2010 Ohio University Seabury Quinn Jr. Playwrights’ Festival
Guest Mentors
Celise Kalke joined the staff of the Alliance Theatre in 2005 where she serves as the Director of New projects, managing Kendeda Graduate Playwright Competition, new play development and is production dramaturg. She was featured in American Theatre as a top 25 American Theatre leaders of the future in their 25th anniversary issue. She curated the Atlanta 365 days/plays project (the shared world premiere of the Suzan-Lori-Parks epic). From 2003-2005 she was Director of the Literary Department at the Public Theater (NYC) under George C. Wolfe where she handled commissions including f.m.c. by John Guare (being produced at Lincoln Center in 2010), Satellites by Diana Son and The Good Negro by Tracy Scott Wilson as well as producing the New Work Now reading series. She co-wrote the 2003 runner-up of the Manifesto Competition for The Neo-Romantic Manifesto and received an LMDA dramaturgy driven grant for the future manifesto about hyper-realism. She maintains artistic relationships with the Actor’s Express (Atlanta), Next Theater (Chicago) and Independent Art HERE (NYC).
Jeni Mahoney‘s plays including The Feast of the Flying Cow…and Other Stories of War, Mercy Falls, The Martyrdom of Washington Booth, Running in Circles Screaming, Come Rain or Come Shine, and Light have been variously presented at the National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Center, InterAct Theater (Philidelphia), Source Theater Festival (D.C.), L.A. Theater Center, MidWest New Play Festival (Chicago), Larks Theater’s Playwrights Week, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, NYU’s hotINK Festival, And Toto Too (Denver), Village Rep, and London’s Greenwich Playhouse among others. Published plays include: Come Rain or Come Shine in Best Short American Plays 2005-2006 (Applause); Throw of the Moon (written with Ben Sahl) and American Eyes in Plays and Playwrights 2001 (NYTE); Light in Great Short Plays: Volume 6 (Playscripts.com) and Best Short American Plays 2007-2008 (Applause) and Running in Circles Screaming in the recently released anthology Best Short American Plays 2006-2007 (Applause). Jeni is the Head of the Playwriting Program at New York University’s Playwrights Horizons Theater School/Tisch undergrad, a curator for the NYU’s hotINK Festival, Co-artistic Director of id Theater and the Founding Artistic Director of Seven Devils Playwrights Conference which has developed more than 80 new plays since 2001 and is featured in Michael Wright’s book Playwriting: At Work and Play (Heinemann). Jeni’s work in the arena of play development has been featured in Stage Directions Magazine, The Dramatists Magazine, The Dramatists Sourcebook and The Loop. Jeni is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and is a graduate of the School of Theater at Ohio University.
DENNIS ZACEK held the position of artistic director at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago for 30 years, and recently accepted the Actor’s Equity Association’s (AEA) Spirit Recognition Award. The Spirit Award is given to institutions that “have made non-traditional casting a way of life.” He also received the 2005 Jeff Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chicago Equity Theatre. He, his wife Marcelle McVay, and the theater are co-recipients of the 2001 Tony Award® for Outstanding Regional Theatre. He is also the recipient of the 2004 Artistic Leadership Award from the League of Chicago Theatres. Mr. Zacek and Ms. McVay received the 1999 Rosetta Lenoire Award from Actors’ Equity and the 1998 Sidney R. Yates Arts Advocacy Award from the Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation. He has directed more than 250 productions in his career, including, most recently, the Chicago premiere of Blackbird by David Harrower, the world premiere of Jeffrey Sweet’s Class Dismissed, James Sherman’s Relatively Close, the Midwest premiere of A Park in Our House by Nilo Cruz, the world premieres of Cynical Weathers by Douglas Post, Denmark by Charles Smith, the inaugural production at Victory Gardens’ new home at the Biograph, Symmetry by David Field, The Family Gold by Annie Reiner, Affluenza! and The Old Man’s Friend by James Sherman, Unspoken Prayers by Claudia Allen, The Action Against Sol Schumann and Flyovers by Jeffrey Sweet, and others. Additional projects include Marisha Chamberlain’s Scheherazade (National Winner of the FDG/CBS competition), John Olive’s Clara’s Play (production and direction award, Academy of TheaterArtists and Friends), and James Sherman’s Mr. 80% (direction award, Academy of Theater Artists and Friends). Mr. Zacek directed Arthur Cantor’s production of James Sherman’s Beau Jest at the Lambs Theater in New York, where it holds the record as the longest-running show in the history of the theater. Other New York credits include Lonnie Carter’s The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy, presented by Woody King’s New Federal Theater, and Charles Smith’s Jelly Belly, which was produced by the New Federal Theater. Mr. Zacek is a professor emeritus of Loyola University and was included in 2005 in Utne magazine’s first-ever list of “Artists Who Will Shake the World.”
MFA Featured Productions
THE MAGICIAN’S APPRENTICE
by Garret Schneider
May 19, 21, 27, and 29
Synopsis: Ruth’s mother is a scientist who finds her answer by setting a hypothesis, and letting her experiment run its course: working 60 hours a week. Her father is a magician who starts with a question, and leads his audience to his answer: touring 11 months out of the year. Ruth is a product of both, who struggles towards her answer while raising her younger sister alone.
OLYMPIC VILLAGE
by David Mitchell Robinson
May 20, 22, 26, 28
Synopsis: The 1996 Summer Olympics. Atlanta had been enjoying its place on the world stage until a pipe bomb ripped through all the fanfare and celebration. The lives of two cops, a Nike marketing strategist, a homeless man and a US sprinter converge in this mosaic of a city whose sense of self has come under attack. As each of them looks for a way to restore Atlanta’s sense of pride, they find that some things are more damaging to a city than terrorism. And sometimes those things are tied to the city’s highest ideals.
Readings
Thursday, May 27th
1:00PM Dirty Dishes by Leean Kim Torske
4:00PM Crayola Mobile Home by Sarah Bowden
8:00PM The Gratifications by Ryan Dowler
Friday, May 28th
2:00PM Midway by Ira Gammermann
4:00PM Light by Night by Cecilia Copeland
Saturday, May 29th
1:00PM The Prodigal Family by Andrew Black
4:00PM The Tulip Brothers by Jason Half
