Press Release: Jacqueline E. Lawton Selected for Inaugural Playwrights' Arena Program
(Washington, D.C.) Six D.C.-area playwrights have been selected to participate in the inaugural Playwrights’ Arena as part of the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Playwrights’ Arena is a collaborative group of local writers dedicated to the support and development of each other’s work and practice. The yearlong program commences in January 2013, and the inaugural members include Norman Allen, Randy Baker, Jacqueline E. Lawton, Heather McDonald, Danielle Mohlman and Shawn Northrip.
"Arena’s focus on American voices extends beyond the mainstage,” comments Arena Stage Artistic Director Molly Smith. “The unique nature of this program is how it will bring writers together to support each other. We are proud to create a forum for collaboration, process and discovery, to connect these artists to each other as well as to another world of artists as only Arena can.”
“I’m thrilled to launch the Playwrights’ Arena and to work with these amazing D.C. playwrights,” shares Arena Stage Director of Artistic Programming and facilitator of Institute programs David Snider. “It is a great group of artists—and another great step in the development of the American Voices New Play Institute.”
“I'm proud and quite amazed to be part of the inaugural Playwrights’ Arena. Arena Stage was one of my first theater homes as an arts administrator and educator, so it’s wonderful to return as a playwright," remarks Playwright Jacqueline E. Lawton. "I feel fortunate to be able to spend a year dedicated to communing with such exceptionally talented and diverse playwrights, to working with everyone at Arena Stage and to discovering new depths and dimensions of my own writing.”
More than 30 applicants were considered for the program, which will include bimonthly three-hour meetings on a weeknight at the Mead Center to investigate each other’s work and develop their dramaturgical practice. They will meet regularly with the Institute’s resident playwrights and Arena Stage directors, designers and staff. At least twice during the year actors will read their work in private laboratory rehearsals, giving the playwrights a chance to hear their work and respond to it. The playwrights will be able to attend opening nights and special events and be supported as members of the Arena Stage artistic community.
Click here to read the rest of the press release and learn more about Playwrights' Arena.
For more information on the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage visit: arenastage.org/artistic-development/new-play-institute.
Support for the Kogod Cradle Series provided by: The Barbara R. Walton Endowment Fund for New Playwrights. Barbara R. Walton (1920-2003) was very active in the Washington theater community, serving as President of the Little Theatre of Alexandria and Secretary of the Board of Trustees at Arena Stage (Board member from 1957-65). In addition to directing community theater productions for the Montgomery Players and The Children's Theatre of Richmond, she wrote six full-length plays and numerous one-acts that were produced throughout the Capital region. Her most notable works include: Hallowe'en Time, The Wonderful Idababa, Lost, The Gin-Gin Trade and The Red Hat. Her musical, The Sing Ling Circus (book and lyrics), was presented on the Fichandler Stage by the Arena Stage repertory company in 1962 to wide audience and critical acclaim.
Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater is a national center dedicated to the production, presentation, development and study of American theater. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Molly Smith and Executive Director Edgar Dobie, Arena Stage is the largest company in the country dedicated to American plays and playwrights. Arena Stage produces huge plays of all that is passionate, exuberant, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit, and presents diverse and ground-breaking work from some of the best artists around the country. Arena Stage is committed to commissioning and developing new plays through the American Voices New Play Institute. Now in its seventh decade, Arena Stage serves a diverse annual audience of more than 300,000. arenastage.org
Follow Arena Stage on Twitter @arenastage or twitter.com/arenastage and mention the Kogod Cradle Series with #KogodCradleSeries. Find us on Facebook atfacebook.com/arenastage.
"Arena’s focus on American voices extends beyond the mainstage,” comments Arena Stage Artistic Director Molly Smith. “The unique nature of this program is how it will bring writers together to support each other. We are proud to create a forum for collaboration, process and discovery, to connect these artists to each other as well as to another world of artists as only Arena can.”
“I’m thrilled to launch the Playwrights’ Arena and to work with these amazing D.C. playwrights,” shares Arena Stage Director of Artistic Programming and facilitator of Institute programs David Snider. “It is a great group of artists—and another great step in the development of the American Voices New Play Institute.”
“I'm proud and quite amazed to be part of the inaugural Playwrights’ Arena. Arena Stage was one of my first theater homes as an arts administrator and educator, so it’s wonderful to return as a playwright," remarks Playwright Jacqueline E. Lawton. "I feel fortunate to be able to spend a year dedicated to communing with such exceptionally talented and diverse playwrights, to working with everyone at Arena Stage and to discovering new depths and dimensions of my own writing.”
More than 30 applicants were considered for the program, which will include bimonthly three-hour meetings on a weeknight at the Mead Center to investigate each other’s work and develop their dramaturgical practice. They will meet regularly with the Institute’s resident playwrights and Arena Stage directors, designers and staff. At least twice during the year actors will read their work in private laboratory rehearsals, giving the playwrights a chance to hear their work and respond to it. The playwrights will be able to attend opening nights and special events and be supported as members of the Arena Stage artistic community.
Click here to read the rest of the press release and learn more about Playwrights' Arena.
For more information on the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage visit: arenastage.org/artistic-development/new-play-institute.
Support for the Kogod Cradle Series provided by: The Barbara R. Walton Endowment Fund for New Playwrights. Barbara R. Walton (1920-2003) was very active in the Washington theater community, serving as President of the Little Theatre of Alexandria and Secretary of the Board of Trustees at Arena Stage (Board member from 1957-65). In addition to directing community theater productions for the Montgomery Players and The Children's Theatre of Richmond, she wrote six full-length plays and numerous one-acts that were produced throughout the Capital region. Her most notable works include: Hallowe'en Time, The Wonderful Idababa, Lost, The Gin-Gin Trade and The Red Hat. Her musical, The Sing Ling Circus (book and lyrics), was presented on the Fichandler Stage by the Arena Stage repertory company in 1962 to wide audience and critical acclaim.
Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater is a national center dedicated to the production, presentation, development and study of American theater. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Molly Smith and Executive Director Edgar Dobie, Arena Stage is the largest company in the country dedicated to American plays and playwrights. Arena Stage produces huge plays of all that is passionate, exuberant, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit, and presents diverse and ground-breaking work from some of the best artists around the country. Arena Stage is committed to commissioning and developing new plays through the American Voices New Play Institute. Now in its seventh decade, Arena Stage serves a diverse annual audience of more than 300,000. arenastage.org
Follow Arena Stage on Twitter @arenastage or twitter.com/arenastage and mention the Kogod Cradle Series with #KogodCradleSeries. Find us on Facebook atfacebook.com/arenastage.
JACQUELINE E. LAWTON - Playwright
Jacqueline E. Lawton received her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin (Hook 'em Horns!), where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. She participated in the Kennedy Center’s Playwrights’ Intensive (2002) and World Interplay (2003). She is the author of Anna K; Blood-bound and Tongue-tied; Deep Belly Beautiful; The Devil’s Sweet Water; The Hampton Years, Ira Aldridge: the African Roscius; Lions of Industry, Mothers of Invention; Love Brothers Serenade, Mad Breed and Our Man Beverly Snow. Lawton’s work has been developed and presented at the following venues: Active Cultures, Classical Theater of Harlem, Folger Shakespeare Library, theHegira, Howard University, Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival, Rorschach Theater Company, Savannah Black Heritage Festival (Armstrong Atlantic State University), Shakespeare Theatre Company, Source Theatre Festival, Theater J, and Woolly Mammoth Theater Company. She is published in Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project (University of Texas Press). Lawton is a 2012 TCG Nathan Cummings Young Leaders of Color award recipient. She has been nominated for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize and a PONY Fellowship from the Lark New Play Development Center. She was named one of 30 of the nation's leading black playwrights by Arena Stage’s American Voices New Play Institute. Since 2010, Lawton has served on Round House Theatre's Artists' Roundtable. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including two Young Artist Program Grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for Playwriting. She resides in Washington, D.C.