JACQUELINE LAWTON: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you? 
TYLER MONROE:  Like most people, I came to theatre through acting-- and was primarily a performer for the better part of two decades.  As a child, I wanted to be a movie star, so my mother carted me to a community theater audition on the same night as my local Boys and Girls club basketball tryouts.  So while there were no shows that inspired me to pursue theater, I still owe an immense debt of gratitude to my mother for her support.  However... if I had gone the other way that night, I might be playing point guard for the Indiana Pacers right now....

JL: How long have you lived and worked as a dramaturg in Boston? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
TM:  I spent six years after undergrad working as a dramaturg and performer in Chicago before I decided to go back to school to get my MFA in dramaturgy.  I ultimately decided to attend the ART/MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University and moved out here for that.  I spent a significant portion of my time during graduate school familiarizing myself with the Boston theatre community and after I graduated decided to stay.  It was the small, though scrappy and self-possessed attitude that Boston theatre artists posessed that inspired me to stick around.  This was just a shade under three years ago.

JL: How do you define dramaturgy? Or explain it to people the work that you do?
TM:  I define the practice of dramaturgy as the laser-like focus on the conversation that occurs around theatre.  Sure, the research, analysis, and textual support are all parts of it... but to me:  It’s all about the discussion-- with artists, audiences, or with the play itself.  I feel as if my job is to provide as many “entry points” into the world of the play for the people involved as possible.

JL: What skills and traits do you feel a successful dramaturg should have to support the development of a new play or a production?
TM:  Above all, I think the ability to listen carefully to what a playwright is trying to say and asking questions to help them say this is of utmost importance.  In my opinion, a dramaturg’s job is to assist the playwright in writing the play he or she wants to write-- not to offer fixes or solutions or “you should’s...”.  So an inquisitive mind, a respect for the playwrights process, and a thick skin (because many times, your thoughts just aren’t going to be helpful to the playwright) are also important.

JL: Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts about working in Boston. Finish this sentence ...

• Boston audiences are ... eager.
  
• Boston actors, designers and directors are … tenacious.
  
• Boston playwrights are … flourishing.
  
• Boston critics are ... (abstain).
  

JL: How do you feel the Boston theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages?
TM:  For a city this size, I feel as if Boston does a fantastic job representing a multiplicity of voices on its stages-- especially at the fringe and mid-sized level.  I still think this city has a ways to go before achieving true parity, but with programs like the XX Playlab, and the various companies who are shifting their programming, Boston is on the right track.

JL: Tell us about the play you’re working on and what excites you about it.
TM:  Natalia Naman’s Old Ship of Zion [sorry, my computer wouldn’t allow italics] is a beautiful and sincere play that focuses on a church community  in the south during a time of both internal and external crisis for its various members.  What I love most about this play is Natalia’s wonderful faculty with language and the complete lack of irony in dealing with spirituality and the church.

JL: Why should audiences attend the XX Playlab Festival?
TM:  Three readings of three stellar new plays by three immensely talented Boston area writers-- and with a host of exciting discussions to boot?  Why shouldn’t audiences attend?

JACQUELINE LAWTON: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
ILANA M. BROWNSTEIN: I’ve always had a great love of story. I remember two incredibly visceral theatrical moments from my childhood. In the first, my parents took me to a storytelling event that I was, it turns out, much too young for. The storyteller was of some renown, and the place was packed. He told a scary folk tale about a forest monster and a starving woodsman, and I was so terrified I began screaming. The guy stopped the event and asked my parents if I was ok. We left before the story was over, which also upset me, since I wasn’t going to find out how it ended. The second event was when I was about 8. My mother was an English teacher at a private school, and took her class to see The Tempest at the Goodman’s old spaces; I tagged along. In this production, Ferdinand made his first entrance nude, and strapped to a wheel, after Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. As he was rolled onto stage, the audience was incredibly, respectfully quiet. I, however, felt it was necessary for me lean over and inform my mother, very much too loudly, that this dude had no clothes on. So, the two earliest theatrical memories I have are essentially about me making a scene and disrupting the story. Maybe my life as a dramaturg, one utterly dedicated to story, has been some sort of atonement for that.

JL: How long have you lived and worked as a dramaturg in Boston? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
IMB: I’ve been in Boston over 10 years now, and came here to be the Huntington’s Literary Manager and new play person. I never thought I’d stay, but Boston grew on me, and now it’s completely home. In 2003 I was wrestling with what it meant for a regional theatre to be truly regional – it was a path of inquiry that led me to create new pathways for local playwrights to intersect with the company. At that time, there were numerous Boston playwrights, but not much of a coherent community of writers. It’s a much different place these days. One of the things that has kept me here is my deep love of and commitment to the Boston theatre ecology, and to celebrating Boston playwrights here and abroad.

JL: How do you define dramaturgy? Or explain it to people the work that you do?
IMB: First, as you probably know, you ask 10 dramaturgs that question, you’ll get about 17 different answers. That said, here’s my basic definition, which I come back to over and over in my life. The dramaturg is the artist in the process whose job it is to uncover and present pathways into the world of the play for every imaginable constituency – be that the playwright, the characters, the staff of the theatre, the collaborators on the production, potential donors, audiences, or community stakeholders.

JL: What skills and traits do you feel a successful dramaturg should have to support the development of a new play or a production?
IMB: Grace, patience, persistence, being a close reader, great note-taking skills, even better human communication skills, empathy, and that peculiar brand of double vision that allows you to know the play intimately while cultivating the stance of the naïve observer. Also, it doesn’t hurt if you can provide snacks every once in a while. Or bourbon.

JL: Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts about working in Boston. Finish this sentence...

• Boston audiences are ... segmented. Also, more diverse than people suspect.
  
• Boston actors, designers and directors are … hustling like no tomorrow, and making great work for little pay.
  
• Boston playwrights are … diverse and passionate, supportive of one another, and on the cusp of national recognition as a community.
  
• Boston critics are ... few, and function largely without the security and support of serious publications that care about the cultural value of a dynamic critical discourse. 
  

JL: How do you feel the Boston theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages?
IMB: I don’t think we’ve successfully addressed it yet as a whole, but there are a number of important initiatives underway that will begin to tell us, in terms of actual data points, who does and doesn’t access the theatre in this town, and why. StageSource and The Center for Theater Commons are both investing significant efforts on this front. My personal frustrations with these questions were a large part of why I came on board with Company One. It’s a place where we have these conversations constantly, and the questions of whose stories are (or aren’t) on Boston stages are formative for us in season planning. I would love to see more Boston playwrights actively take on these questions – there’s a hunger for local work that presents the multiethnic real world, rather than the “the bizarre, artificial world of all intact white people,” as Charles Mee so aptly puts it.

JL: Tell us about the play you’re working on and what excites you about it.
IMB: I’m working on both Splendor Lit Beneath Their Bones by Kirsten Greenidge, and Smart People by Lydia Diamond. Ah, these two plays, they are my heart. I have long-time collaborations with both playwrights, who are also teaching colleagues of mine, and dear friends. I love that I know their whole bodies of work; that these plays are in dialogue with plays in their back catalogues. I love that both are deeply local, and, I think, achieve universality through their specificity. Both playwrights have long relationships with Company One, and it feels extremely appropriate that they’d bring these scripts back to our artistic home.

JL: Why should audiences attend the XX Playlab Festival?
IMB: I have always believed in the power of demystifying the creation process. Plays do not (or at least, very rarely) arrive in the world fully formed and completed. They are living, breathing organisms that need the oxygen of actors and the light of an audience to come into their own. I think developmental play readings are exciting. You not only get to be in the room as the playwright does her work, but you are in dialogue with it. The act of being present changes the script, lets it find its legs. The XX PlayLab Festival allows audiences to get in on the ground floor with plays that are on their way to production, to be in conversation with the writers, and to see two incredibly hot roundtable conversations with leading artists and thinkers. Why wouldn’t you want to be there?

JACQUELINE LAWTON: What was the first play that you ever directed? What did you learn from that experience that remains with you today? 
SUMMER L. WILLIAMS: My first professional show was JESUS HOPPED THE 'A' TRAIN. I loved and feared the thing at the same time because I thought I had to know all of the answers, had to have solved the puzzles of the play before we'd begun. I quickly learned that was totally wrong.

JL: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
SLW: I fell in love with theatre when I was 15. I went to a summer program at Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia and the late Wesley Montgomery was my instructor. He was fascinating, and spoke with such passion--I was awestruck. One day he pulled me aside and gave me a copy of SPELL #7 by Ntozake Shange. It was the first time I saw a real place for me in theatre. 

JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your work as a director?
SLW: I teach theatre and direct at Brookline High. No idea how I balance it but my work at the high school offers me opportunities to flex different muscles. 

JL: Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts about working in Boston. Finish this sentence...

• Boston audiences are ...hungry for edgy, thought-provoking, work although they often realize it late in the game. 
  
• Boston actors, designers and directors are …generous collaborators.
  
• Boston playwrights are …bursting all over the national landscape!
  
• Boston critics are ...fighting for a platform and finding their own mediums. 
  

JL: How do you feel the Boston theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages?
SLW: As a co-founder of Company One, I feel we are constantly investigating race and class. We are dedicated to creating opportunities for challenging dialogue with artists and audiences. IMHO, it feels as if the theatre community is hasn't fully entered the conversation especially as it pertains to audience development and institution infrastructure. In some ways I think as a black, female I benefit but that can be limiting.

JL: Tell us about the play you’re working on and what excites you about it
SLW: Lydia has created what I would consider her most daring, scathing play to date. It speaks about race and intellectualism in ways that I've never heard presented onstage--it's very exciting to work on something so brilliant and so dangerous particularly for Boston.

JL: Why should audiences attend the XX Playlab Festival?
SLW: The festival offers direct access to new plays by female playwrights with distinct voices and who are unafraid to challenge audiences.  The conversations surrounding this thing are going to be extraordinary.

JL: What advice do you have for up-and-coming directors?
SLW: Direct whatever you can get your hands on and be determined to make your own way.  As an up-and-coming director, I try to stay focused in that way.

JL: What's next for you as a director? Where can we keep up with your work?
SLW: I’m currently directing Lynn Nottage’s BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK at Lyric Stage Company and this summer I’ll be directing Idris Goodwin’s HOW WE GOT ON at Company One. 

JACQUELINE LAWTON: What was the first play that you ever directed? What did you learn from that experience that remains with you today? 
MEGAN SANDBERG-ZAKIAN: The first plays I ever directed were epic holiday pageants in the living room. I learned that when your little cousin gets stage fright and you have to call in your dad as an understudy, you may be surprised at how much more effective the replacement casting is. It turns out that dad wearing a scarf over his head and talking in a high voice is always a hit. Seriously, though - as the great Erik Ehn says, theater is hospitality. I always try to carry something of that living room feeling with me.

JL: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
MSZ: In fourth grade I was home sick from school and started to watch a movie called “The Dollmaker.” In the first ten minutes, a little deaf girl is playing on the train tracks, is hit by a train, and dies. I cried my eyes out. And I thought, “I want to make people feel as much as I feel right now.” It sounds terrible, but I think that was the initial impulse. Hopefully now it’s moved beyond wanting to make people cry! To this day I haven’t seen the rest of that movie.

JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your work as a director?
MSZ: I’ve been extremely fortunate have a series of producorial jobs at arts organizations I love, from The 52nd Street Project youth theater in NYC, to the Black Rep in Providence, RI, and now Underground Railway Theater in Cambridge, MA. I’m just as passionate about nurturing institutions as I am about nurturing plays, so it has worked out really well so far.

JL: Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts about working in Boston. Finish this sentence ...

• Boston audiences are curious, passionate, and really smart.
• Boston actors, designers and directors are the reason I want to make this my artistic home.
• Boston playwrights are ambitious, generous, and visible! I see playwrights everywhere here and I love it.
• Boston critics are... inconsistent, but always evolving.

JL: How do you feel the Boston theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages?
MSZ: I’ve only lived here for about a year, but I’ve been heartened by the dialogue that’s been taking place in our community during that time. In particular, there is a strong group of young female directors that works frequently on the large and mid-size stages in the greater Boston area, which I find very encouraging. Non-white directors and, in particular, designers, are less well represented - but there has been some good movement around shifting these paradigms.

JL: Tell us about the play you’re working on and what excites you about it.
MSZ: Rehearsing Natalia’s play, Old Ship of Zion, is like sitting around on a Sunday afternoon with your seven most fun friends, alternating between hilarious jokes and heartbreaking personal stories, breaking out into beautiful song every so often... I hope watching the play feels that way too. It’s a unique combination of accessible and poetic.

JL: Why should audiences attend the XX Playlab Festival?
MSZ: Natalia is definitely the next big thing. You’ll want to say “I saw her there first!” Plus, it’s free.

JL: What advice do you have for up-and-coming directors?
MSZ: Almost all the mid-career and established directors in the field I've met are open, generous, and responsive. People are busy, so sometimes you have to be persistent, but contact directors whose work you admire, tell them why, and begin to build collegial relationships. Sometimes those turn into mentorships or assistantships, but even just having a collegial conversation with a more established colleague can be transformative. 
 
JL: What's next for you as a director? Where can we keep up with your work?
MSZ: I’m one of the co-founders of a group called The Cabaret Series which is producing an evening of all-new music called “Homebrew” at Central Square Theater on March 11th; more info on that and other upcoming projects at www.cabaretseries.com. And I’m at megansz.com.  

JACQUELINE LAWTON: What was the first play that you ever directed? What did you learn from that experience that remains with you today? 
SHAWN LACOUNT: The first play that I directed was Tennessee Williams’ “Out Cry” or as it is sometimes known, “The Two Character Play.” I learned the value of starting a theatrical process with great writing and working with people who have generous hearts. I also learned that doing a dark, incestuous, psycho-drama during the holiday season is not nearly as marketable as it sounds.

JL: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
SL: I really never intended to get into theatre. Truthfully, I was embarrassed by my interest in it.  I broke my ankle trying out for the basketball team one year and my parents told me that I had to do something in school to socialize and keep me from causing trouble. My mother had been an actress and a theatre educator, so it was in the blood. Working on stage felt strangely natural. Throughout my artistic career I still have points when I ask myself if I really need to be doing this, is it the best way to engage and express?

JL: What kind of work do you do to pay the bills? How do you balance this work with your work as a director?
SL: In addition to being the Artistic Director at Company One, I also own a bed & breakfast. I like making my money outside of the theatre. It means that whatever project I choose to do, it better be worth my time and the time of everyone involved as artist or audience. It also means that I don’t have to take on projects that I don’t think are important. It’s incredibly liberating and I suggest it. I am a multi-tasker at heart, so running two or three businesses at once keeps me alert.

JL: Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts about working in Boston. Finish this sentence

• Boston audiences are ... not nearly young or diverse enough. But we are working on that over at Company One.  Boston’s audiences are smart and discerning. 
  
• Boston actors, designers and directors are … hungry, talented and educated. And they deserve to be hired by our larger institutions with more regularity.
  
• Boston playwrights are … some of the best in the country! Who else can claim Lydia Diamond, Kirsten Greenidge, Natalia Naman, Melinda Lopez and countless others?
  
• Boston critics are ... working hard against the rapid decline of traditional media. It ain’t pretty, I can tell you that. Young critics in Boston are hard to come by. Critics of color, even harder.
  

JL: How do you feel the Boston theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages?
SL: The Boston community feels like it is finally starting to address issues of race in a meaningful way. This is core to Company One’s mission. Stage Source seems to be trying to help us all address the issue as a community. Gender too, in some ways.  Some of the most powerful people working in the Boston theatre are women and Boston seems to produce more plays by female playwrights. Bottom line is, if we care about these things we have the power to change them.

JL: Tell us about the play you’re working on and what excites you about it.
SL: I have the great pleasure of working on Kirsten Greenidge’s new script titled Splendor Lit Beneath Their Bones.  In 2010 Company One commissioned 7 writers to write one act plays inspired by one of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, with a Company One twist.  We had wonderful writers and the production was called GRIMM. Kirsten was one of those writers and her play Thanksgiving was inspired by a fairytale called Clever Else.  Thanksgiving became the inspiration for Splendor as Kirsten began creating a full length play out of that one act. What is most exciting to me is that Company One has committed to producing Splendor on our mainstage next season, once it has been through the XX PlayLab development process this year. That means we will have spent a good three years developing this play, and that is kind of awesome!  It’s also a local story and I am a Boston boy. It is one of the many reasons that I love Kirsten’s work—she writes about people and circumstances I know.

JL: Why should audiences attend the XX Playlab Festival?
SL: The primary reason people should attend the festival is because of these exceptional playwrights. These writers are not only three of Boston’s best, but they are some of the strongest and most important playwrights in America today. Kirsten, who has been in residence with Company One since we first produced one of her plays in 2005, is an incredible writer who has work being produced across the country at major theaters. Off her recent Broadway run of Stick Fly, people will be able to get the first glimpse of Lydia Diamond’s brand new play Smart People.  And Natalia Naman, who may be the newest voice among the three, is continuing to get residencies and commissions around the country as well! Her play The Old Ship of Zion is beautiful, funny and full of song. To hear these plays at this stage, with dynamic playwright  discussions and panelists (and all for free!!) is a gift!

JL: What advice do you have for up-and-coming directors?
SL: My best advice to up-and-coming directors is to direct. If you are one of the lucky ones to be hired and/ or paid to direct, then good for you! For everyone else, you will only truly grow by directing. There is only so far observing, assisting and reading can take you. If you are inspired to make theatre, then you need to find a way to do that. And if you get to direct on your own terms for whatever reason, please think about the work you are putting into the world. Are the stories you are choosing to tell forwarding us as a society, a community, a people? Know your point of view as an artist, it will set you apart from the rest.

JL: What's next for you as a director? Where can we keep up with your work?
SL: After the XX PlayLab readings in March, I will begin work on the mainstage production of Kirsten Greenidge’s Splendor Lit Beneath Their Bones for Company One in the fall. At Company One in April we have Qui Nguen’s bad-ass play She Kills Monsters, which you do not want to miss! You can check out all of the incredible plays we produce at companyone.org. You can follow the company on facebook or me on twitter, if you are in to that sort of thing.

Jacqueline Lawton: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
Natalia Naman: I have always had a penchant for engaging an audience.  As a toddler, this manifested in my banging piano keys and turning around for applause from doting parents and grands every fifteen seconds.  Regional theater summer acting camp as a pre-teen drew me into the mystery and craft of theater-making and the formal playwriting bug bit hard in college.

JL: Next, tell me a little bit about your writing process. Do you have any writing rituals? Do you write in the same place or in different places?
NN: Sadly the only ritual I have seems to involve caffeine and calories.  But seriously, I let the process dictate the ritual.  Sometimes I need to be drowned in an aural soundscape that reflects the world of the play or the mood of the scene.  Sometimes I need to sit in a library or coffeeshop with others working around me, but others I need to be alone at home and able to speak lines aloud to really understand what I’m doing.  Sometimes I need to do some research, watch a documentary, or read articles about what I’m addressing in the piece before I feel equipped to dive into a scene.  Inevitably, coffee and baked goods make recurring appearances.

JL: Describe for me all the sensations you had the first time you had one of your plays produced and you sat in the audience while it was performed...what was different about the characters you created? How much input did you have in the directing of that work?
NN: The first play I had produced was a short play called CROSSING OVER.  I was out of town for most of the process, as I was still at Princeton in school and it was produced at Manhattan Theatre Source as part of their Estrogenius Festival.  I was a part of the casting process and basically just came back to see the show.  It was very different than my current, extremely involved experience working on my play LAWNPEOPLE at the Cherry Lane Mentor Project.  Still, I completely loved that experience.  Seeing the play come to life felt clearly like the point of it all.  The audience was the missing character.  That was what made it fundamentally different than what I created, a mere literary blueprint.

JL: What do you hope to convey in the plays that you create--what are they about? What sorts of people, situation, circumstances, do you like to write about?
NN: I like to write about the underrepresented or too often two-dimensionally represented human experience.  Often that means I like to write about minority communities.  I hope to connect seemingly unrelated perspectives when I write.  When you cut through the layers of culture, society, religion, race, and class, there are some very human experiences that any living person can identify with.  One of my hopes when I write is to honor,  respect, and accurately represent these complex layers while still peeling back to show the humanity of my characters.  I want to ask the audience to see themselves in characters they think they don’t recognize.  Bridging gaps in the human connection is the ultimate success, but getting audience members to reconsider how they relate to others in their communities is what I think is the more attainable goal.

JL: Tell us about your play and what inspired you to write it.
NN: The OLD SHIP OF ZION is about a small community of Black church-goers in Columbus, Georgia-- my hometown-- that are facing the potential closing of their church due to dwindling membership.  They are people of faith, but that does not make them impervious to the highs and lows of living.  They realize that as important as God is in their lives, the love and support of community is equally crucial to a blessed existence.  I was inspired by the Black church experience that I came to know and love growing up in Columbus.  The music, the history, the love, the contradictions, the pride and the insecurities all fascinated me and I was interested in exploring the ways in which faith and the black church can both serve and dis-serve its members.

JL: What do you want audiences to think about after experiencing your play?
NN: I’d love it if they thought about faith and religion: where and how it works and where and how it can come up short.  And I hope they consider the power of community and human connection in transforming one’s life for the better. 

JL: Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts about working in Boston. Finish this sentence

• Boston audiences are eager, gracious, and more diverse than I would have expected. 
  
• Boston actors, designers and directors are smart and innovative.  
  
• Boston playwrights are a force to be reckoned with!  
  
• Boston critics are not really on my radar.
  

JL: How do you feel the Boston theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages?
NN: Well, programs like the XX Playlab are certainly encouraging when it comes to seeking to achieve gender parity.  As far as race and gender, I’m thrilled that the Playlab is serving three, local, Black female playwrights this year.   I think the issue of race and gender parity is a national one and Boston is not immune to this issue.  I appreciate that conversation and initiatives to address this issue are welcome and frequent in Boston and feel our city can really be a leader in the fight to see racial and gender equity in our field.

JL: What advice do you have for up-and-coming playwrights?
NN: Since you’re probably addicted to Facebook anyway, join the Boston & New England Playwrights group if you’re local.  Get involved-- send work in development to reading/development series looking to help you continue your writing process with a creative team.  See lots of shows.  Network and meet people.  Support other writers and theater artists’ careers.  These lines will cross soon enough.  Be literate-- read lots of plays.  If you can, join or form a writers’ group to keep you motivated and supported.  Don’t be afraid of workshop and feedback.  Love it!  Use it.  Ask the questions that will help you most.  Finally, I love the Dramatists Guild of America.  Join it.

JL: What’s next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work?
NN:  I’ll be closing a production of my play LAWNPEOPLE at the Cherry Lane the same weekend as this festival.  Wish you all could have seen it!   Up next on May 4th, come see Roots of Liberty: The Haitian Revolution and the American Civil War, a theatrical performance that I collaborated on as a writer organized by the Underground Railway Theater.  It explores the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the antislavery movement and the Civil War and will be held at Tremont Temple closing out a three-day symposium on the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.  Further out on the calendar, I’m working with the National Black Theatre in Harlem on a play about the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921.  It will be a very interesting project-- something between documentary and narrative theater, pursuing restorative justice-- that we plan to present in Harlem and in Tulsa next year.  I’m also expecting my first child, ohhhhhh, literally any day now.  :)  So being a mom is what’s next for me as a person and I’m thrilled about that.

JACQUELINE LAWTON: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
KIRSTEN GREENIDGE: I’ve always been what my family terms “theatrical”, so I used to do plays and musicals in my living room as a kid.  I would make my sisters and the neighbor kids be in the shows.  The name of our company was Fantasy Theater.  We did a lot of fantastical material, and one of my oldest friends in the world, Toby, was really in to the idea of using “shorts” within our pieces.  So I’d create, say, a piece about magic crystals and an epic journey and make my sister be some woodland animal in the middle of all that but to break it up, Toby would do a series of shorts about bumbling firemen or something.  Our tickets were affordable (sliding scale!  Five cents to twenty-five cents!  We were cutting edge and inclusive) and our demographic was our parents. 

My mom wanted me to do children’s theater here in Boston but I was too shy to do this crazy stuff in public, and was and always have been terrified of learning and remembering lines. It is a mental block and I’m fine with that.  I enjoy the work of writing much better.

I’ve thought of myself as a writer since I was about eight or nine, and even more so after about age eleven.  In high school I was really embarrassed I did not write good dialogue so I decided to write only that for two years and strengthen it for my fiction writing.  I really never went back.  (I am a-okay fine with that, too).

When I was twelve we had a field trip to see August Wilson’s JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE and that really was a huge turning point for me.  I wanted to be a playwright like that.  I had no idea women and particularly black women could BE playwrights.  Novelists, sure, but playwrights?  Now THAT changed when I read A RAISIN IN THE SUN my junior year of high school.  And here I am.

JL: Next, tell me a little bit about your writing process. Do you have any writing rituals? Do you write in the same place or in different places?
KG: Mmmm…I write well under lots of blankets in my bed.  But I think one huge myth about writers that has had to be adapted as playwrights live in modern times is that myth of “needing” things to write.  While I don’t travel as much as I used to for writing, most of my most intense work happens on the road, in hotel rooms or equity apartments:  I have had to train myself to get down to work no matter where I am.  I DO have certain things I need, and those have changed and probably will change as I continue writing. I used to love to write to music.  Now I find it really distracting.  I used to have to do tons of research, now, since I have kids and three days at the library could run me over three hundred dollars if I do not plan it when they’re in school, I’ve had to find other points of origin until my kids get older and are both in school full time.  

I have to write on a computer.  Something funky has gone on with my handwriting and while ten years ago it was quirkily hard to decipher, now it is just illegible 99.9 % of the time.  

I used to hate writing in coffee shops. I still don’t like it.  They are often too cold (why do hippie baristas love to open doors and windows ALL the time?), have music blaring, and precarious internet connections (I go on Facebook mid write often, then go back into the fray).  But, yep, since having kids, I do not have the luxury of being able to write in my home.  It is either too loud, or the caretaker lets them “find” me and I get interrupted, or I need to get myself out of the kiddie routine and into my own vacuum.   I also like to talk. So sitting next to many strangers often is just too difficult, and I find I want to be social, not write.  I’ve learned to work through that but it can be hard if a place is full of interesting people.

As one might be able to tell, I’m a bit ADD in my approach.  I think the only thing that kept my parents from seeking help for me and my attention span is that I can sit for hours doing one thing, and as an adult, that one thing is writing. When I was first living with my husband, who is not a playwright, he had not seen me write.  One afternoon, with a deadline looming, I sat to get my work done.  Afternoon turned to night and my husband lingered a few feet away.  I looked up and was like “WHAT!?”  “It’s that you haven’t moved in hours, except your fingers”.

If I can find my zone, I’m good.

JL: Describe for me all the sensations you had the first time you had one of your plays produced and you sat in the audience while it was performed...what was different about the characters you created? How much input did you have in the directing of that work?
KG: The first real play I saw of mine was in college. I won Wesleyan’s Playwright Advancement Award and I got a week or two of rehearsal and a staged reading and two public performances.  I was in absolute heaven.  The only downside was when an actor had told someone she did not like her part and I found out.  I was devastated.  However, the experience as a whole was just another thing that made me realize how special this craft is.  And that you do not have to act to be a part of it.  

I didn’t direct that piece.  I’m not sure if I would exclude directing from what I want to do.  I just know I have so much writing work to be done.  There are So. Many. Stories.   I can’t think of a discipline shift until I tackle more of this stuff.  And also, I enjoy the role of the writer in the room too much.

JL: What do you hope to convey in the plays that you create--what are they about? What sorts of people, situation, circumstances, do you like to write about?
KG: I like to write about the have nots.  The outsiders.  Most writers are outsiders in some way so I don’t think this is unique.  The Greeks loved “the other” in the theatrical gaze and we as a culture are no different. But I also write specifically about class and race and gender.  Can’t get me enough of those.  And as someone who went to private schools and lived in a solidly middle class town, yet was always somewhat on the outside of the inside, I think the subject never gets old for me.   Being black and a girl and at times really poor I’m really interested in the idea of America and how its realities exist within that idea. 

JL: Tell us about your play and what inspired you to write it.
KG: SPLENDOR was originally a commission for Company One which I called THANKSGIVING, and was presented as part of GRIMM, a collection of fairy tales that Company One produced in the summer of 2010.  I was inspired to write about my home—towns like old Arlington, Somerville, old Cambridge…. The term “townie” really relates to Charlestown, but in a generic sense it relates to the older versions of these towns where the Irish and Italians and some Protestants, and even “others” like the Greeks, the Armenians, the blacks, the Jews…all took on a very New England, very Boston sense of character—the accent, the hard knock philosophy—the people in my play are people I grew up with and people I love.  

When I lived in Iowa I was homesick a great deal.  At one point PBS was airing a documentary about the witness protection program and of course, the Boston people were in there because of their ties to Whitey Bulger. I used to sit on my couch and just listen to their accents and cry and be happy all at the same time.  In real life I am not sure these people would give me the time of day—racial things being as they sometimes are in Boston—but they felt like home, which complicated and a little wrong, and provocative in that it prodded me to ask myself why I feel these connections to a place where race and class are so entangled and entwined in a way we like to think only happens in the deep south.

JL: What do you want audiences to think about after experiencing your play?
KG: Oh, I have no idea.  I want them to have experienced deep empathy for the characters, and felt catharsis (at least a little bit), and be moved.  I want them to be thinking about this play on their rides home or two days later on the bus.  But I would not want to impose feelings on them.  Catharsis yes, but I don’t want to prescribe that experience.  It should mean different things to different people.  

JL: Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts about working in Boston. Finish this sentence ...

• Boston audiences are ...for the most part, thoughtful.  I’ve had very warm audience response for my work, as well as the unpleasant encounters all playwrights face, although it makes me sad to face them in “my own backyard”.  I’ve sat near audiences in Boston who could care less about the people I am presenting on stage, and that is disturbing.
  
• Boston actors, designers and directors are …talented and underpaid, like many others in the theater.
  
• Boston playwrights are …dedicated and hardworking.
  
• Boston critics are ...I don’t know enough critics to answer this.  I usually never read reviews-- mine or those of other writers, either.  I will after seeing a show, but usually never before.  The review is being written for a different reason than the play was written.  If I cared about reviews I would have stopped this crazy career years ago, when I encountered my first “bad” ones of my work.  I often remind myself people groaned at first at WEST SIDE STORY and it did not do that well critically at first.  I also remind myself critics saved GLASS MENAGERIE when audiences hated it.  And finally, I remind myself that you can’t retain that spirit of joy and hunger that you first feel when you do theater (see me, writhing in the floor in my magical epics thirty years ago) if you are very much concerned with how people are going to talk about it later. Further, I see everything though through that prism of race and class and gender.  I find black plays are either lauded and applauded, or really torn apart for dubious cultural reasons.  The play is either not black enough (read: black people mainstream audiences recognize) or too black (read: black people black people recognize).  The same with plays by women. And especially plays by new writers whatever they are.  
  

JL: How do you feel the Boston theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages?
KG:  Wesleyan and Iowa gave me a solid pedigree in terms of training.  When I left graduate school I had several literary managers whom I’d met at master classes and festivals in Iowa that respected my work, had gotten to know me a little, and could help me create relationships with them, their theaters, and other theaters, too.  I don’t know very many theaters with “coveted” mainstages that will do the work of a new writer or an unproduced play if they have not cultivated a relationship with the playwright in some sense.  So my training helped, as well as all the development programs I went to with my plays over the years.  Readings and workshops are very much part of the process, even when they don’t led, ultimately, to a production.  

I think much more can be done to support playwrights of color and women playwrights, in Boston and in the rest of the country.  And I feel this support needs to come in the form of support for production. You don’t learn your craft well by doing one night readings. You learn it by going through the process of mounting the thing.  And usually that involves a lot of failure, and that is expensive and not something you put on grant applications if you want to get one awarded to you.  

There are some amazing things happening in Boston right now.  ArtsEmerson and the presence of Howlround and the Theatre Commons; the big institutions like the Huntington and the A.R.T., as well as smaller powerhouses like Company One, not to mention places like Central Square Theater, Actor’s Shakespeare Project, New Rep…it’s a healthy list.  Much healthier than it was previously.  

However.  There is still much to be done.  There are still many voices that do not get heard or represented on our stages. 

JL: What advice do you have for up-and-coming playwrights?
KG: Keep writing and learning.  Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do this.  You can.  You will not always get praise or success or a living wage for what you do, but keep going.  Do not give up.  Giving up, becoming apathetic to the craft, is really the only kind of real failure in the theater.

JL: What’s next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work?
KG:  I have many commissions I need to finish.  So I’ve got a lot of writing to do.

Jacqueline Lawton: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
LYDIA R. DIAMOND: I was Singapore Sue in Dames at Sea in an 8th grade musical in Sparta, IL.  Already you can imagine how racially problematic that was on so many levels… And despite being cast as the iconic overly-sexualized Asian temptress (arguably prostitute), because I was the only “other” they had… I was in.  Strait up, this was the world for me…  I begged out of violin lessons, and from then on I was a theatre geek.

JL: Next, tell me a little bit about your writing process. Do you have any writing rituals? Do you write in the same place or in different places?
LRD:  I would describe my writing process as aggressively procrastinative.  When I do finally find my way to the work ethic I know is in there, just have to fight to get to, I am best writing in bed, or in a coffee shop, but it has to be exactly the right coffee shop with exactly the right table.  When I’m writing on a tight deadline, it’s at my desk in my office; it makes me really remember that I’m an adult with a job.  I imagine less, but write faster and more succinctly. 

JL: Describe for me all the sensations you had the first time you had one of your plays produced and you sat in the audience while it was performed...what was different about the characters you created? How much input did you have in the directing of that work?
LRD: Until I had my first not self-produced play (and that was its own kind of thrilling nervousness, mitigated though, by that I was usually acting in it, had produced it.  I didn’t have the balls or the humility to sit fully in the discomfort and awe of an opening night.  When I did have my first production, it was directed my dear friend Chuck Smith at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.  On opening night I didn’t breathe until the first laugh landed.  Problematic, as it wasn’t a comedy… but I didn’t know about Xanax then, and so I just didn’t breath.  And after that first laugh landed, and then people gasped, and cried, and laughed and cried… and the actors were so good, and the set was so beautiful and my husband was on my left holding my hand and my director was on my right holding my hand, I felt powerful, and awestruck, and profoundly happy, and scared totally out of my shit.

I’ve been lucky enough and have consciously tried to work with directors who honor the role of the playwright in a process and feel there to serve the vision of the play.  That is not to say that I want someone to roll over and do as I say.  I want to work with directors with a strong understanding of their own aesthetic values, the ability to talk about where they meet mine, a willingness to figure out how communication will work best for them in the room and out, and a willingness to challenge and prod and hear and back down sometimes and stand firm others.  I often think that second to my writing, my greatest skill is always trying to be open and generous and grateful and thoughtful in a rehearsal process.  I find that the more humble I really am, the more I care most about others, the easier it is to communicate my thoughts and concerns directly and honestly… and know when not to communicate them.  So, I had considerable input in the first play someone else directed, and learned good hard lessons about when I should maybe not have pushed my agendas too hard.  

JL: What do you hope to convey in the plays that you create--what are they about? What sorts of people, situation, circumstances, do you like to write about?
LRD:  I want first and foremost for audiences to feel satisfied… to have been entertained, be it through laughter and/or heartache or fear or grief.  (Though laughter feels very important to me even in the darkest of plays.)  I write about race and class and gender in America.  Our collective unwillingness to talk about these things, our denial, shame, anger, and angst fascinate me.  Whenever I am shocked or confounded or amused or hurt or feel marginalized or empowered, I think it belongs in a play.  Lately, I find myself writing less from a place of conviction, and more from a deep deep and kind of freighting questioning.  Perhaps because I came to playwriting as a young performer, and didn’t think of myself as a playwright for a long time, I felt no pressure and a sort of fearless, twenty-something year old passionate conviction that I really had things to say that people really had to hear so that the world would change.  Now I am not sure and have to work harder to earn a place for my words in my own creative process… I spend more time questioning and writing from a place of not knowing.  It’s frightening, but definitely feels like growth.

JL: Tell us about your play and what inspired you to write it.
LRD:  I began writing Smart People (always its title, even before Sara Jessica Parker was in a movie called that) before Obama had begun to run for president.  I wanted the challenge of taking on race head on.  It was scary then and it is scary now… because I’d never taken it on that directly.  The protagonist in this play is a white man who studies our perceptions of race through brain imaging and biological components.  I just wanted to know what would happen if I, a black woman said… O.K.  Here’s my race play… that’s right, not my play about a family deeply affected by race, or a historical person whose life realities had everything to do with race in our country, but actually say… O.K.  My thesis is straight up Race and what it means and how it fucks us up and how it is messy.  And it is about these wonderfully flawed, struggling, interesting characters and how they navigate through the world and with each other.  Also about hyper intellectualism and striving and wanting and privilege.

JL: What do you want audiences to think about after experiencing your play?
LRD:  I hope they are polarized about how they feel about it, each character the play itself.   My fantasy is that four friends who saw it and all liked it, find themselves arguing about what happened, what the character’s motivations were, who they liked and didn’t.  Second to that, I suppose I’d like a person who hated the play to have a knock down drag out argument with a friend of theirs who loved it.  Even better if they go to blows.  Then my work is done!

JL: Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts about working in Boston. Finish this sentence ...

• Boston audiences are ... different from one venue to the next.  Reserved, intelligent, and it took me a while to understand this (I was confusing reserved with disconnected), but so intellectually engaged and wanting to like the play.
  
• Boston actors, designers and directors are … the same as any I’ve worked with everywhere, most are hardworking and creative and collaborative, and often misunderstood, and I think undervalued sometimes.... I don’t know… I’ve been nothing but thrilled by the skill and dedication of the local theatre artists I’ve had the privilege of working with.
  
• Boston playwrights are … talented (well, you know, like everywhere, the talented ones are talented), hard working, generous and supportive of one another.  Having too few stages and writing despite that grim reality takes character and dedication, and I think Boston writers have an abundance of both.
  
• Boston critics are ... I don’t talk about critics.  (Though largely I have been treated well by Boston critics) you, know, critics are critics and the whole ecology around our profession and our relationship to our critics is deeply problematic I think.  But like everyone else, damned if I know how to, or even have the willingness to put my lively hood on the line, to speak loudly and selflessly to the power structure.  One day I hope.
  

JL: How do you feel the Boston theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to get your work produced on the main stages?
LRD:  I have seen so much progress in this arena. I acknowledge that I have had very close relationships with only a few companies in the city, and so of course, those would be the ones that also have a greater dedication to seeing a range of work produced.  That said, there is a disturbing reality all over the country in the institutional infrastructure and audience composition of theatres, especially the ones with the largest budgets, that shows a frightening lack of racial diversity.  I’ve appreciated Company One’s wonderfully diverse audiences… on any given night I see many different ethnicities, ages, genders, and sexual orientations (though that would be speculative – I’ve not actually asked anyone about their….anyway, you know what I mean.)  I still maintain that Company One seems to have done that more successfully and organically than any other companies I’ve had the pleasure of working with.  (Also, Mo’Olelo Theatre Co. in SanDiego is incredible at this.)  And, again, all that said with the acknowledgement that I’ve not ever been in hundreds of thousands of U.S. theatres.

JL: What advice do you have for up-and-coming playwrights?
LRD:  Write.  Don’t be defined or driven by any preconceived notion of “success” or outside affirmation.  Seriously, there just straight up isn’t enough to go around, unless we make it for ourselves, and don’t think we’re only successful if we’re being produced by someone with a swanky lobby.  See plays (I don’t see enough), see plays, be gracious and remember that everyone you’re collaborating with is breaking their backs on your behalf so be kind and generous, and work to know what your play wants to be, so that you can listen with an open ear and open heart to others who see it more clearly simply because they are not you.

JL: What’s next for you as a playwright? Where can we follow your work?
LRD:  I’m beginning to research a play about a West African woman who was raised in Queen Victoria’s Court.  It’s a long overdue commission for the Steppenwolf Theatre.  I have a production of Smart People coming up at the Huntington next season.  I’m taking my first tentative steps into the world of television writing (which strangely feels very much like playwriting, just with a really fun and challenging learning curve).  After that I will be writing a play about Toni Stone, the first Black woman who played baseball in the Negroe Leagues, it’s a collaboration with Martha Ackmann, who wrote her biography, the producer Samantha Barrie, and director Pam McKinnon.  Toni Stone is amazing.  I don’t have a website, and don’t facebook or tweet or anything.  But my husband does google me and most of whatever I’m doing, or whatever shows are being produced somewhere, pop up.  I’ve also just discovered that if I write full time, I write more… amazing.  So, I actually suspect that all of these projects will be coming to fruition sooner than later. 

After learning who else was taking part in Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) and Company One's XX PlayLab Festival, I knew I had to make it happen. Over the past few weeks, I've taken the opportunity to speak with the playwrights, directors, dramaturgs and panelists involved in this exciting nearly sold-out three-day the festival. I'll be sharing their interviews over the course of the next few days. For now, take a little time to get to know these amazing artists. 

LYDIA R. DIAMOND (Smart People)

Lydia R. Diamond’s plays include: Stick Fly (’10 Irne Award – Best Play, ’10 LA Critics Circle Awards, ’10 LA Garland Award – Playwriting, ’08 Susan S. Blackburn Finalist, ‘06 Black Theatre Alliance Award – Best Play), Voyeurs de Venus (’06 Joseph Jefferson Award – Best New Work, ‘06 BTAA – Best Writing), The Bluest Eye (’06 Black Arts Alliance Image Award – Best New Play, ‘08 American Alliance for Theatre and Education Distinguished Play Award), The Gift Horse (’05 Theadore Ward Prize, Kesselring Prize 2nd Place), Harriet Jacobs, Stage Black, and Lizzie Stranton (2008 Boston University Playwriting Initiative Commision). Theatres include: Arena Stage, Chicago Dramatists, Company One, Congo Square, Everyman Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Co., Jubilee Theatre, Kansas City Rep, L.A. Theatre Works, Long Wharf, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, McCarter Theatre Co., Mo’Olelo Theatre Co., MPAACT, New Vic, Playmakers Rep, Plowshares Theatre Co., Providence Black Rep, Steppenwolf, TrueColors, The Matrix, Underground Railway Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and The Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Lydia’s plays have been produced at Universities around the country including: Duke University, Howard University, Emerson College, Boston University, Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin, Columbia College Chicago, Spelman College, University of California – San Marcos, and University of Maryland. Lydia has been commissioned by: Steppenwolf, McCarter, Huntington, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville/Victory Gardens, Humana, Boston University, and The Roundabout. Stick Fly and Harriet Jacobs are published by NU Press, Bluest Eye, Gift Horse, Stage Black – Dramatic Publishing. Lydia was a 2007 TCG/NEA Playwright in Residence at Steppenwolf, an 06/07 Huntington Playwright Fellow, 2009 NEA/Arena Stage New Play Development Grant Finalist, is a TCG Executive Board Member, a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, an Honorary Doctorate of Arts Recipient from Pine Manor College, and a recent recipient of the Huntington Theatre’s 2011 Wimbley Award.

KIRSTEN GREENIDGE (Splendor Lit Beneath Their Bones) 

Kirsten Greenidge’s work shines a strong light on the intersection of race and class in America, and she enjoys the challenge of placing underrepresented voices on stage. In May 2012 Kirsten received an Obie for her play Milk Like Sugar which was first commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse and TheaterMasters, and then produced at La Jolla and then Playwright’s Horizons as a coproduction with Women’s Theater Project. Milk Like Sugar was also award a TCG Edgerton grant as well as a San Diego Critics Award. Boston audiences might be familiar with Kirsten’s latest play The Luck of the Irish, which was presented at the Huntington Theater Company in the spring of 2012 and enjoyed a warm reception and extended run. A former NEA/TCG playwright in residence at Woolly Mammoth, previous work includes several Boston Theater Marathon pieces, Bossa Nova (Yale Rep, 2010 and also an Edgerton New Play Award recipient), Thanksgiving in Company One’s Grimm (2010), Rust (The Magic Theater, 2007), 103 Within the Veil (Company One, 2005) and Sans Culottes in the Promised Land (Humana, 2004). She has enjoyed development experiences at Sundance, Sundance at UCross, the O’Neil, Pacific Playwrights Festival (South Coast Rep), and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Kirsten was the inaugural fellowship for Page 73’s playwrighting fellowship program. Current projects include commissions from CompanyOne, Yale Rep, Denver Center Theater, The Goodman, La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, and Emerson Stage, where she and director Melia Bensussen will adapt the Pulitzer Prize winning book Common Ground. Early in her career Kirsten was a recipient of the Lorraine Hansberry Award and the Mark David Cohen Award by the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival. She attended Wesleyan University and The Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa. She is an Assistant Professor of Theater at Boston University's Center for Fine Art as well as being a resident playwright at New Dramatists she is a member of Boston’s Rhombus writing group.

NATALIA NAMAN (XX playwright: The Old Ship of Zion)

Natalia Naman is a playwright living in Boston, MA. Her plays include THE OLD SHIP OF ZION, JESS & DJ: A BABY MAMA DRAMEDY, LAWNPEOPLE, DROUGHT, SO NOT FAIR and CROSSING OVER. Her work has been developed/performed at the Lark Play Development Center, NYU, Princeton University, HERE Arts Center, The Cherry Pit, New Georges, and Boston Playwrights' Theatre. She graduated from Princeton University with a BA in English and NYU Tisch with an MFA in Dramatic Writing.

SHAWN LACOUNT (Splendor Lit Beneath Their Bones) 

Shawn LaCount is a co-founder of Company One, a resident theatre company at the Boston Center for the Arts. Recent directorial credits include the Boston premieres of BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO by Rajiv Joseph; THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY by Kristoffer Diaz (IRNE Award nominee for Best Director and Best Production); Annie Baker's THE ALIENS (Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Production), the world premiere of GRIMM (IRNE Award nominee for Best New Play), the Boston premiere of THE OVERWHELMING by JT Rogers (Elliot Norton Award nominee for Outstanding Drama, Fringe); the Boston premiere of Haruki Murakami’s AFTER THE QUAKE (Elliot Norton Award nominee for Outstanding Drama, Fringe); Stephen Sondheim’s ASSASSINS (IRNE nomination for Best Director and Best Musical); the Boston premiere of Noah Haidle’s MR. MARMALADE (Elliot Norton Award nominee for Outstanding Director/Outstanding Drama); the Boston premiere of AFTER ASHLEY by Gina Gionfriddo; and Anthony Burgess’ A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (featuring original music by the Dresden Dolls). Local college directing credits include Adam Rapp's PARAFFIN and NURSING at Emerson Stage. Shawn holds an MA Ed in theatre Education from Clark University and an MFA in Directing from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has taught at the Boston Arts Academy, Huntington Theatre Company, Tufts University, Stage One and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

MEGAN SANDBERG-ZAKIAN (The Old Ship of Zion)

Megan Sandberg-Zakian is a current recipient of the Theater Communication Group (TCG) “Future Leaders” grant to spend two seasons at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA, working on a series of publically-engaged development and production projects. This January she will direct The Mountaintop for Underground Railway Theater (URT). Other recent directing projects include: The Brother Sister Plays at Company One (IRNE Award: Best Production; IRNE nominee: Best Director; Elliot Norton Nominee: Best Production), Lydia Diamond’s Harriet Jacobs at URT (Elliot Norton Nominee: Best New Play; IRNE Nominee: Best Ensemble, Best Actress) and the RI premiere of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Perishable Theatre/Trinity Repertory Company (Motif Awards: Best Production, Best Set Design, Best Actor). Megan has served as Associate Artistic Director of the Providence Black Repertory Company (RI) and The 52nd Street Project (NYC). She is a graduate of Brown University and holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. www.megansz.com 

SUMMER WILLIAMS (Smart People)

Summer L. Williams has been with Company One since its inception in 1998. An active member of the Board of Directors, Summer is a producer, director and educator for Company One. Her most recent directing credits include THE BROTHERS SIZE and MARCUS; OR THE SECRET OF SWEET as part of the THE BROTHER/SISTER PLAYS (2012 Elliot Norton Award nominated for Outstanding Production and winner of the 2012 IRNE Award for Best Play). Regional credits: NEIGHBORS, GRIMM, THE GOOD NEGRO, VOYEURS DE VENUS  (Winner of 2009 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director), THE BLUEST EYE (IRNE and Elliot Norton Award nominated), THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT, SPELL #7 (IRNE nominated), JESUS HOPPED THE A TRAIN (2004 Elliot Norton Award for Best Fringe Production) TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES 1992 (IRNE nominated). Ms. Williams has also directed for the Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Clark University, Brandeis University, The Theatre Offensive and Huntington Theatre Company.

ILANA BROWNSTEIN (Smart People and Splendor Lit Beneath Their Bones)

Ilana M. Brownstein is a Boston-based dramaturg & director specializing in new play development. She is Founding Dramaturg at Playwrights’ Commons (a playwright development organization), Director of New Work at Company One, and on faculty with BU’s School of Theatre. Formerly, she was Literary Manager at the Huntington, where she created the Huntington Playwriting Fellows and the Breaking Ground Festival, for which she won the Elliott Hayes Award for innovation in dramaturgy. She has ushered new plays to premiere on Boston stages,
regionally, and on Broadway. Last summer, she was the O'Neill Theatre Center's dramaturgy delegate for the first Stage Island Baltic/American Playwrights Conference in Estonia. She is an advocate for emerging playwrights and dramaturgs, and holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from Yale, and a BA in Directing from The College of
Wooster.  http://www.playwrightscommons.org

TYLER J. MONROE (The Old Ship of Zion)

Tyler J. Monroe is a playwright, dramaturg, and educator based in Boston.  He holds a BA in Theatre from Butler University and an MFA in Dramaturgy from the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.  He has worked as a dramaturg with Chicago theater companies About Face Theatre, Halcyon Theatre Company, and the Blank Line Collective.  In Boston, he has worked with, Company One, Fresh Ink Theatre, and the American Repertory Theatre.  His adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen received its world premier in 2011 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, and his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's work (Tales of Poe) was a part of New Repertory Theatre's New Rep on Tour series in Watertown, MA.  He is an Artistic Associate and Staff Dramaturg with Company One, and teaches Movement Arts and leads the drama club at the Edward Brooke Charter School in Boston.   

On Friday, March 22, I'm heading to Boston to take part in the XX PlayLab Festival! The lovely Ilana Brownstein invited Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zoe and me to participate in a round table discussion on race and gender that will be taking place on Sunday. More on that soon!

Now, for those who don't know, XX PlayLab is a program jointly presented by the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) and Company One, a BCA Resident Theatre Company, that supports, develops and propels the work of female playwrights. This season, the BCA and Company One invited three diverse, talented and dynamic women at various stages of their careers for a year-long program composed of in-house and public readings, dramaturgical support and artist mentorship, culminating in this weekend long festival. 

The festival will feature three powerful, compelling and exciting new plays by local Boston writers Natalia Naman, Kirsten Greenidge and Lydia R. Diamond. Their work represent a vibrant picture of the region's new play sector. 

The festival will also host two panel discussions on race and gender in the American theatre featuring leading scholars, playwrights, directors and dramaturgs from across the nation. 

All events are free and open to the public! RESERVE YOUR FREE TICKETS HERE! Follow BCA on Facebook for ongoing updates!

Reading of Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond
Friday, March 22nd | Reading at 8p |Calderwood Pavilion | Free
In a whirlwind of crackling dialogue and tricky questions, an actor, a doctor and a pair of academics navigate the complexities of race, class, friendship and the human brain.

The XX Playwright in Boston
Saturday, March 23rd | 10am | Calderwood Pavilion | Free
A conversation with Lydia R. Diamond, Kirsten Greenidge, Natalia Naman and Charles Haugland (Artistic Programs & Dramaturgy at the Huntington Theatre Company)
Panels will be broadcast on NewPlayTV!

The Old Ship of Zion by Natalia Naman, a reading
Saturday, March 23rd | 2pm | Calderwood Pavilion | Free
After a hundred years, the foundation of this old Georgian church is crumbling, inside and out. As the community prepares for what may be their final service, their faith is tested - is it too much to pray for a revival.

Splendor Lit Beneath Their Bones by Kirsten Greenidge, a reading
Saturday, March 23rd | 8pm | Calderwood Pavilion | Free
With her bank account on empty, itching for more than her small town can provide, Nicole confronts both the unfulfilled promises of her youth and the ramifications of how she and her friends treated the only black girl in their graduating class.

Where We Stand: Gender & Race in the New Play Sector
Sunday, March 24th | 12pm | Calderwood Pavilion | Free
A national conversation with industry professionals Anne Garcia-Romero, Hana Sharif, Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zoe Jacqueline Lawton and Lenelle Moïse.
Panels will be broadcast on NewPlayTV!