Archive For

“Mask”Madness!

August 29, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Madness · News

The next madness of the school year will be produced by second year playwright, Natasha Smith! Her prompt is “Mask” Madness!

Show is Friday, September 2nd, 11pm, in 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.

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

More about Natasha:

Natasha Smith’s play Catapult was a semi-finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and received a staged reading with Arizona Theatre Company in 2014, where she served as the Artistic Intern for two years. She has also worked with Horizon Theatre and the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Natasha’s play In Her Place was produced at Amherst College, where she studied Theater/Dance and English, and won the Denis Johnston Playwriting Award from Smith College. She has taught creative writing in the US and in Kenya, and is a three-time recipient of the Roland Wood Fellowship from Amherst College. www.natashawrites.com

Summer Camp Madness coming this Friday!

August 22, 2016
by catherineforever666
· News

The first madness of the school year will be produced by third year playwright, Catherine Weingarten! Her prompt is “Summer Camp”! Since the summer is ending, Catherine wanted the playwrights to reflect on what summer camp symbolizes and why its such a sexy, fun topic for stories!

Show is Friday, August 26th, 11pm, in 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.

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

More about Catherine:

Catherine Weingarten hails from Ardmore, PA also known as the area that inspired the preppy sexy TV show “Pretty Little Liars” and is a NYC friendly playwright. Catherine’s comedic plays delve into the societal pressure placed on young women to be both impossibly good looking as well as ridiculously intellectual, humble, kind as can be but sexy. Her plays usually include some hot fantasy sequences which helps attract the common man into the theater! She graduated from Bennington College in Vermont where she studied playwriting with Sherry Kramer. Her 10 minute sex fantasy play “Pineapple Upside Down Cake” was a National Semi-Finalist at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Her full length playwriting credits include: staged reading of Are You Ready to get Pampered!? produced at the Dixon Place, Less Than Rent and Last Frontier Theater Conference Playlab series; staged reading of This Car Trip Suckss produced by Piper Theater Productions; and Karate Hottie produced by West of 10th in NYC. She is currently the playwright in residence for “Realize Your Beauty Inc” which promotes positive body image for kids by way of theater arts. Catherine is thrilled to pursue her MFA at OU and thankful for the awesome opportunity for baller mentorship. catherine-weingarten.squarespace.com

First Year Playwright Inna Tsyrlin interviewed by us!

August 5, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · News

Curious about who the incoming MFA playwrights are?? Well in this interview series we will get to learn a little bit about these awesome writers and their interests. Next up we have Inna Tsyrlin , who is from Australia! Read on to learn more about her and look out for one other interviews !! Check out Inna’s writing in Midnight Madness, coming to you in late August!

Read on below to learn more about her!:

What got you excited about OU? What specifically are you looking forward to about our playwriting program?

What was exciting to me about OU was the structure of the playwriting program. It is so heavily focused on production and working with other departments of the theatre faculty. I love collaborating with other writers, directors, actors. I think that is where the magic happens; when we are all working towards creating great pieces of theatre. I’m really looking forward to exploring and playing with unconventional ideas, concepts, and themes. I think the program will allow me to try writing plays that I may have not even known I had in me to write but given the space and influence, anything can happen.

What are some of your artistic influences?

I’m interested in absurdist theatre; really dispelling belief but reflecting a certain truth of our world, our existence. Thus, I’m interested in the works of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Edward Albee, and Anton Chekhov, who isn’t technically an absurdist playwright but his work certainly calls for it. But I’m also influenced by all art, music, film, literature, and despite sounding like a cliche, I’m influenced by life. There is so much wonderful creation out there, it would be naive to limit oneself to one style or medium. I believe in looking at art and ideas very broadly and selecting from a variety of influences to help shape my work. I try to search for specific elements for my writing, but I cast the net out as widely as I can.

If you could get locked in the closet with one celeb, who would it be and why?

I’m a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, so I wouldn’t mind getting locked in a closet with him. I’ve got a lot of questions to ask the man; he creates great characters in his films and gives them authentic and entertaining dialogue. I hear his work being quoted and referred to a lot around me because his style is distinct and his influences are broad. I’d pick his brain about that and brainstorm some ideas I have.

At this point in your playwriting work, what kind of stories and questions are you drawn to?

I’m drawn to stories where characters’ discover their truth and their individuality. I feel that we get distracted from the things we want and from what we are capable of. The world is a noisy place and we can find it difficult to find our place in it, so I’d like to explore those journeys that lead characters to a path of awareness and contentment. Additionally, I want to explore social and political questions that we are facing at the moment. Like many, I am concerned about the current racial, ideological and environmental tensions that have created pretty extreme divisions that I feel my work should respond to.

Tell us a fun fact about you!

I’m Aussie and when I first arrived to America and I kept telling people I have a pet kangaroo. No one batted an eyelid. I found it fun to play that up; it is fun to fall into your nation’s stereotypes, sometimes.

Read a Writing Sample of Inna’s Work!!

Two weeks notice

(Woman, late 20s/early 30s, sitting at a desk, typing on her computer, in a small apartment in East Village, New York City.)

WOMAN

Dear New York City. It is with sad regret that I formally provide my two weeks notice.

Sad regret…that’s bullshit, I don’t regret at all. In fact, I’m happy. I’m joyous. I’m sensationally ecstatic.

(clears throat) I’m grateful to the people who have provided valuable lessons that I’m going recall for some time to come. Thank you for letting me be a part of this…

Thank you? Thank you? No, fuck you! Fuck you New York City for running me into the gutter time and time again. Fuck you for the broken heart, broken knee, three broken iphones that smashed on the ground, slipping through my fingers only because you force me to run for the G train because it never comes. It just never comes.

And you know what New York City, New York City… overall, generally, for all intents and purposes, FUCK YOU!

But. But. (Pause) I did say, with sad regret. And regret it is. I regret that there’s an end. Even if it’s temporary and I’ll be back in ten years, or maybe in two… okay even if I’m back in six months. It is, after all, six months without you, New York.

More about Inna

Inna Tsyrlin has been writing and producing shorts and one acts in New York City including: “My Wife” for the HB Playwrights Foundation shorts series; “Happy Anniversary” and “I (heart Subway)” for Emerging Artists Theatre; and “Principal’s Office” for the Manhattan Repertory Theater. She has co-written/co-produced “Eggs”, short film, and reviews theater for StageBuddy.com

Laura Jacqmin featured in Victory Garden’s Ignition Festival!

August 3, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Chicago · News

Alumni Laura Jacqmin has a new play in Victory Garden’s New works Festival which runs this weekend, August 5th-7th in Chicago!! The website describes the Ignition festival: the Ignition Festival of New Plays is a national annual festival devoted to fostering a community of support for the development of outstanding new plays and nurturing relationships with emerging and established playwrights. All readings are free and open to the public.”

Laura’s new play is called “EOM(end of message)” and here is the blurb “When the milestone date on their new video game is suddenly moved up – the week before Thanksgiving – a ragtag team of game developers must camp out at the office for seven days straight, crunching to meet an impossible deadline.” Looks funn!!

Go check it out if your in Chicago!! Congrats Laura!

Go see the reading!

Saturday August 6th, Začek-McVay Theater | 7:30pm

The Cast:
Owais Ahmed
Jordan Brodess
Coby Goss
Casey Morris
Kelly O’Sullivan
Alec Silver

Theater Location

2433 North Lincoln Avenue | Chicago, IL 60614
Administration: 773.549.5788 | Tickets: 773.871.3000

More about Laura

Laura Jacqmin is a Chicago-based playwright, TV writer and video game writer, originally from Cleveland.

Plays: Residence (40th Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville); January Joiner (Long Wharf Theatre); Ski Dubai (Steppenwolf Theatre); A Third (Finborough Theatre London); Look, we are breathing (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble; Sundance Theatre Lab); Dental Society Midwinter Meeting (Williamstown Theatre Festival; Chicago Dramatists/At Play, 16th Street Theater); Ghost Bike (Buzz22 Chicago). Awards: Wasserstein Prize, two NEA Art Works Grants, ATHE-Kennedy Center David Mark Cohen Playwriting Award, two MacDowell Fellowships, Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Grant.

Television: “Grace and Frankie” (Netflix); “Lucky 7” (ABC). Video Games: “Minecraft: Story Mode” (Telltale Games). She received her BA from Yale University, and earned an MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University. Founding member, The Kilroys.

First year playwright Katherine Varga interviewed by us!

August 3, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · News

Curious about who the incoming MFA playwrights are?? Well in this interview series we will get to learn a little bit about these awesome writers and their interests. Next up we have Katherine Varga , a journalist as well as playwright! Read on to learn more about her and look out for one other interviews !! Check out Katherine’s writing in Midnight Madness, coming to you in late August!

1. What got you excited about OU? What specifically are you looking forward to about our playwriting program?

I’m super excited about Madness! Limitations help me be creative, so the idea of having a new prompt and deadline every week sounds incredibly fun. I’m also a nerd for structure, and love that the program balances its hands-on performance opportunities with a focus on theory.

2. What are some of your artistic influences?

I had to change the ending of my first full length play because it was too reminiscent of Arcadia, so I guess Tom Stoppard is an influence. I’m also pretty obsessed with Lauren Gunderson and Sarah Ruhl.

3. If you could get locked in the closet with one celeb, who would it be and why?

Lin-Manuel Miranda for many reasons, but mostly because he’s Lin-Manuel Miranda.

4. At this point in your playwriting work, what kind of stories and questions are you drawn to?

I tend to be drawn to larger-than-life situations that examine how people are influenced by everyday forces such as identity, community, and belief systems. Much of my writing so far has looked at the interplay between science and the humanities. I also have a lot of feelings about puppets.

5. Tell us a fun fact about you!

One summer I interned at the Scherer Library of Musical Theater, where I got to scrape mold off the original Broadway scripts of Man of La Mancha.

WRITING SAMPLE

Here’s a short monologue from her recent play World Without N:

PATRICIA

To make a painting you have to buy paint.

You have to buy paintbrushes.

You have to buy a canvas.

You have to buy a black tea and a butter croissant every time you’re there to paint, or else the barista will passive aggressively accuse you of loitering.

In then end you have a painting you didn’t have before.

Something only you could have created.

The baristas like you, so they put your artwork on display. And I have learned— you buy all these commodities, and the ultimate thing you get out of it isn’t a thing you can own or consume.

It’s a moment, the look on someone’s face when they see your art on the wall and are clearly thinking, ‘Who the fuck took time out of their precious life to burden the rest of us with this piece of shit?’”

Read more about Katherine!

Katherine Varga is a freelance writer and playwright originally from New Britain, CT. She recently received her B.A. English from the University of Rochester, where she was awarded a Take Five scholarship to study urbanization and the arts. Her plays have been developed at Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, New York and Curious Theatre in Denver, Colorado, and read at the 2015 First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival.

First year playwright Trip interviewed by us!

August 1, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · News

Curious about who the incoming MFA playwrights are?? Well in this interview series we will get to learn a little bit about these awesome writers and their interests. First up we have Trip Venturella, a Boston friendly playwright who just put up a musical this summer called “Killer Maples.” Sounds fun to me!! Read on to learn more about him and look out for our two other interviews with the other writers!! Check out Tripp’s writing in Midnight Madness, coming to you in late August!

1. What got you excited about OU? What specifically are you looking forward to about our playwriting program?

I was excited to spend three years working on my craft. Taking time to write was why I wanted to do an MFA program in the first place. OU appealed to me because of the focus on play production: a play is a living document, a blueprint for a thing that speaks, moves, acts, and breathes in space. Without an awareness of how the form and structure of a play is related to its final “playing,” you will write a boring play! I am also interested in the flexibility of the curriculum, since a play requires not only a deep knowledge of drama, but also a deep knowledge of the play’s subject matter. So I am most excited about/looking forward to staging lots and lots of ideas, crafting exciting plays, living in an environment that encourages the open exchange of ideas, and collaborating with and learning from smart, talented people.

2. Who/what are some of your artistic influences?

There are many! I’m kind of like a food processor, but for art: I try to take ideas from a lot of sources. When it comes to live theatre, I really admire the work of Boston’s Matthew Woods, whose devised scripts with his company, imaginary beasts, consistently blow my mind. Boston-based Johnny Kuntz writes killer plays; the kind I wish I wrote (or aspire to write). Spaulding Grey and Mike Daisy are two of my favorite raconteurs and storytellers, and I am fascinated with dramatic storytelling as a tool for theatre. Bedlam, a company based out of New York, is also one of my favorites when it comes to imaginative interpretations of classic plays. I’ve spent nearly 3 years working at Apollinaire Theatre Company, whose director, Danielle Jacques, has great taste in plays, and who has introduced me to some of my favorite contemporary playwrights, including Young Jean Lee, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Aaron Posner. I also love Neil Simon, Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, David Ives, and the amazing plays of Paula Vogel. Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, and Lin Manuel Miranda are all incredible storytellers when it comes to musicals. I also love poets, with Anne Caron, Ann Sexton, W.S. Merwin, and Robert Lowell being some of my favorite “greats,” and Mark Bibbins, Natalie Diaz, and Naomi Shaib Nye as some of my favorite modern poets.

3. If you could get locked in the closet with one celeb, who would it be and why?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson. If I’m to spend 7 Minutes In Heaven, I want to spend it with someone who knows his way around. Aaaayoooo!

4. At this point in your playwriting work, what kind of stories and questions are you drawn to?

I’m interested in taking low theatrical forms and using them to tell high stories. I’m also interested in using absurdist storytelling elements in otherwise-believable situations. I also like writing about events in the past that reflect or comment on our present moment. Fortunately, we’re living in absurd times. I have been thinking about that a lot in my writing. I am particularly interested, in this moment, in writing a biographical play. One question I’ve been mulling over: how does a democracy become a dictatorship? I also have a bunch of other ideas puttering around, but I feel like my next big play is going to be biographical, and address this question.

5. Tell us a fun fact about you!

For one summer, due to poor planning on my part, I lived at home and worked as a traveling olive oil salesman. Because my parents live in a fairly rural area of Connecticut, I went to a lot of farmers markets frequented by the New York weekender crowd. At one of these markets, I was approached an exceptionally pretty lady and her mother. Definitely weekenders, I thought. They picked out the cheapest bottle of olive oil I had. I tried to upsell them and and they demurred, but I still made the sale. Once they had left, the lady working next to me informed me that I had just sold a bottle of olive oil to Natalie Portman. She could have afforded a more expensive bottle.

Now that you are obsessed with Trip, read some of his work!!

WRITING SAMPLE:

[The door swings open to reveal the inside of the sugar shack. A spigot drips slowly into a tank of sap. In the center of the shack, connected to a mound of knotted roots, is MIKE, still in a tux but now with a flannel shirt thrown over this shoulders, with a drink.]

SUE
Mike!

MIKE
Sue
My dear sister

SUE
What’s happened?

MIKE
I am become a name, Sue!
The trees spoke, and I was the only one to hear their call
I have drunk the glory and the wisdom of the woods

SUE
Mike, you, you’ve—

MIKE
Transforméd?
Yes, but entirely by my own will
Gone mad?
Yes, Sue, I have gone mad, quite mad, suuuuuper-villain mad
It began weeks ago, when I discovered the anger latent in the forests
I discovered ways to make the trees move, to make them kill, to follow the bugs and find prey
I listened to their whispers, but the more I spoke to them, the more I realized it was only a matter of time until I joined them, and now behold the grove and I transforméd, evolvéd, creating a new nature
my end is not to annihilate humans,
it is to transform them from the greedy, destructive killers that they are;
to convert greedy hands to nuuuuuuutrient-seeking roots!
I have shaped, in this grove, a new ecology, where the needs of man and the needs of nature to flourish are no longer at odds
I am the first to take the step, and so the rest of humanity shall follow

REG
He’s not speaking
Sue, your brother is dead
Those are the trees speaking, he’s their puppet

MIKE
He may be right, he may be wrong
Regardless, this fool will be killed!

[REG is entangled in roots]

REG
Ack! I am entangléd in roots!

SUE
Mike, let Reg go
This is between you and me
This is the home we built, and it’s for us alone to decide who will take it with them

MIKE
Hardly, this is between humans, and the rest of the world
I will remove your man
And Sue, you will join me!

REG
Don’t listen to him!
He’s nuts!
He just confessed his madness

MIKE
I may be mad, but madness is reasonable in the face of a our enmeshed history, and fantastic future

More about Trip

Trip Venturella is a graduate of Colby College with a degree in Religious Studies. He has worked with Colby College’s Theater and Dance Department, the human rights group ANHAD: Kashmir, Delhi University in New Delhi, Floating Space Theatre Company in Sri Lanka, and many, many groups in the Boston area. He has done field work on Chams Dance in Sikkim and studied Chhau Dance in Delhi. He currently serves as the Development and Outreach Director of Apollinaire Theatre Company in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where he has overseen the conception of, fundraising for, and buildout of the Riseman Family Theatre and the Chelsea Blackbox Theatre, as well as the production of three years of Apollinaire in the Park: a free, outdoor, bilingual summer theatre production. His original musical “Killer Maples: The Musical!,” a collaboration with the composer Andres Ramos, was produced by Yelling Man Theatre in June of 2016.

Two exciting summer projects by alums!

August 1, 2016
by catherineforever666
· alumni · News · podcast

Both Chanel Glover and Jacquelyn Reingold are up to awesome things this summer! Jacqueline has a new TV show on CBS called “BrainDead” and Chanel has a new podcast “Overqualified and Drunk” that’s now available on ITunes! Enjoy the rest of your summer with some OU flavor, download and record these things today!!

To download Chanel’s podcast click here

Description

Two Overqualified & Drunk black lesbians living in New York City talk spirituality, lesbian love (or nah), and the two things that bind them together, music and booze. Thirty-something year-old Chanel and twenty-something year-old Chloe (going on 50) discuss what ultimately makes them ‘overqualified’ and drunk. Disclaimer – this is raw, extremely jaded and uncut. If you want to tell us why you’re overqualified and drunk or just want to hit us up, you can reach us at: Twitter: @ODChanelChloe Instagram: @ODChanelChloe

More about “BrainDead”

BrainDead” is a comic-thriller set in the world of Washington, D.C. politics that follows Laurel, a young, fresh-faced Hill staffer who discovers two things: the government has stopped working, and bugs are eating the brains of Congress members and Hill staffers. The daughter of a Democratic political dynasty who left Washington, D.C. to become a documentary filmmaker, Laurel is pulled back into THE FAMILY business when her brother, Luke, the Democratic whip Senator from Maryland, needs her help running his Senate office. On the Hill, Laurel becomes unlikely friends with Gareth, the smart, hardworking Legislative Director to a top Republican, Senator Red Wheatus.