Awards | OHIO | Page 2

Alum Bianca Sams Finalist for Playwright Foundation “Bay Area Playwrights Festival.”

Bianca Sams (MFA ’14) was named a finalist at the Playwright Foundation “Bay Area Playwrights Festival” for her play BATTLE CRY. There were 20 finalists out of 500 submissions.

From their site: “The Bay Area Playwrights Festival supports the development of six full-length plays annually: five selected from our annual open submission process to reflect the outstanding quality, diversity, and daring for which the Festival is known, and the sixth play a Producing Partnership that offers developmental resources to a play advancing toward production.”

SYNOPSIS: BATTLE CRY is inspired by the life and travails of an unsung hero in the Black Civil Rights Movement named Claudette Colvin. At 15, Claudette refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus 9 months prior to Rosa Parks’ arrest. BATTLE CRY tells the personal story of a naïve but passionate 15-year-old girl whose impact on the world has been left out of history books. The play looks at issues of class, ethnicity, and behind the scenes politics in the fight for Civil Rights in America while also highlighting Claudette’s personal courage in the face of injustice.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY/AWARDS FOR BATTLE CRY:
Ohio University MFA Workshop (3x)
Seabury Quinn Festival of New Plays – Staged Reading
Tides Theater SF as part of DGA Footlights reading Series
Marrietta University Black History Month Event – Staged Reading

AWARD HISTORY
Kennedy Center ACTF – Lorraine Hansberry Award (2nd pl) and Rosa Parks Award (2nd pl)
ATHE – Jane Chambers Student Playwright Award (2nd pl)
The Playwright Foundation – Bay Area Playwright Festival (finalist)

Tyler Whidden (MFA ’16) Finalist in Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte Festival

July 1, 2014
by rpdolan
· Awards · Current Students · Festival · News

Tyler Whidden’s play, DANCING WITH NED, was named a finalist for the 3rd Annual nuVoices Festival at the Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte Festival. Tyler’s play was one of 13 chosen.

From ATCharlotte’s website: “Each play selected for the festival will get two script in hand staged readings, with assigned directors, dramaturgs, and actors. Each playwright selected will be brought to Charlotte and provided housing for the duration of the rehearsal process. They will be included in the entire week of rehearsals and will also receive $500 honorarium. The winning play will then be invited to have a full production mounted during Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte’s 2015-2016 season.”

OU Alum David Mitchell Robinson Picked for 2014 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference

OU MFA Alumnus - David Mitchell Robinson — 2010 OU MFA Alumnus – David Mitchell Robinson

The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center selected 2010 Ohio MFA Alumnus, David Mitchell Robinson’s play, THE IMAGINARY CRITIC WHO DOESN’T EXIST, for it its 2014 National Playwrights Conference.

Since it was established in 1965, the O’Neill “Playwrights Conference has developed more than 600 plays. During the Conference, playwrights live on the grounds of the O’Neill for a full month and each engages in a week-long process of rehearsals culminating in two script-in-hand public readings. Up to eight playwrights are selected for this intensive laboratory each summer. Conference playwrights represent a wide range of experience from those working on a first play to Broadway veterans; directors and actors have also worked on and off Broadway, in film, and in regional theaters, and represent emerging artists and seasoned professionals. Virtually every major American playwright has been part of the Conference, including Julia Cho, Rebecca Gilman, Regina Taylor, John Guare, Israel Horovitz, David Henry Hwang, David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp, Lanford Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein and August Wilson.”

THE IMAGINARY CRITIC WHO DOESN’T EXIST synopsis: Lacey runs what’s, like, probably the most influential music site on the internet – a site that can determine whether an act pops off or becomes an endnote in pop history. But when she uses the site’s clout to hype a gifted but controversial MC, it threatens to unravel everything she’s built. The Imaginary Music Critic Who Doesn’t Exist, a play with endnotes, is about aging out, authenticity, and what we’re willing to do to stay relevant.

Also see our earlier post about Robinson’s other spring projects.

MFA ’15 Neal Adelman: KCATCF National Finalist for Outstanding Short Play

Neal Adelman, second year MFA playwright, has been named a National Finalist of the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play for this year’s Kennedy Center American Theater College Festival. His play TARRANT COUNTY is one of three plays nominated.

The festival is April 14th through April 19th at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Started in 1969 by Roger L. Stevens, the Kennedy Center’s founding chairman, the Kennedy Center American College Theater (KCACTF) is a national theater program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide which has served as a catalyst in improving the quality of college theater in the United States. The KCACTF has grown into a network of more than 600 academic institutions throughout the country, where theater departments and student artists showcase their work and receive outside assessment by KCACTF respondents.

Alum Cecilia Copeland News: Published Plays, Howlround, Awards & Productions

February 13, 2014
by rpdolan
· Awards · Events · New York · News · Productions

OU Alum Cecilia Copeland has been very busy in New York.

She was named a “Person of the Year” for 2013 by Indie Theatre Now! OU MFA Playwright, Qui Nguyen, also held this distinction in 2004. (Link to Indie Theatre Now Announcement.)

Indie Theater Now has also published her play “Light of Night,” and it’s available to purchase. Other plays by OU Playwrights available on Indie Theater Now include: Jeni Mahoney and Qui Nguyen.

“Light of Night” will also be produced by Venus Theatre in Laurel, MD this coming spring. It is the second production of this play that was first penned at OU and the first regional production. (Youtube Promo Video.)

NoPassport’s 30/30 Scheme will have Cecilia’s play, “Tiene Duende (It Has Soul)” Read on March 31 in Texas, and it’s directed by OU MFA Director Vanessa Mercado-Taylor. ( Interview with NoPassport Press.)

Cecilia Copeland’s play, “Light of Night” was named one of the 101 Plays by the New Americas, Latino Plays in the American Cannon you should know on HowlRound, by Tlaloc Rivas. (HowRound Article.)

Her article “Contradiction & Compromise: My Uncle & The Next Time” was published in HowlRound in conjunction with her play, “The Next Time” in the Gun Control Plays Collection. (HowlRound Article.)

She was Interviewed and Featured in the Huffington Post for her play, “The Next Time” along with Neil LaBute, Caridad Svich and others. (Link to Huffington Post Article.)

Congrats Cecilia!

OU Alum Finalist for Prestigious Keneda Graduate Playwriting Award

OU alum, Jacob Juntunen‘s play “In the Shadow of His Language, was chosen as a a Finalist for the 2014 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award.

In 2005, the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre in Atlanta established the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, which is the only national competition that transitions graduate student playwrights to the world of professional theatre. Each year, the theatre solicits the work of third-year MFA playwriting students from 36 of what it considers to be “the country’s leading graduate playwriting programs.”

An in-house panel of readers evaluates approximately one hundred submitted scripts each year and selects a slate of semi-finalists. The semi-finalist scripts are then sent to a national panel of theatre professionals for judging, resulting in the selection of four finalists and one award-winning play. Since 2005, the playwriting program at Ohio University has had finalists in 2007, 2009, 2013, and in 2010, third-
year Ohio University MFA playwriting student, David Robinson’s play was named winner.

Of the 36 programs that the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre considers to be “the country’s leading graduate playwriting programs,” only 21 of these programs have had students who either won or placed as finalist since the inception of the program in 2005. Of these 21 programs, only UT-Austin and Julliard surpasses Ohio University’s record of achievement of four placements in nine years. Yale University, NYU-Tisch, and University of California at San Diego all have matched Ohio University’s record of achievement. The record of achievement of the playwriting
program at Ohio University has surpassed the playwriting programs at University of Iowa, Columbia University School of the Arts, Boston University, University of Southern California, Hunter College, California Institute of the Arts, Northwestern University, NYU Musical Theatre Writing Program, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Hollins University, The New School for Drama, Catholic University of America, Florida State, and Carnegie Mellon, well as the other 15 playwritingprogram in the nation that have not placed in this one-of-a kind competition.

Three MFA students’ plays invited to Regional 2 – KCATCF

MFA Playwrights Neal Adelman, Bianca Sams, and Morgan Patton all had plays invited to the region 2 Kennedy Center American College Festival – Region 2, January 2014.

Neal was invited for his one-act play, and Morgan and Bianca were invited for 10-minute plays.