of the First Amendment. Her full-length musical Hubert & Charlie was honored by the 2003 Larry Neal Writers’ Awards and was subsequently produced by the African Continuum Theatre. She has received several commissions to write issue-oriented plays for young audiences, most recently by Ford’s Theatre to bring to life historical character Elizabeth Keckly (2011 Washington Post Helen Hayes Theatre Award). She has also been commissioned to write short plays for the Theatre Lab; Active Cultures as part of their Sportaculture Festival; the Cultures-in-Motion Program of the National Portrait Gallery; the Education Department of the Corcoran Gallery; the Kennedy Center Program for Families; and Round House Theatre’s HeyDay Players. She is a three-time grantee of the DC Commission on the Arts Individual Artist program, and a recipient of the Mayor’s Arts Awards for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline. As a director, her recent productions include Raisin in the Sun at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore; Necessary Sacrifices at Ford’s Theatre; The Whipping Man at Theatre J. Upcoming productions include: 9 Circles for Forum Theatre and Top Dog/Underdog for Everyman Theatre. JUANITA ROCKWELL Juanita Rockwel is a writer and director specializing in the development of new work and new forms at such venues as The Ontological, Mabou Mines/Suite, Culture Project, Blue Heron, Bushwick Starr (NYC); Theatre of the First Amendment, Banished? Productions, Source, Capital Fringe, DCAC, Everyman, Theatre Project, Iron Crow, Single Carrot (DC/Balto); Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Arts Center, Jorgenson Theatre, Church Barn Farm (CT); City Theatre (P’burgh); Gas & Electric Arts (Phila); Teatro Municipal (São Paolo, BR); Teatro Abya Yala (San José, CR); RS9 (Budapest); and on National Public Radio. Produced writing includes Between Trains, What’s a Little Death (plays w/songs); The World is Round, Waterwalk (operas); Cave in the Sky (puppets/multimedia); The Circle (audioplay); Lunar Pantoum (dance-theatre); Across the Void, Packing/Pecking, Language Monkey, Quantum Soup, A Table in Hell (short plays); Immortal: The Gilgamesh Variations (multi-playwright adaptation) and Playing Dead (translation w/Yury Urnov from Bros. Presnyakov). As Artistic Director of Hartford’s Company One Theater for six years, Juanita directed dozens of early premieres for stage and radio by Paula Vogel, Suzan-Lori Parks, Rachel Sheinkin, Erik Ehn and Donna diNovelli, as well as her own work. She is a Fulbright Scholar and was recently invited to serve a second term as Fulbright Ambassador. Her artist residencies include Ko Festival of Performance, O’Neill Center’s National Theatre Institute, and the Visual Playwriting Conference (Gallaudet University). She has recceived NEA awards with Gas & Electric Arts and Company One Theater, as well as grants and awards from a variety of states, cities and private foundations including a MD State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Playwriting. Juanita is a proud member of both the Society of Directors and Choreographers and the Dramatists Guild. TONI RAE SALMI Toni Rae has been acting in the DC area since 1999. Prior to that, she was a two-year company member with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. She is currently Resident Director for Pinky Swear Productions, where she has directed Cabaret XXX: Love the One You're With, Carol's Christmas, and Cabaret XXX: Les Femmes Fatales (Pick of the Fringe: Best Musical). Previous acting credits include Blood Wedding (Mother-In-Law), Constellation Theatre Company; Romeo & Juliet (Nurse), Measure for Measure (Lucio), and Julius Caesar (Calphurnia), Taffety Punk Theatre Company; Mulan (Mushu) and Junie B. Jones and A Little Monkey Business (Lucille/Mom--Helen Hayes Nomination), Imagination Stage; Homokay's Medea (Medea), Venus Theatre, The Spitfire Grill (Percy), Theater Alliance; Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Mrs. Bucket), The Kennedy Center Theatre for Young Audiences; One Good Marriage (Steph), MetroStage; Man of LaMancha (Aldonza), Keegan Theatre, and The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (Iris), The American Century Theater. Toni holds a Master of Arts degree in Theatre from Miami University and is still trying to find time to create her one-woman cabaret. SHIRLEY SEROTSKY Shirley Serotsky is the Director of Literary and Public Programs at Theater J, where she directed the 2011 production of The History of Invulnerability; The Moscows of Nantucket; Mikveh (which received two Helen Hayes Nominations for Best Actress); and The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall (which received a 2009 Helen Hayes Nomination for Best New Play). She works as a freelance director in the DC area and beyond, and is particularly interested in the development of new work. Recent directing credits include: a 21/24 Signature Lab Workshop presentation of The Break (Signature Theatre); Working: The Musical (Keegan Theatre); Blood Wedding (Constellation Theatre); Birds of a Feather (which won the 2012 Charles MacArthur Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play—at The Hub Theatre); Juno and the Paycock (Washington Shakespeare Company); a staged reading of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo for the National New Play Network at Arena Stage; This is Not a Timebomb (The Source Festival); Reals, Five Flights and Two Rooms (Theater Alliance); Crumble (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake) and We Are Not These Hands (Catalyst Theater); References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot (Rorschach Theater, for which she received a 2007 Helen Hayes nomination for outstanding direction); Sovereignty (The Humana Festival of New Plays); Cautionary Tales for Adults and the Many Adventures of Trixie Tickles (2007 CapFringe); LUNCH (2007 New York Musical Theater Festival & 2006 CapFringe), Titus! The Musical. (2009 Capfringe and Source Theatre). Training: BFA, North Carolina School of the Arts. Shirley was a member of the 2002 Designer/Director Workshop with Ming Cho Lee; the 2003 Lincoln Center Director's Lab; and was a 2001/2001William R. Kenan, Jr. Fellows at the Kennedy Center. LYNN SHARP SPEARS Lynn Sharp Spears is a director, performer, designer and teacher. Lynn has created with Arena Stage, The Atlas Theatre, The Kennedy Center, The National Theatre, The Olney Theatre, Source Theatre, The Studio Theatre, Tobys, WSC Avant Bard, Networks and Troika National Touring Companies, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic and more. Lynn’s artwork is in private collections in the United States, Canada and Australia. She painted and sculpted the Pollinarium for The National Zoo, was Production Designer for the World Premiere, “Song of Eddie”, which was considered by the 2004 Pulitzer Committee, and has masks on permanent exhibit in the library at Penn State University. Lynn was Artistic Director of Adventure Theater 2002-2003 and serves on the Board of Directors for The International Center for Sustainable Development. She is also the founder and director of Summer Theater Experience an organization that focuses on helping young people age 12-17 find their creative “Voice”, which is based at Artisphere in Rosslyn, VA. CATHERINE TRIPP Catherine Tripp holds degrees from the University of Southern California and the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). In Scotland, she was the co-founder of the award winning company Third From the Left. Since returning to Washington, DC, she has worked with a number of companies around DC, including Venus Theatre, Hope Operas, Active Cultures and The Hub Theatre. She is a proud company member of Rorschach Theatre, where she directed Brainpeople by Jose Rivera in their 2009 season. In the summer of 2011, she directed The Making of A Modern Folk Hero by Martin Zimmerman for The CUDC’s Source Festival. Most recently, she directed the world premiere of Fengar Gale’s The Gallerist. In her day job, she produces interactive training videos. “What other creature in the world besides the Black woman has had to build the knowledge of so much hatred into her survival and keep going?” ~~Audre Lorde Recently, I was reminded of this quote by writer and activist Audra Lorde, when my friend, director Eleanor Holdridge, shared an email she had received in response to the Washington Post article, Working Toward Theater Equity, about her production of Body Awareness at Theater J: "Another whining woman. The probable reason male playwrights and directors are preferred is that they are, frankly, better at the craft than women. Women playwrights' themes are usually rants against their mothers, men, and otherwise drowning in female self-infatuation, like the lesbianism in "Body Awareness". Just not interesting or imaginative. Maybe better as directors, but not often. It's usually high school writ large. That's why the general public -- the market for theater -- votes with its dollars, and in that women lose. Tough titties." When I first read this, I was concerned for Eleanor and wanted to make sure she was alright. She was, thank goodness. However, she was appalled by the somewhat extreme efforts this man went through to make his thoughts known to her. You see, initially, he sent this email to an arts critic at the Washington Post. However, when his words did not appear in print as he had hoped, he searched for Eleanor’s email address and sent them directly to her. After confirming that Eleanor was okay, I was struck by three things:
As a woman of color, I can’t begin to imagine what it is to live in world of privilege, and specifically, of white male privilege. I’ve had it imagined for me in books, films, plays, poems, songs, commercials, advertisements, etc. But I will never know or experience this space. No amount of education, wealth or status will afford me this. I used to suffer over this quite terribly, but I don’t anymore. By that I mean, I no longer allow being passed over for opportunities because of race and gender prevent me from being productive and useful. And I hope you don’t either. After a few days of mulling over what I might do, I spoke more with Eleanor Holdridge and also with Lee Mikeska Gardner. They each expressed a desire to learn more about the lives, careers, and artistic visions of other directors. We decided it would be a good idea to use this moment as an opportunity to celebrate, champion and herald the work of Women Directors in the D.C. Theatre community. Other women in the community agreed. What's more, a request was made for a Women Artistic Directors Series, so that will be coming in December. Tomorrow, I will introduce you to the feature Women Directors of D.C. and over the next week, I’ll share their experiences with you. I hope you're as inspired by their lives, hard work, passion, determination and commitment to this profession as I am. Welcome to the Women Playwrights of DC Series! Over the next week or so, you'll be introduced to a wide range of women playwrights, who are as diverse and varied in experience as they are in writing styles and approaches to play making. Among these women are playwrights at the beginning their artistic journeys, courageously discovering their voices; "emerging" playwrights working hard to hone their craft and making names for themselves in the D.C. area and beyond; and long established playwrights who've achieved great success and high acclaim. There are traditional playwrights, solo performers, key members of performances ensembles, and "Hold on, wait a minute, you think I'm a what?". They use language, image, prayer, dance, sound, memory, landscape, food, and space to create beautiful, passionate, powerful, haunting, and important stories that capture the human experience. Each of these women are helping to shape the landscape of American Theatre with their artistic vision, creativity and dedication to theatre. Again, my hope is that these interviews will serve Christine and others who are making their way as playwrights in the Nation's Capital, and perhaps beyond. But, if there are any artistic directors out there looking for bright, talented, funny, and prolific women playwrights to include in their seasons, here you go! KATHLEEN AKERLEY Kathleen Akerley is the artistic director of Longacre Lea, a small, professional theater company founded in 1998 and devoted to creating physical productions of cerebral works with an emphasis on absurdism and magical realism. As a freelance director she has also worked with Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Solas Nua, Rorschach Theatre, Theater Alliance, Forum Theatre, WSC Avant Bard and Studio Second Stage; as a playwright she has worked with Sideshow Theatre (Chicago), eXtreme eXchange, Source Festival, The Hope Operas, had several plays commissioned by Round House Theatre's Heyday Players, adapted Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for the stage in 2010 and had readings of her plays Only Angels at Theatre J's 5x5 series and The Hungry Dry at Boston Center for the Arts; as an actor she has worked with Catalyst Theatre, Theater Alliance, WSC Avant Bard, Washington Stage Guild and Olney Theatre. She is a recipient of the Mary Goldwater Theater Lobby Award for acting and directing, and a member of the playwriting collective Lizard Claw. BARI BIERN Bari Biern is a playwright/lyricist whose first musical, A Dance Against Darkness: Living with AIDS (with composer Roy Barber) was nominated for Helen Hayes Awards as Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Resident Musical. She also wrote the lyrics for Riddle Me a Prince, The Miracle of Watts, and the critically-acclaimed In Series production of The Marriage of Figaro: Las Vegas Version. Also in 2010, the Playwright’s Forum presented Bari’s adaptations of Henry James’ The Real Thing and The Marriages at the John F. Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival. In 2011, She wrote the book and lyrics of pocket versions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Cosi fan Tutte for WAM2, a co-production of the In Series and the Washington Ballet. Recently, she contributed lyrics to Imagination Stage’s Helen Hayes-recommended production of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. Her lyrics are also featured in the Capitol Steps’ Take the Money and Run for President. Bari has been performing with the Steps since 1993. RENEE CALARCO Renee Calarco lives and works in Washington, DC. Her play SHORT ORDER STORIES received the 2007 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. Other plays include THE RELIGION THING (2012 Helen Hayes Recommended), KEEPERS OF THE WESTERN DOOR, THE MATING OF ANGELA WEISS, BLEED, and IF YOU GIVE A CAT A CUPCAKE (commissioned by Adventure Theatre in 2011). Her 10-minute play WARRIORS was published by One Act Play Depot in 2010. Other short plays include SEMPER FIDELIS, POUNDS AWEIGH, and FIRST STOP: NIAGARA FALLS. Renee is an artistic associate with First Draft/Charter Theater, the program coordinator for Naked Ladies Lunch, and a proud member of both DC Area Playwrights and The Dramatists Guild of America. She teaches playwriting at George Washington University and improvisational comedy at The Theatre Lab, and is a licensed professional tour guide. www.reneecalarco.com ALLYSON CURRIN Allyson Currin is an award-winning playwright of over twenty plays. Previous world premieres of her work include: Hercules in Russia (Doorway Arts Ensemble, 2012); The Dancing Princesses (Imagination Stage, with composter/lyricist Christopher Youstra, DC Theatre Scene’s 2010 Pick for Best Family Show); and Treadwell: Bright and Dark (The American Century Theatre, 2010; DC Capital Fringe, 2011). She has written original librettos for several opera companies including “musica aperta” and The In-Series, and has written original work for The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Strathmore Arts Center and The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. Her multi-media collaborations have been spotlighted in Source Theatre’s Washington Theatre Festival. She has several new plays in development, including the comedies The Colony, Caesar and Dada, The White Trash Grail Play, and a new musical (with composer-lyricist Matt Conner) commissioned by Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre. She is the Playwright-in-Residence for the 2012-13 Season with First Draft at Charter Theatre. As an actor she has appeared at Olney Theatre, Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, Source Theatre Company, Washington Shakespeare Company, Catalyst Theatre, Rep Stage, Everyman Theatre, Theatre J, The American Century Theater, Charter Theatre and Round House, in addition to her work in television and film. She is Vice Chair of The Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival National Playwriting Program (Region 2), and she teaches in the Theatre and Dance Department at The George Washington University. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, The Screen Actors Guild and Actors Equity Association. THEMBI DUNCAN A native of the D.C. area, Thembi Duncan has performed as an actor in the region for over a decade. Her most extensive experience is in stage work, with productions at numerous area venues including The Studio Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Imagination Stage, and Round House Theatre. As an emerging playwright, she’s penned Gridiron: Adventures from the Sidelines, for the Active Cultures 2011 Sportaculture Play Festival; Champagne, a 15-minute commission for the Brave Soul Collective; and an adaptation of the Japanese folktale Urashima Taro for Arlington’s Stage Door Productions. She’s currently developing Mon Chaton, her first full-length play, and a cross-gender adaptation of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. Ms. Duncan also works as the Lead Teaching Artist at historic Ford's Theatre. KITTY FELDE Kitty Felde won the 2009 LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Adaptation of a trio of Nikolai Gogol short stories called GOGOL PROJECT, a commission from the Rogue Artists Ensemble. The LA Times said Felde "deftly balances flights of whimsy and depths of darkness." She also won the Open Book/Fireside Theatre Playwriting Competition for her one-woman show ALICE: an evening with the tart-tongued daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, which sold out performances at the 2011 Capitol Fringe Festival – “critic’s pick” by The Washington Post.Felde has written a melodrama set in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast (SHANGHAI HEART), a musical comedy about the Dodgers’ move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles (BUM’S RUSH), and a one-act about a radio cowboy whose show is moving to television, but without him: he doesn’t look like his voice (MAN WITH NO SHADOW.) Her courtroom drama A PATCH OF EARTH, winner of the Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition, was inspired by her work covering the war crimes tribunals. It’s published by the University of Wisconsin Press in The Theatre of Genocide: Four Plays about Mass Murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Armenia. Her newest play THE LUCKIEST GIRL is the story of a young African-American girl’s obsession with the politically incorrect holiday figure Zwarte Piet. Felde co-founded Theatre of NOTE, wrote for TV’s What’s Happening Now, and directed a playwriting program for at-risk youth. She currently serves as a judge for the Helen Hayes Awards. Felde grew up in Compton, the eldest of seven children. REBECCA GINGRICH-JONES Rebecca Gingrich-Jones is a 2012 recipient of an Individual Artist Award in Playwriting from the Maryland State Arts Council. Her plays have been produced or developed at the Capital Fringe Festival, Active Cultures, Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival, American College Theater Festival, Theater J, Manhattan Rep, First Draft, DC Queer Theatre Festival, Beltway Drama Series, Young Playwrights Inc., Bread & Water, MadLab, Raconteur, and Catholic University, where she received an MFA in Playwriting. Her play She Said/She Said received an Honorable Mention for the 2011 Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award. Rebecca has taught acting and playwriting at Wobble Rocket Stage in Alexandria, Virginia, and Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She is a co-founder of the DC-Area Playwrights Group and the DC Queer Theatre Festival, and a member of the Playwrights’ Center and the Dramatists Guild. D.W. GREGORY A resident playwright at New Jersey Rep, D.W. Gregory writes in a variety of styles and genres, from the historical epic RADIUM GIRLS to the psychological thriller OCTOBER 1962. The Rep’s production of her impressionistic family drama THE GOOD DAUGHTER earned her a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 2003, and her comedy MOLUMBY’S MILLION, produced by Iron Age Theatre, was nominated for Philadelphia’s Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2011. In addition, Gregory’s work has been presented or developed at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Theatre of the First Amendment, the Lark, the Young Vic, the New Harmony Project, ShenanArts, Round House Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, among others, and has been supported through grants from the National New Play Network, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland Arts Council, the Montgomery County Arts and Humanities Council, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Her work in youth theatre began with a commission by Imagination Stage to write five plays for its Speak Out on Stage Program, including PENNY CANDY, MIRACLE IN MUDVILLE, and SECRET LIVES OF TOADS. In 2011, her drama SALVATION ROAD received the American Alliance for Theatre in Education’s Playwrights in Our Schools award and her short play WHAT GOES AROUND appeared in Dramatic Publishing’s BULLY PLAYS anthology. She is currently at work on a commission from NJ Rep for a new musical for young audiences adapted from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. DENISE HART Tenured Howard University Associate Professor of theatre, Denise J. Hart is an accomplished and award winning actress, director and playwright. In addition to teaching at Howard University, she has taught at American University and Duke Ellington School of the Arts. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Howard University (BFA in Acting) and also holds an MFA in Playwriting from Sarah Lawrence College. She currently serves as the Area Coordinator of Playwriting in the Department of Theatre Arts. She has written and self-produced 16 children's musicals and most recently collaborated with Darius Smith on “The Mysterious Case of Classroom #459.” She is the author of the adult plays Nothing to Lose, Sistah Girl, Masquerade Parade, Ring the Bell, My Soul is a Witness and This Joy (a former finalist in both The Lark and the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights competition). Her Directing credits include: Secret Mist of Blue, Melancholy of Barbarians, The Exile & the American, Day of Absence (finalist in the 2008 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival), Zooman and the Sign, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Her acting credits include the recurring role as the beloved character "Miss Anna" on HBO'S The Wire, African Continuum Theatre Co., Wolly Mammoth Theatre, and The Theatre Alliance. Ms. Hart is also the founder and Executive Director of The Performing Arts Training Studio, located in Washington DC. Denise is also a Creativity Coach, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, The Dramatist Guild, The Playwrights Forum, and Theatre for Young Audiences. She proudly serves on the boards of The DC Black Theatre Festival, Takoma Theatre Conservancy and DC Art Studios. PAIGE HERNANDEZ Paige is a multifaceted artist, who is known for her innovative fusion of poetry, hip hop, dance and education. As a master teaching artist, Paige has taught throughout the country, to all ages, in all disciplines. To date, she has reached over 10, 000 students, from Pre-K through college, in over 100 residencies, workshops and performances. She has been recognized in many organizations including the Wolftrap Foundation for Early Learning and Arena Stage where she was awarded the Thomas Fichandler award for exceptional promise in theater education. Paige was also named a “classroom hero” by the Huffington Post. As an actress, Paige has performed on many stages including DC: Arena Stage, Folger Theatre, The Kennedy Center , Fulton Theatre(PA), Ohio Theatre (NY), Manship Theatre(LA), Paramount Theatre (TX) and many others. As a critically acclaimed dancer, Paige's choreography has been seen all over the country and recently in The Kennedy Center’s American Scrapbook and Knuffle Bunny. As a hip hop education advocate, Paige has shaped various educational workshops, including Props for Hip Hop at Arena Stage and Keep it Moving, at Wolftrap. Both workshops help teachers to understand the fundamentals of hip hop while incorporating the culture into their curriculum. With her company B-FLY ENTERTAINMENT, Paige has toured her children’s show Havana Hop and her one woman show, Paige in Full: A B-girl’s Visual Mixtape throughout the country. www.paigehernandez.com www.paigeinfull.com CALEEN SINNETTE JENNINGS Caleen Sinnette Jennings is professor of theater at American University in Washington, D.C. She teaches acting, voice and speech, acting Shakespeare, playwriting and academic courses in theater. Jennings was a 2007 finalist for the O'Neill Playwright's Conference, and she is a two-time Helen Hayes nominee for Outstanding New Play. In 2002, she received the Heidman Award from Actor's Theatre of Louisville for her play Classyass. In 1999 she received a $10,000 grant from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays for her play Inns & Outs. Her play Playing Juliet/Casting Othello was produced at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre in 1998. In 2000, her children's play Free Like Br'er Rabbit was produced for the Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices festival. Her two short plays Pecos Bill and The People Could Fly are featured in Walking the Winds, which premiered at the Kennedy Center and toured nationally with Kennedy Center's Programs for Children and Youth. Jennings received her bachelor's degree in drama from Bennington College and her M.F.A. in acting from the N.Y.U. Tisch School of the Arts. She has been a faculty member of the Folger Shakespeare Library's Teaching Shakespeare Institute since 1994. She moderates panels, does workshops and presentations for cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian, Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Ford's Theatre, the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Shakespeare Theatre. In 2003, she received American University's 2003 Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award. That same year, she won the award for Outstanding Teaching of Playwriting from the Play Writing Forum of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education. NICOLE JOST Nicole Jost is a playwright, teaching artist, producer and director. Her play The Terror Fantastic was read as part of the inaugural DC Queer Theatre Festival, and featured in The Inkwell’s “Evening of Inklings” in April 2012. She has worked locally with The Inkwell, dog & pony dc, Forum Theatre, City Artistic Partnerships, Madcap Players and Roundhouse Theatre. In 2011, she was recognized by The Washingtonian as one of ten “Women to Watch.” She is the Associate Artistic Director of Young Playwrights’ Theater, the only professional theater in Washington, DC dedicated entirely to arts education. KRISTEN LEPINE Kristen Lepine is a playwright in residence and company member at the award winning The HUB Theatre, which has commissioned three plays to date: Foolish Fire, Leto Legend, and Dire Wolves. Foolish Fire took top honors at the 9th Annual Firehouse Theatre Festival of New American Plays. Leto Legend is currently being further developed with Pinky Swear Productions, and Dire Wolves continues its development with the HUB Theatre and will participate in the 2012 Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival. Kristen was commissioned by AccokeekCreek Theatreco to write Laundry Blows, which was presented in the 2011 Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival. Additionally, her works have been staged at various Mid-Atlantic venues including Active Cultures, The Firehouse Theatre, The HUB Theatre, Inkwell, Georgia College and State University, Pinky Swear Productions, The Pittsburgh New Works Festival, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. She is the former coordinator of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s local playwriting forum, PlayGround. Kristen has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Humboldt State University, and she currently teaches Dramatic Literature and Introduction to Theatre at the University of Mary Washington. LIZ MAESTRI Liz’s plays include OWL MOON (Taffety Punk Theatre Company, Page-to-Stage Festival); SOMERSAULTING (Page-to-Stage Festival, The Artists’ Bloc Downtown Series); TINDERBOX (Forum Theatre ReActs); FALLBEIL (Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Sweatlodge); and multi-disciplinary collaborations THE PRESSURE COOKER for the 2012 Source Festival and THE RAIN for E.M.P. Collective’s Genesis project. Liz was a founding core member of The Anthropologists, a physical-theater ensemble in NYC, where she collaborated on devised works The Potato Play, One Million Forgotten Moments, The Columbus Project, and Falling. She studied playwriting with the 24 With 5 Collective at New Dramatists, and received her B.A. in Theatre from the University of Maryland. Liz is the recipient of a 2011 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Artist Award, and is a member of The Playwrights’ Center and the Dramatists’ Guild. www.lizmaestri.com HEATHER MCDONALD Heather McDonald’s plays include An Almost Holy Picture, When Grace Comes In, Dream of a Common Language, Available Light, The Rivers and Ravines, Faulkner’s Bicycle, The Two Marys, Rain and Darkness and, upcoming, The Suppressed-Desire Ball (developed at Sundance Ucross Writers Retreat). Her work has been produced on Broadway and Off and at such theatres as The Roundabout Theatre, Arena Stage, The McCarter Theatre, Center Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Indiana Rep, California Shakespeare Theatre, Round House Theatre, Signature Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Actors Theatre of Louisville – Humana Festival of New Plays, The La Jolla Playhouse and internationally in Italy, Spain, Portugal, England and Mexico. Her most recent work, STAY, is the result of a two-year collaboration with choreographer Susan Shields. Ms. McDonald wrote the libretto for the opera, “The End of the Affair,” adapted from the novel by Graham Greene. She and composer Jake Heggie (“Dead Man Walking”) were commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and the opera premiered at HGO and went on to have several more productions. She has also directed many productions, most recently Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot,” a steampunk version of “The Elephant Man,” “The Cripple of Inishmaan” by Martin McDonogh and the world premiere of “Two-Bit Taj Mahal” by Paul D’Andrea. The production she directed of “Dream of a Common Language” was nominated for eight Helen Hayes Awards (including Best Direction) and won four Helen Hayes Awards including Outstanding Resident Production. Her work has been honored with a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, three NEA Playwriting Fellowships, The First Prize Kesselring Award and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She has written and sold two screenplays “Rocket 88” and “Walking After Midnight” and is at work on a new project for television, “GOLD.” She received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and is Professor of Theater at George Mason University. DANIELLE MOHLMAN Danielle Mohlman holds an MA in Theatre Studies from Emerson College. Recent credits include Jim and Paul Meet in Dreams (Field Trip Theatre) and The Crow (Artists’ Bloc) at the Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival. Other credits include Stopgap at the Capital Fringe Festival and The Bed at DC SWAN Day. In 2012, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities awarded Danielle a Larry Neal Writers’ Award for Dramatic Writing. She is a co-moderator of DC-Area Playwrights and Artistic Director of Field Trip Theatre. JENNIFER L. NELSON Jennifer L Nelson is currently Director of Special Programming at Ford’s Theatre. Prior to this appointment she was the founding Producing Artistic Director of the African Continuum Theatre Company, Washington D.C.’s only professional black theatre company. During that eleven year tenure, she produced twenty plays, multiple readings and other events. Ms. Nelson is a commended playwright and published poet. Her musical play Torn from the Headlines was awarded the 1996 Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Most Outstanding New Play. Her three-minute telephone play Somebody Call 911 was commissioned by and featured at the 2001 Humana Festival at the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. Her latest full-length play 24, 7, 365 was produced by Theatre of the First Amendment. Her full-length musical Hubert & Charlie was honored by the 2003 Larry Neal Writers’ Awards and was subsequently produced by the African Continuum Theatre. She has received several commissions to write issue-oriented plays for young audiences, most recently by Ford’s Theatre to bring to life historical character Elizabeth Keckly (2011 Washington Post Helen Hayes Theatre Award). She has also been commissioned to write short plays for the Theatre Lab; Active Cultures/Sportaculture Festival; the Cultures-in-Motion Program of the National Portrait Gallery; the Education Department of the Corcoran Gallery; the Kennedy Center Program for Families; and Round House Theatre’s HeyDay Players. She is a three-time grantee of the DC Commission on the Arts Individual Artist program, and a recipient of the Mayor’s Arts Awards for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline. As a director, her recent productions include Raisin in the Sun at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore; Necessary Sacrifices at Ford’s Theatre; The Whipping Man at Theatre J. Upcoming productions include: 9 Circles for Forum Theatre and Top Dog/Underdog for Everyman Theatre. HELEN PAFUMI Helen Pafumi is the Artistic Director and co-founder of The Hub Theatre. Her original plays Merry, Happy...What? and co adaptation Wonderful Life (Helen Hayes Award Nomination for Outstanding New Play) have been produced by The Hub and Clara's Little Questions, was first read at the Kennedy Center's Page to Stage Festival. In addition to her role at The Hub, Helen works as an actor in many DC area theatres, including Theatre J, Folger Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Forum Theatre, Theatre Alliance, Rorschach Theatre, Keegan Theatre, Didactic Theatre, The Inkwell, the Source Festival, the Beckett Centenary Festival, Vpstart Crow, and Madcap Players. She has appeared in numerous independent films and commercials. Helen also does dialect coaching for George Mason University’s theatre program and privately teaches acting and public speaking. She is the recipient of the Puffin Foundation Award and the Washington Canadian Partnership Award. Helen holds a BA in Theatre from Virginia Tech. MARNI PENNING Marni Penning is a northern Virginia native and co-founder of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, for whom she has performed over 35 roles in 10 seasons, including Juliet, Kate, Rosalind, Beatrice, and Hamlet. In 10 years in New York, she appeared on Saturday Night Live (burning a Martha Stewart cookbook on live national television), Guiding Light, All My Children, Law & Order: SVU, The Sopranos, Mona Lisa Smile, onstage in the beat poetry rock musical Subway Train and for The Production Company, with whom she is a founding company member. Marni has performed steadily on New York stages for the past ten years as well as appearing in several short films; regionally, favorite roles include Peg in Six Years (Actors Theatre of Louisville, Humana Festival), Luciana in Comedy of Errors and Catherine in Lorenzaccio (Shakespeare Theatre Company, DC), Jane in The Unmentionables, Ashley in After Ashley and Mom in Big Death and Little Death (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), Helen in Machinal (American Century Theater), Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (Georgia Shakespeare), Adriana in Comedy of Errors (Folger Shakespeare Theatre and Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), Mrs. Manningham in Gaslight (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), Sarah in The Lover (Rep Stage), Myra and Myrna in The Mineola Twins (Human Race Theatre, OH) and Shelby in Steel Magnolias (Wayside Theatre, VA). She is the author of Carol's Christmas, which was produced by Pinky Swear Productions in 2011. NATSU ONODA POWER Natsu Onoda Power is a writer, director, and designer. Her original works include Astro Boy and the God of Comics (The Studio 2ndStage), The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Madness and Civilization, The T Party, Trees and Ghosts, Swimmy and Other Stories (Georgetown University), Revenge of the Poisoned Ladies (Capital Fringe Festival 2008), Performance of Sleep in One Long Act Without Intermission, Are you my negative space?, and SCIENCE (FICTION) (Live Action Cartoonists). Directing credits include The Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven (by Young Jean Lee, The Studio 2ndStage). Recent design credits include Big Love (The Hub Theatre, scenery), bobrauschenbergamerica, Mad Forest (Forum Theatre, scenery), Kafka’s Metamorphosis (Synetic Theatre, costume and scenery). Natsu is the author of God of Comics: Osamu Tezuka and the Creation of Post World War II Manga (University Press of Mississippi, 2009), which explores the 54-year career of a Japanese Cartoonist Osamu Tezuka. Her current ongoing research projects include food/food justice and performance, ethnography of DC transgender community, and racial representations in comics and graphic novels. She is an Assistant Professor in the Program in Theater and Performance Studies at Georgetown University. MARY RESING The artistic director and co-founder of Active Cultures, Mary has a consistent track record from producing and supporting high quality professional theatre. In the D.C. area, she collaborated on Source’s Washington Theatre Festival for ten years and led the new play development effort at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company for eight years. Her freelance work as a director and dramaturg includes productions and workshops at Source Theatre Company, New Playwrights, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage in Connecticut, Empty Space in Seattle, New Dramatists in New York City, Theatre of the First Amendment in Fairfax and Arena Stage in DC. She has worked with the playwrights David Lindsay Abaire, Carlos Murilla, David Bucci, Craig Wright, Michael John Garces, Mark Medoff, Jennifer Nelson, Oni Faida Lampley, Neena Beeber, Gwydion Suilbhan, and Anna Zielger, among others, on successful world premiere productions. Mary was a US Fulbright Scholar to Armenia. She has taught theatre at the University of Maryland, Georgetown University and Catholic University. She has a B.A. from Spring Hill College in Alabama, an M.A. from New York University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. JUANITA ROCKWELL Juanita Rockwel is a writer and director specializing in the development of new work and new forms at such venues as The Ontological, Mabou Mines/Suite, Culture Project, Blue Heron, Bushwick Starr (NYC); Theatre of the First Amendment, Banished? Productions, Source, Capital Fringe, DCAC, Everyman, Theatre Project, Iron Crow, Single Carrot (DC/Balto); Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Arts Center, Jorgenson Theatre, Church Barn Farm (CT); City Theatre (P’burgh); Gas & Electric Arts (Phila); Teatro Municipal (São Paolo, BR); Teatro Abya Yala (San José, CR); RS9 (Budapest); and on National Public Radio. Produced writing includes Between Trains, What’s a Little Death (plays w/songs); The World is Round, Waterwalk (operas); Cave in the Sky (puppets/multimedia); The Circle (audioplay); Lunar Pantoum (dance-theatre); Across the Void, Packing/Pecking, Language Monkey, Quantum Soup, A Table in Hell (short plays); Immortal: The Gilgamesh Variations (multi-playwright adaptation) and Playing Dead (translation w/Yury Urnov from Bros. Presnyakov). As Artistic Director of Hartford’s Company One Theater for six years, Juanita directed dozens of early premieres for stage and radio by Paula Vogel, Suzan-Lori Parks, Rachel Sheinkin, Erik Ehn and Donna diNovelli, as well as her own work. She is a Fulbright Scholar and was recently invited to serve a second term as Fulbright Ambassador. Her artist residencies include Ko Festival of Performance, O’Neill Center’s National Theatre Institute, and the Visual Playwriting Conference (Gallaudet University). She has recceived NEA awards with Gas & Electric Arts and Company One Theater, as well as grants and awards from a variety of states, cities and private foundations including a MD State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Playwriting. Juanita is a proud member of both the Society of Directors and Choreographers and the Dramatists Guild. KRISTY SIMMONS Kristy Simmons is a playwright from the D.C. area. In 2009, she had an in house reading of her One Act play Greg's Anatomy by Calliope Theatre. She is a co-writer of Filter, a multimedia performance and street theatre piece featured in the 2012 Source Theatre Festival. She has directed a 10-minute play for DC-SWAN Day at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, and has served for many years as a reader for Inkwell Theatre. This Fall she will serve as Assistant Director for Spooky Action Theatre's production of Reckless. MARY HALL SURFACE Mary Hall Surface is a playwright and director specializing in theatre for families and multi-disciplinary collaborations. A DC theatre community member since 1989, her producers include Round House Theatre, Arena Stage, Folger Theatre, the National Gallery of Art and over 15 productions at the Kennedy Center. Internationally her work has been featured in productions and festivals in Germany, Canada, Japan, Peru, France, Taiwan, Sweden and Ireland. Nominated for four Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play and five Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Direction, she received the 2002 award for her musical, Perseus Bayou. She is the artistic director of INTERSECTIONS: A New America Arts Festival at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. She received the Charlotte Chorpenning Award, presented by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education for an Outstanding Body of Work as a Playwright, May 2006. She was a finalist for the 2011 DC Mayor's Arts Award for Service to the Arts. CARMEN C. WONG Carmen C. Wong is the founding Artistic Director and agent provocateur of banished? productions, an avant-pop performance collective that plays with narrative while creating immersive art experiences. Her projects have been fueled by awards such as the Creative Communities Fund (2012), TCG Global Connections (2011) and the DCCAH's Young Artist Award (2010). Current projects and concepts include the devised dance collage Into the Dollhouse; a sensory gastro-art-performative series that has spun Tactile Taste of Helsinki / Tactile Dinner Morsels / Tactile Dinner Car / A Tactile Dinner; the ballades mechaniques installation series of story-telling machines, and the banished? footsteps series of alternative art audiowalks. Carmen first got her start in interdisciplinary performance in Berlin, working on Constanza Macras’ & Dorky Park’s “Back to the Present” in 2003. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of CityBlossoms, an urban gardening organization, and is on the Board of Governors for Theatre Washington which runs the annual Helen Hayes awards in Washington, DC. When not busy making works that defy easy categorization, she secretly enjoys picking up languages just to make untranslatable puns. KAREN ZACHARIAS Karen Zacarías award-winning plays include THE BOOK CLUB PLAY, LEGACY OF LIGHT, MARIELA IN THE DESERT, THE SINS OF SOR JUANA, the adaptation of Julia Alvarez’s HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS, and the adaptation of Helen Thorpe’s nonfiction book on immigration JUST LIKE US. Her TYA musical s with composer Debbie Wicks la Puma include EINSTEIN IS A DUMMY, LOOKING FOR ROBERTO CLEMENTE, JANE OF THE JUNGLE, CINDERELLA EATS RICE AND BEANS, FERDINAND THE BULL, and FRIDA LIBRE. Her plays have been produced at The Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, The Goodman, Round House Theater, The Denver Center, Alliance Theater, Imagination Stage, GALA, Berkshire Theater Festival, South Coast Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, San Jose Rep, and more. Her awards include: 2010 Steinberg Citation-Best New Play, National Francesca Primus Prize, New Voices Award, National Latino Play Award, Finalist Susan Blackburn, Helen Hayes for Outstanding New Play. Karen is a playwright-in-residence at Arena Stage and teaches at Georgetown University. She is the founder of Young Playwrights’ Theater, an award winning theater company that teaches playwriting in local public schools. LAURA ZAM Laura Zam is an award-winning writer, performer, and educator. To date, she has created seven one-person plays, which she has performed Off-Broadway, internationally, and across the US. Her newest solo piece, Married Sex, was commissioned by Theater J and will have a workshop production there in September before being produced Off-Broadway (2013). Through her touring play Collaterally Damaged, Laura raises money for contemporary genocide survivors. Laura has published extensively, including plays, monologues, essays, and articles. Also an arts educator specializing in healing, she has worked with trauma survivors all over the world, including teens from the Middle East, wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and survivors of sexual abuse. Recently, she was invited to present at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. Drawing from this healing work, Laura helps artists overcome obstacles so they may make a living doing what they love. She has a B.A. in Theatre from Brooklyn College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Brown University. Laura has taught at Brown University, UC Berkeley and George Mason University, among others. For more information, visit www.LauraZam.com. A month or so ago, a wonderful friend, internationally acclaimed playwright, Christine Evans, moved to D.C. from Boston. If you don't already know her work, you should. She's here working as an assistant professor in the Theater and Performance Studies Program at Georgetown University and will be teaching Play Analysis and Real Things Onstage: Theaters of War and Witness. We first met in 2006 at the NoPassport Theatre Conference in New York. She's been a lovely presence in my life ever since. I'm thrilled that she's here and can hardly wait to experience the impact of her work in this community! Upon her arrival, she and I began speaking about Life as a Playwright in D.C. As beneficial as I think these conversations have been, my experience is just one perspective and doesn't come close to answering the question in a larger sense. So, I reached out to several women playwrights in the area and asked them to share their experiences here. I'm focusing on women playwrights, because we need to be heralded, championed and showcased as much and as often as possible. Interestingly, these interviews became even more relevant and timely when I learned about Theater J's Women's Voices Project and was reminded that the number of plays written by women playwrights being produced in the D.C. area this season is still rather low. If you're interested, you can peruse the D.C. area Theater Directory and while you're at it, buy some tickets! While there’s certainly room to grow and areas to improve in terms of racial and gender parity, I can't help but dance, celebrate and rejoice in the fact that D.C. area audiences have a plethora of exciting, rich, diverse, and compelling theatre from which to choose this season! Now, the fact that the world premiere of my play, The Hampton Years, is one of the plays being produced this season is extraordinary! Folks, let’s face it, outside of my family, friends, colleagues, students, summer campers, mailman and a few folks at my gym, no one knows who I am! It’s wonderful that Theater J believed enough in me, my voice and vision, and this play to produce it. Huzzah! Of course, it’s my hope that next season--and in the many seasons to come--we’ll see the number of plays written by women, playwrights of color, and local playwrights being produced on the D.C. area stages not only increase, but sky rocket through the roof! And here’s the thing, while it may take longer to shift the pendulum than we'd like, I believe it will happen. I believe it, because there are so many smart, savvy, and determined theatre artists, audiences, patrons, critics, and institutions who are invested in making it happen. It will get better! In the meantime, I'm just going to keep writing plays and plugging away at this blog! Alright, in my next post, you'll meet the amazing, brilliant, talented, funny, and prolific Women Playwrights of D.C. being featured in this series. I'm so excited! So, stay tuned! |
My BlogI'm a playwright, dramaturg, and teaching artist. It is here where you'll find my queries and musings on life, theater and the world. My posts advocate for diversity, inclusion, and equity in the American Theatre and updates on my own work. Please enjoy!
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