August | 2015

“Weather Permitting” Madness coming this Friday!

The first madness of the fall semester will be produced by third year playwright, Tyler JC Whidden! His prompt is Weather Permitting Madness! Tyler has asked the playwrights to write plays that are set outside and look at how the inevitable affect characters pursuits of goals.

Show is August 28th, 11pm, in a special location, the Courtyard outside of the Hahne Black Box theater. Admission is free. We recommend you get there 45 to 60 minutes ahead of time to assure yourself a seat. Hope it doesn’t rain 😉

For more information about Madness the fall semester, check out our Madness page.

More about Tyler

Tyler Whidden was born and raised in Cleveland, OH where he grew up the least-talented son of a hockey-first family. After earning his BFA in Playwriting at Ohio University, he began a tragic career as a stand-up comic based out of Seattle, WA. As a comedian, Tyler was labeled by critics and fans alike as, “hilarious,” “tragic,” and “probably stoned.” After years of toiling on the road, he moved to Chicago where he returned to theater, studying and working with Victory Gardens and the Neo-Futurists theaters among many others. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and worked as Director of Education with the great Ensemble Theatre of Cleveland. His play Dancing With N.E.D. has seen productions in New Jersey, Ohio, and Washington. His family-friendly farce, The Unofficial Almost True Campfire Tales of Put-in-Bay was commissioned by the Put-in-Bay Arts Council as part of their Bicentennial Celebration of the Battle of Lake Erie in the Summer of 2013 and his one-act play, Detour, was part of the “Truck Stop Plays” production in Chicago. He is currently an Instructor at Ohio University and at Southern New Hampshire University and lives in Athens, Ohio, with his beautiful wife, Angie — who is way out of his league — and their beautiful boy, Booker — who is Tyler’s intellectual equal.

Laura Jacqmin nominated for Jeff Award in Chicago!

Playwriting alum Laura Jacqmin’s play ” Look, we are breathing ” which was done at Rivendell Theater Ensemble the spring of 2015, has just been nominated for a Jeff award!! The Joseph Jefferson Awards (The Jeff Awards) are given annually by a volunteer non-profit committee to acknowledge excellence in theatre in the Chicago area. Founded in 1968, the awards are given in tribute to actor Joseph Jefferson.

From press release: “The list comprises 187 nominations in 36 categories, representing 34 theaters that opened productions between between August 1, 2014 and July 31, 2015. The 47th annual Equity Jeff Awards will be presented Monday, October 5 at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace.”

Here’s a brief synopsis of Laura’s play: “Those who die young are mourned for their lost potential. But what if Mike, a high school hockey player killed while driving drunk, never really showed much potential? In this searing world premiere, Chicago playwright Laura Jacqmin turns her unblinking eye on the grieving process, as three women in Mike’s life realize that in order to move on, they first have to confront some hard truths about themselves.

Congrats Laura and we hope you win!! You on fire, gurl!

More about Laura

Laura Jacqmin is a Chicago-based playwright and television writer, originally from Cleveland. She’s the winner of the Wasserstein Prize, two NEA Art Works Grants, the Kennedy Center David Mark Cohen Award, two MacDowell Fellowships, an Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, and has been a finalist for the Heideman Award, the Laurents/Hatcher Prize, the BBC International Playwriting Competition, and the Princess Grace Award. Her play Dental Society Midwinter Meeting was named one of New City Stage’s Top Five Plays of 2010, as well as TimeOut Chicago’s Honorable Mentions: Best Theater of 2010. Her television work includes the forthcoming series “Grace and Frankie” (Netflix) and “Lucky 7” (ABC). She received her BA from Yale University, and earned an MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University.

Plays include Ghost Bike (Buzz22 Chicago), Do-Gooder (16th Street Theater), January Joiner (Long Wharf Theatre), Ski Dubai (Steppenwolf Theatre), Look, We Are Breathing (Sundance Theater Lab), Two Lakes, Two Rivers (O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Royal Court Theatre’s International Residency), and Dental Society Midwinter Meeting (Chicago Dramatists/At Play, remounted 16th Street Theater and Theater on the Lake). Her short play Hero Dad premiered in the 2012 Humana Festival of New Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Her work has been produced and developed by Atlantic Theater Company, Old Vic New Voices, Roundabout Underground, Vineyard Theatre, LCT3, Ars Nova, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Second Stage Theatre, Contemporary American Theater Festival, The 24 Hour Plays Off-Broadway, and the inaugural NNPN University Playwrights Workshop at Stanford University, among others.

Ira Gammerman’s short play featured in Sam French OOB Fest in NYC this week!

Playwriting alum Ira Gammerman’s hilarious and dark short play “Billy Bitchass” will be apart of the 40th Annual Sam French OOB short play fest in NYC. This is a highly prestigious short play fest and out of thousands of scripts, only 30 were selected. The plays will be performed in NYC in front of an industry panel and the top plays will be published with Sam French. Ira’s play will be done this Wednesday, August 5th at 8pm at 13th street theater; it also features an Ohio MFA actress alum, Marissa Wolf!

Check it out of you’re in NY! Ira’s writing is way too funny to exist!

Click here for tickets

More about Ira

Ira Gamerman is an Award-Winning AustraliAmerican PodcastPlaywright. He creates sound and songs using affected electric mandolin and guitar with Anonymous In The Clouds, Battler, and Pronouns. His Dramatic work has been produced by The Kennedy Center, Collaboraction, Short & Sweet Sydney, Source Festival, and The Chicago New Media Summit. In 2006, City Paper voted Ira “Best Playwright Of Baltimore” and in 2009, he was nominated for a New York Innovative Theater Award for best short play. As a Podcaster, Ira writes for Radiotopia’s THE TRUTH (featured on This American Life) where his Collaborative Audio-Play “Biological Clock” won a 2013 Mark Time Award from the Fire Sign Theater for Best Science Fiction Audio Production of the Year. He also co-created and co-hosts DANGEROUSLY UNQUALIFIED: A PODCAST ABOUT LOVE with EST/Youngblood Alumni Playwright Ryan Dowler through BSD MEDIA. Internationally, Ira is Co-Creative Artistic Director of AUSTRALIAMERICAN THEATER CONGLOMORATE: EVERYTHING IS EVERYWHERE (2 Americans 2 Aussies 2 Gals 2 Dudes 2 Goys 2 Jews 2 Legit 2 Quit) with Jessica Bellamy, David Finnigan, and Siobhan O’loughlin. Ira holds a BA in Theater from Towson University, an MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University, and studied Devised theater at the (now defunct) Dartington College Of Art in the UK. As an educator, Ira has taught undergraduate theater at Ohio University and Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn in addition to playwright-mentoring Young Playwrights Festivals at Atlanta’s Horizon Theater and Baltimore’s Center Stage. As a journalist, Ira has been published by Consequence Of Sound, Eleven Magazine in St. Louis (even though he has never actually visited St. Louis), and HowlRound. He was also an extra in Season 3 of The Wire and has the screenshot to prove it if you don’t believe him.