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Category: Events

Spotlight On: Skye Robinson Hillis (OU MFA ’21)

  • April 13, 2021
  • by Erik Ramsey
  • · Chicago · Current Students · Events · Festival · News · Productions · Seabury Quinn, Jr.

As we begin the 27th Annual Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights’ Festival, we’ll be giving the spotlight to our third-year MFA playwrights. Third-year writers graduate soon after their thesis productions headline the festival.

by Steven Strafford 

Skye Robinson Hillis is good with words. Whether it be in her plays, or a well-crafted joke over Zoom chat or text message, she knows how to string the words together for great effect. (Often making the writer of this article laugh out loud. And a personal side note: Skye was extremely helpful to me in my adjusting to life in Athens. She always made time for my questions. I am grateful for the care she showed for me. I will miss her jokes and insightful help on my work.) 

Skye’s play, The Martha Mitchell Effect is one of our two featured productions this year.

We thought it might be fun to let Skye, in her own words, answer a few questions in interview format for her spotlight piece.

Here is that interview:

Where are you from? What parts of “home” show up in your writing?

Born and raised outside Boston, but also partially raised in southeastern Pennsylvania, and after moving there in 2008 for school, I now consider Chicago home. Basically zero parts of home show up in my writing because I usually prefer to write outside my own personal experience.

What first made you want to write plays? 

Dialogue. I tried to be a screenwriting major for a while in undergrad until I learned that nobody cares what your characters have to say in film, only what they do and how it looks. 

What is it you hope people leave the theater thinking about with your work and/or specifically this play?

Who are your inspirations? Playwrights? Other writers? 

Noel Coward, Edward Albee, Lillian Hellman, Pinter, Tracy Letts, Sarah Ruhl.

What’s a favorite theatrical moment for you as an audience member? A moment that stays with you?

All of the Goodman’s Camino Real directed by Calixto Bieto.

What was the inspiration for your featured play this year?

About two years ago I was listening to the Slow Burn podcast, the first season of which is about Watergate, which is where I learned about Martha Mitchell. I’ve been low-key obsessed with the notion of gaslighting for years and especially the gaslighting of woman of note, so from that point on I couldn’t stop thinking about her. This led to a women of Watergate rabbit hole that I still have not climbed out of. 

Skye’s bio: 

Skye Robinson Hillis (she/her) is a playwright/director/teacher/dramaturg based in Chicago. A two time semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award, her work has been seen at the Kennedy Center’s ACTF, Creede Repertory, The Route 66 Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, A Red Orchid Theatre, Piven Theatre Workshop, Artistic Home, Columbia College, and the City of Chicago’s In the Works Play Lab at the Pritzker Pavillion in Millenium Park. Her play AND VASTER was awarded a residency at the New Works Lab at Stratford in 2015, winner of the 2015 Ashland New Plays Festival, and winner of the Holland New Voices Award at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in 2017. As a director/dramaturg, she has worked for Hartford Stage, Goodman Theatre, Court Theatre, A Red Orchid, Remy Bumppo, Stage Left, and more. Her other plays include BURY THE REST, ESCAPE VELOCITY, THE ORDINARINESS OF EVERYTHING ELSE, THE RUNNING MATE, INTO PLACE, and SELFISH.

The Martha Mitchell Effect: In his infamous interview with David Frost, Richard Nixon said that “without Martha Mitchell, there would be no Watergate.” And yet the name Martha Mitchell, once ubiquitous, has faded into the background of history. Bringing her story to the forefront, The Martha Mitchell Effect illustrates the world of the courageous women involved in breaking the Watergate scandal and explores their lasting impact on this country today.

Reserve tickets now for this streaming production at The Martha Mitchell Effect website for April 16, 17, 22, 24. And be sure to check out the full slate of new MFA plays streaming during the festival here.

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2018 Festival Info!

  • April 5, 2018
  • by ouplaywrights
  • · Beth Blickers · Deborah Brevoort · Doug Wright · Events · Festival · News

Production Schedule and Mentor Bios


Featured Thesis Productions

Tickets for the Featured Productions are $5 general admission or FREE for OU Students (with valid student ID) through Arts for Ohio; available at the Templeton–Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium box office. 

The Defiance of Dandelions

by Philana Imade Omorotionmwan, directed by Jeanette L. Buck
8:00 pm – April 19th, 21st & 27th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

Do not speak too loudly or too little or too much.
Do not get out of the place you’ve been assigned.
Do not give birth to a meadow of dandelions.

For as long as they can remember, The Strongness, The Queerness, The Boisterousness, The Brazenness, The Thickness, and The Softness have been trapped in the In-School Shading Room. While they wait for a release that seems like it may never come, a bouquet is born and they begin to remember the selves and the world that they forgot.

La Mujer Barbuda

by Cristina Luzárraga, directed by Jonathan Helter
8:00 pm – April 20th, 25th & 28th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

2 women. 4 breasts. 1 beard.
Maggie is an American airline pilot and new mother. When she tries to pump breast milk in the cockpit, she almost perishes in a plane crash––and that’s not even the worst of it.
Magdalena is a 17th century Italian weaver and new mother. When she suddenly grows a beard and nurses a baby at age fifty-two, she sets off a domestic and civil crisis––and that, too, is not even the worst of it.
La Mujer Barbuda explores the intersecting lives of two women, separated by time and space and united in the struggle to thrive as a mother in a man’s world.

Vessel

by Natasha Renee Smith, directed by Anne McAlexander
2:00 pm – April 21st & 28th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
8:00 pm – April 26th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

Metronomes are controlled by magnets. Magnets are controlled by the Earth. The Earth is controlled by the sun. Who—or what—controls Tiana? The MIT sophomore enters into dual orbit with Luke, a professor of chaos theory. This darkly romantic play explores mental illness, power dynamics, and the poetry of visceral pain.


STAGED READINGS

Staged readings are free and open to the public.

How to Bake a Genoise Sponge without Breaking Any Eggs

by Jean Egdorf
1:00 pm, Thursday April 26th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

Hello, bakers! Thank you for joining me for this very special episode of Melissa B’s Genoise. Today we’re making the trickiest cake there is: the genoise sponge. I better be able to perfect this recipe if I’m going to make it studying pastry at Le Cordon Bleu! My mom and my therapist think I’ll crumble under the stress, but I’m sure with help of my friends, Ms. J and Sylvie, neither me or my cake will fall apart.

Exodus of Dreams

by Inna Tsyrlin
4:00 pm, Thursday April 26th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

Can a kosher child live with a non-kosher heart? While Avram struggles to integrate himself and his family into American society, and meets constant obstacles in keeping his faith, his daughter befriends a pig. This pig may be the answer to the family’s heart transplant predicament, but if Avram accepts a pig’s heart for his sick daughter, will he still be a good Jew?

She Moves in Her Own Way

by Liv Matthews
1:30 pm, Friday April 27th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

Three seconds on the clock. Rolling Hills Middle School is down by two. All eyes are on point guard Alex Williams. She dribbles, pliés, and shoots the ball. It pirouettes in the rim and Alex’s mind leaps across time to her coach and former Atlanta Hawks player Anthony Prince. As the athletes wait for the ball to land, Alex’s journey through basketball and dance begins a duet with Anthony’s distant rise to NBA stardom.

Cora

by Katherine Varga, directed by Olivia Rocco
4:00 pm, Friday April 27th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

A young photojournalist travels overseas to document war crimes. But first, she must agree to leave her heart behind. Fortunately, her news corporation has state-of-the-art technology to ensure the hearts are protected and thoroughly entertained. Cora explores how a digital culture that connects us to the world can separate us from ourselves.

A Driving Beat

by Jordan Ramirez Puckett
1:00 pm, Saturday April 28th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

2,000 miles, a cross-country car ride
adopted son and mother travel side by side
white woman, brown son in the same space
9 states to the hospital, the teen’s birthplace
4 days, if all goes according to plan
5 nights, of doing all that they can
to find his birth mom, identity, or home
but by the end of their journey
will any answers be known?

The Water Baby

by Trip Venturella, directed by Ernesto Ponce
4:00 pm, Saturday April 28th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

The year is 1930, and Theofanis Tombras has returned from his tour of duty in the Marines with an unnamed baby in tow. He finds a country bruised by economic crisis; Alexandra, his arranged fiancée, stranded across the ocean; and an unlikely opportunity offered by an old friend. As a better life beckons, it becomes clear to his young family that Theo will sacrifice nearly anything to sustain his growing ambition, and contain the specters of his past.


Guest Artists In Residence

Each April, three nationally recognized, industry professional guest artists are invited to be in residence for the Seabury Quinn Jr Playwrights Festival to respond to the MFA plays and work with the MFA playwrights.

We are pleased to announce the guest artists joining us for the 2018 Seabury Quinn Jr Playwrights Festival:

Deborah Brevoort ALT Gala

Deborah Brevoort is a playwright and librettist from Alaska who now lives in the New York City area. She is an alumna of New Dramatists, an original company member with Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre and a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders. She is best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, which won the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays Award and the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition. The play is produced all over the US and internationally. It is published by DPS and by No Passport Press in a volume with The Comfort Team. The Comfort Team, about military wives during the surge of Iraq, was written with a commission from the Virginia Stage Company, where it premiered in 2012. My Lord What a Night a one-act play about Marian Anderson and Albert Einstein, premiered in 2016 at Premiere Stages. She has since turned it into a full length play. The Blue-Sky Boys, a comedy about NASA’s Apollo program, was written with a commission from the EST/ Sloan Foundation. It was produced at the Barter Theatre and Capital Rep where it was the #1 critics pick for 2016. The Poetry of Pizza, a cross cultural comedy about love, was produced at Purple Rose Theatre,Virginia Stage, Mixed Blood Theatre, California Rep, Centenary Stage, and others. The Velvet Weapon, a back stage farce, won the national playwriting contest at Trustus Theatre. It is published with The Poetry of Pizza by No Passport Press. Blue Moon Over Memphis, her Noh Drama about Elvis Presley, is published by Applause Books in “The Best American Short Plays.” It is produced byTheatre Nohgaku who is touring it internationally. Into the Fire won the Weissberger Award.  Signs of Life won the Jane Chambers Award, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and the gold medal in the Pinter Review Prize for Drama. Both are published by Samuel French.

Deborah has also written the librettos, books and lyrics for numerous musicals and operas. She holds MFA’s in playwriting from Brown University and in musical theatre writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her website is: www.DeborahBrevoort.com.

Beth headshot Joey Stocks photo credit

Beth Blickers is currently an agent at APA, where she represents artists who work in theatre, opera, television and film. Before joining APA, she was an agent at Abrams Artists Agency, Helen Merrill Ltd. and the William Morris Agency, where she began work after graduating from New York University.

Beth has served on the jury panel for the Weissberger Award, the Ed Kleban Award, the Lark’s PONY Fellowship and Playwrights Week, participated in the Non-Traditional Casting Project, Inc.’s roundtable on inclusion and diversity in the theatre and has presented workshops and sessions on agenting, playwriting, directors and choreographers and related topics for organizations such as the Society of Directors and Choreographers Foundation, the Dramatists Guild, League of Professional Theatre Women, the Lark, New York University, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Texas Educational Theatre Association and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

She is a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc. where she served on the board for fifteen years; the President of Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas; and is the Board Chair Emeritus of Theatre Breaking Through Barriers, a New York company that works with artists with disabilities.

Doug Wright ONEDoug Wright was most recently represented on Broadway by the musical War Paint, which played at the Nederlander Theater.  His earlier plays include I Am My Own Wife (Tony Award, Pulitzer Prize), Posterity, and Quills (Obie Award), as well as books for the musicals Grey Gardens (Tony Nomination), The Little Mermaid and Hands on A Hardbody. (Drama Desk Nomination).   Films include the screen adaptation of Quills (Paul Selvin Award, WGA) and production rewrites for director Rob Marshall, Steven Spielberg and others.  Acting credits include two appearances on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and the films Little Manhattan and Two Lovers.   He is president of The Dramatists Guild and on the Board of The New York Theater Workshop.  He has received grants from United States Artists and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and is a graduate of Yale University (BA) and New York University (MFA).   He has been a frequent guest at Yaddo and the MacDowell Art Colonies, and has taught or guest lectured at the Yale Drama School, Princeton University, Julliard and NYU.  He lives in New York with his husband, singer-songwriter David Clement and cats Glynis and Murray.

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Aaron James Johnson has short play going up in Michigan July 14th!

  • July 5, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · 10-minute plays · alumni · Events · News · Productions · Reading

Recent alum and overall friendly dude Aaron James Johnson is part of the Inaugural Detroit Playwrights Lab and they have a  showing of short plays Friday, July 14th! The facebook event says:  Seven 10-minute plays and excerpts from plays written by some of Metro Detroit’s finest up-and-coming playwrights. Join us for an unforgettable evening of original theater. Doors open at 6:30 pm. Free admission! And free, enclosed parking is adjacent to the theater.

I facebook messaged him and he gave me more dets!! Aaron said-“My play Step-nasty is being directed by Harold Hogan and I’m directing An Old Neighbor by Sean Paraventi.”

Now if I were you, I would get your butt down to the theater cause who can resist a play called Step Nasty written by an OU alum?? I think no one!

 

Details

Facebook event

Friday, July 14th, 7pm

Location: Detroit Repertory Theatre

13103 Woodrow Wilson St, Detroit, Michigan 48238
 

More about Aaron

Aaron Johnson hails from the land of cheese in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  He received his Bachelor of the Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he majored in English with an Emphasis in Creative Writing and in Theatre and Drama.  While not officially specializing in playwriting in his undergrad, Aaron took the only playwriting course offered twice and completed his creative writing thesis as a play instead of fiction or poetry writing which the school usually requires.  During his time at UW-Madison, Aaron completed three full length plays, multiple One-Acts, and numerous short plays which were all workshopped and some eventually produced at the university in staged readings.  In his Theatre and Drama major he specialized in props and was props master for a number of university shows including Ti-Jean and his Brothers and Eurydice.  Working his summers during college as a technical writer, Aaron decided to take a year off from school and work full time but the call of academia was too much for him to resist though as he is currently pursuing his MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University.  Aaron’s writing tends to take the complex and unnoticed topics of today’s culture and bring them to light by using them to create dramatic conflict and then ultimate understanding.  Using these undiscovered topics and coupling them with a realistic style will grow people’s curiosity and actively induce them to gain knowledge about today’s world.

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Check out a reading of Catherine Weingarten’s play “Are you Ready to Get PAMPERED!?” in NYC July 15th!

  • July 3, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · Events · New York · News · Reading

Recent alum Catherine Weingarten has a reading of her trashy summer camp play “Are You Ready to Get PAMPERED!?” Saturday, July 15th at 6pm in Brooklyn. The reading is produced by Off With Her Head Productions and it’s apart of their Uncorseted Reading Series which promotes new plays about women and female empowerment. The reading also features OU BFA acting alum Leah Kistler!

Check it out if your in NYC!

 

More about the play:

For a long time Hester has lain awake at night, excited about the summer she can follow her mother’s footsteps and become a Pampered Camp counselor! The only problem is that Lake Pampered is a popular-fun-sexy exclusive all girl’s summer camp and Hester is a loser! The play was inspired by Catherine Weingarten’s experience as a summer camp counselor. The play asks messy questions about girl culture and expectations we put on young women to get hotter as Hester struggles to find her own in a pampered, prideful, popular and sexy world.

Details:

SAT JULY 15TH AT 6PM. CAFE FORTE. CROWN HEIGHTS.

Facebook event

 

More about Catherine

Catherine Weingarten is currently pursuing her MFA in Playwriting at Ohio University, studying under Charles Smith and Erik Ramsey.  She graduated from Bennington College in 2013 studying under Sherry Kramer.  She has taken workshops in playwriting with Samuel D. Hunter, Kara Lee Corthon and Branden Jacob-Jenkins. Catherine’s summer camp play “Are You Ready to Get PAMPERED!?” had a reading at 59E59 with Less than Rent and also was part of Dixon Place’s Bingo Lounge.  Some of her other plays include: Pineapple Upside Down Cake (KCACTF:national semi-finalist), Janis and the Big BAD World (Semi-finalist at Wide Eyed Productions), A Roller Rink Temptation (NOLA Fringe), This Car Trip Suckss ( Piper Theater Productions Emerging Artist Reading Series), Karate Hottie (OU Seabury Quinn Play Fest) Love Potion Number Slut (Tiny Rhino) and You Looked Hot When You Stole that Dress from Walmart (Fresh Fruit Festival.)  She has been involved with Abingdon Playwrights Group as well as New Perspective’s Women’s Work Short Play Lab.  She is the recipient of the Scott McPherson award given to a graduate playwright at Ohio University that is a kind and supportive collaborator in the program. catherine-weingarten.squarespace.com

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Sarah Bowden’s play “Tin Noses” featured at the Chicago Theater Marathon this month!

  • July 3, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · Chicago · Events · News

OU Alum Sarah Bowden has been up to some exciting stuff in Chicago! Check out her play “Tin Noses” in the Chicago Theater Marathon on July 23rd at 11am! Congrats Sarah!! Woooot!

More about the play:

TIN NOSES is an exploration of representation, disability, Hollywood, and superhero action figures. When movie star Max is cast as a wounded World War I vet in an upcoming prestige pic, he must learn how to perform disability for the camera. Who better to help shape his physicality than ex-flame and hotshot choreographer Hannah? And her colleague Austin, who lost the role to Max, and who lives with spastic hemiplegia. Yup, this won’t get awkward at all.

Here is some info on the Marathon:

The Chicago Theatre Marathon is a weekend-long, marathon event celebrating the diversity of the Chicagoland theatre community. The Marathon aims to acknowledge the variety of characteristics and categories of identity that make individuals unique, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or gender expression, socio-economic status, age, physical, mental and learning abilities, religious beliefs and political views. Additionally, this year’s rallying cry will be “I am Indomitable,” and will reflect on how artists in Chicago can fully embody that word. This curated series will provide a platform to recognize the uniqueness of individuals, populations, groups and their experiences while cultivating a sense of commonality and shared goals for our community.

 

Details:

Facebook Event  

Get Tickets here

11 am on Sunday,July 23rd-

The Chicago Theatre Marathon will take place at the new home of Strawdog Theatre Company, at 1802 W Berenice Ave, Chicago, IL 60613. There are two performance spaces: The black box theatre and the lobby.

 

More about Sarah

Sarah Bowden is a teaching artist, whose plays have been produced in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Stockholm. Her work has been developed and presented by the Painted Bride Art Center, the Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre, the Nylon Fusion Theatre, Monkeyman Productions, the Greenhouse Theater Center, the Chicago Madness Collective, and Ohio University. Her full-length The Magnificent Masked Hearing Aid was listed as a semi-finalist in several theatre festivals, including the Capital Repertory Next Act! New Play Summit, the Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte’s nuVoices Festival, the Activate Midwest New Play Festival and the Elgin Cultural Commission Page to Stage Program. The script received Honorable Mention in the American Blues Theater Blue Ink Playwriting Award. Sarah has won the White-Howells English Prize for Drama and the Margaret W. Baker Prize for Fiction, was a finalist in the Route 66 Theatre Test Drive Workshop, and a semi-finalist for the Stage Left Theatre Playwright Residency. She has developed her work as a finalist in the International Thespian Festival’s Playworks program. She has completed internships with Chicago Dramatists, Northlight Theatre, Arden Theatre Company, the Wilma Theater, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and the Adirondack Theatre Festival. Sarah holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Ohio University and B.A. in directing and creative writing from Beloit College, and teaches theatre and composition at Benedictine University and Prairie State College.

-Read her work on New Play Exchange!!

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Jeff Chastang has new play at Southern Writers Project!

  • April 28, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · Events

Recent alum Jeffry Chastang’s new play Under Ceege, will be featured in the “Southern Writer’s Project” this May 12th-14th! The Southern Writers Project through Alabama Shakespeare Festival has supported Jeffs work in the past, including the development of his thesis play at OU, Dauphin Island!

Congrats Jeff! Check it out if your in Alabama!

Get more info here

Read this exclusive blog by SWP about Jeff!

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“Marvin’s Room” cast will feature Janeane Garofalo!

  • April 17, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · Events · News

Scott Mcpherson’s beloved play “Marvin’s Room” will be playing at the Roundabout theater this June! Janeane Garofalo just joined the cast and the play will also feature Celia Weston and Lili Taylor!!

Here is more about the play from the Roundabout Website:

“Roundabout Theatre Company presents the Broadway premiere of Marvin’s Room, Scott McPherson’s award-winning, wildly funny play about the laughter that can shine through life’s darkest moments. Anne Kauffman (Marjorie Prime, Maple and Vine) directs.

Estranged sisters Lee and Bessie have never seen eye to eye. Lee is a single mother who’s been busy raising her troubled teenage son, Hank. Bessie’s got her hands full with their elderly father and his soap opera-obsessed sister. When Bessie is diagnosed with leukemia, the two women reunite for the first time in 18 years. Are Lee’s good intentions and wig-styling skills enough to make up for her long absence? Can Bessie help Hank finally feel at home somewhere… or at least keep him from burning her house down? Can these almost-strangers become a family in time to make plans, make amends, and maybe make a trip to Disney World?

Exploring an unsentimental reality with hope, compassion and a dose of wonderfully absurd humor, Marvin’s Room is a life-affirming reminder of the gift we give ourselves when we love unconditionally.

First preview: June 8, 2017
Opening Night: June 29, 2017

Click here for more info

More about Janeane Garofalo

Janeane Garofalo is an American actress, stand-up comedian, and writer.  Garofalo began her career as a stand-up comedian and became a cast member on the The Ben Stiller Show, The Larry Sanders Show, and Saturday Night Live, then appeared in more than 50 movies, with leading or major roles in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Wet Hot American Summer, The Matchmaker, Reality Bites, Steal This Movie!, Clay Pigeons, Sweethearts, Mystery Men, and The Independent, among numerous others. She has also been a series regular on television programs such as Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, 24, and Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce.

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Rachel Bykowski interviewed about her Seabury mainstage play “The Big Fuckin’ Giant”

  • April 11, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · Current Students · Events · News

Hi everyone!

Welcome to our interview series with the current rockin MFA playwrights, leading up to Seabury Quinn! This year the interview series will be a little different since different pairs of writers interviewed eachother! These pairs of writers were chosen by the head of the program to be “writing partners” and give each other feedback on each others plays throughout the spring semester.

This interview is questions for Rachel by second year playwright, Natasha Smith. Rachel Bykowski is a third year playwright and wrote the mainstage play “The Big Fuckin’ Giant! Also watch out for all of the other interviews with our other writers!

Natasha Smith: A lot of your work explores sports culture and performing masculinity. How did you get interested in writing about those topics?

Rachel Bykowski: Sports have always been a part of my life. While I might not be an “athlete,” I was raised in the sports culture thanks to my brother and father. ESPN is constantly playing in background of my family’s home. I grew-up going to Wrigley Field and watching the Cubs play and booing the Sox. In the summer, my family’s dinner time is catered around the Blackhawks playoff schedule and the same goes for the Bears in the winter. And finally, Michael Jordan will forever be the Greatest Of All Time (sorry, not sorry, Lebron). Talking sports, stats, rotations, scores, and drafts was a way to bond in my family. I am very attracted to the community that is created when people are united behind the same team.

Natasha: Tell me about your rehearsal process. What have you learned through rehearsing this play? Any surprising challenges or nuggets of wisdom?

Rachel: The rehearsal process is a reminder of the reason I love theatre: it’s a collaboration. As a playwright, I feel I spend a lot of time alone working on my play. After days, weeks, or months staring at my lap top, the rehearsal process begins, and I feel like I can breath again. For BIG FUCKIN’ GIANT’s rehearsal, I was very lucky to be surrounded by talented artists who believed in the script and trusted me as a writer. One of the things I learned during the rehearsal process is, as a playwright, I am surrounded by other artists who are giving their time and creative energies to bring my words to life. From the director and actors, to the designers, to the dramaturg, and the stage management team, my words mean absolutely NOTHING without them. For this reason, I owe them. I owe it to them to show up on time, meet my deadlines, be attentive, and turn in my best possible work. I also owe it to them to bring a professional, collaborative atmosphere to the room. I leave my ego and personal problems at the door and show up ready to listen to questions and take notes. I think one of the challenges of the rehearsal process is learning how to listen to these questions and take criticisms without losing YOUR voice and vision of the play. As a writer, I am not going to make everyone happy, but I need to write something that feels true to me.

Natasha: You’re graduating! Looking back on your three years here, what aspects of the program have changed you the most as a person? What will you miss the most?

Rachel: OMG! I AM graduating! (hahalolidon’twanttoleave). This has seriously been the fastest and longest three years of my life. Making the decision to attend graduate school was an enormous personal and professional choice. I advise anyone who is thinking about attending grad school to take a beat, breath, and really consider why you want to go. Grad school is not for everyone. Some people need the rigorous program of academia and others do just fine without it. Ohio University’s program offered me many professional opportunities that I do not believe I would have achieved without it. I am more confident in my voice as a writer and have an expansive portfolio of work. I think one of the things I will miss the most is the program supporting me and letting me know that my voice matters. As a playwright (and person) you really don’t hear that too much. This program gave me the confidence in my voice to say the things I kept quiet in my heart, taught me how to put it on paper, and bring my truths to life on stage.

Natasha: Rape culture is a huge subject to take on, and your play evolved quite a bit from its inception to now. What was it like proposing an idea for a play long before you actually wrote it, then drafting the actual script?

Rachel: Rape culture IS a huge subject, but I feel if you approach it with honest stories from your perspective, it becomes a lot easier to tackle. However, one of the hardest things I had to learn was just that: how to tell a story. Often when I write, I start with big subject matters, but people come to theatre to hear a story.

When I proposed THE BIG FUCKIN’ GIANT, it had a completely different title and NO STORY. I knew that I wanted to discuss white, male privilege and how it contributes to violence against women. I personally believe the “no means no” argument has been discussed to the point of exhaustion and waiting until AFTER the violence occurs is too late. I wanted to write a play that reveals the preconditioning groups of young men partake in together that leads to violence. This is often disguised as “locker room talk” or “boys just being boys.” However, it has severe repercussions for women.

When developing the story, I knew I wanted an all white, male cast on stage since they represent the most privileged group in America. In addition, I wanted them to be athletes. Just like a white, male senator (or our current President), athletes are almost untouchable by law. They get away with countless forms of violence against women and still get rewarded with big contracts and trophies…why?!?!?!  With these components in mind, I started to construct a story about three, white, male college athletes in the basement of their fraternity. What is important to them? What do they talk about? What are their dreams? How do they view the world? How do they view women?

I found there is a correlation between how they view the world and how they view women. It is because of this reason, despite all my rewrites and drafts one thing remained the same: Judy.  Judy is the ONLY female representation we see on stage. Judy also helps me create and keep aesthetic distance for the audience. I believe how the characters in the play treat Judy in their basement speaks volumes to their behavior in the outside world.

 

Now that Rachel is your new BFF in your head, go see her production!

DETS

The Big Fuckin’ Giant

by Rachel Bykowski
Directed by Allison Epperson

8:00 pm – April 12th, 15th, 20th & 21st;
2:00 pm – April 15th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

Alright, pussies! You ready? Do you have what it takes to be an Alpha? Think you can pin the Big Fuckin’ Giant? Push! Push yourself to the fucking brink. Until you feel the pain. See your opponent standing there across the mat. Want to take him down? The night before the NCAA wrestling conference, three fraternity brothers have to prove they are the alphas of the mat and Judy is just the girl to help them. Once you step onto the mat, you can never stop.

Tickets for the Featured Productions are $5 general admission or FREE for OU Students (with valid student ID) through Arts for Ohio; available at the Templeton–Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium box office.

 

More about Rachel

Rachel Bykowski, a Chicago native, writes plays to raise awareness about social issues.  Specifically, much of her writing features women and analyzes gender roles, rape culture, and male privilege.  Rachel’s full-length play TIGHT END was selected by the National New Play Network to be workshopped at the Kennedy Center for the MFA Playwrights’ Festival. TIGHT END will be receiving its world premiere production with 20% Theatre Company Chicago in May of 2017. Rachel was one of six graduate students at Ohio University to be awarded a Named Fellowship, The Trisolini.  The Trisolini will allow Rachel to work with Ohio University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department to research violence against women perpetrated by male privilege for the 2016-2017 academic year.  This research will be showcased in her thesis play VOODOO DOLL during the 2017 Seabury Quinn Playwrights’ Festival at Ohio University.   Other playwriting credits include her full lengths: ORIGINAL RECIPE workshop production (DePaul University,) GOT TO KILL BITCH staged reading (Cock and Bull Theatre,) GLORY VS. THE WOLVES staged reading (20% Theatre Company and Women and Children First Bookstore,) and A GIRL NAMED CHARLIE staged reading (Ohio University).  Rachel’s ten minute plays have been produced with various companies around Chicago and the Midwest including 20% Theatre Company, Fury Theatre, Commedia Beauregard, and Actors’ Theatre of Louisville Apprentice Company.  Rachel received her BFA in playwriting from the Theatre School of DePaul University and is currently attending Ohio University for her MFA in Playwriting. Rachel is a proud company member and Literary Manager for 20% Theatre Chicago.  For more information, check out her website http://www.rachelbykowskiplays.com

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Special Talkback April 14th at “This is How You Got Me Naked” with Professor Vander Ven!

  • April 8, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · Events · Faculty · News

Professor Vander Ven who works within the Sociology Department of OU will be featured at a special talkback on Friday April 14th for “This is How You Got Me Naked,” by Catherine Weingarten. He wrote a book called “Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party Too Hard,” which discusses the benefits and behavioral patterns of college drinking culture.  There will be a discussion of how this real world research fits in with some of the big ideas about hookup culture and college party culture in Catherine’s play. Come check it out and YOU can be part of the conversation too!

Listen to this awesome NPR interview with Professor Vander Ven about his book!

 

The Talkback will be:

Friday April 14th, after the 8pm performance of “This is How You Got Me Naked”, Forum Theater

This is How You Got Me Naked

by Catherine Weingarten
Directed by Ben Stockman

8:00 pm – April 13th, 14th, 19th & 22nd;
2:00 pm – April 22nd, Forum Theater, RTV Building

It’s the “Dress to Get Laid” Party: Jackie is dressed as a sexy trash bag, aka Looking Good, and ready to hit on her sexy male dancer friend who is a junior so he will LOVE her so hard he can’t even feel his own body!! Is Jackie destined to be another tragic tale about the perils of hookup culture? Or will she be the lucky GF of a dancer who is hot? 😉

Tickets for the Featured Productions are $5 general admission or FREE for OU Students (with valid student ID) through Arts for Ohio; available at the Templeton–Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium box office.

Click here for more info on Seabury QUinn

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Cristina interviewed about her Seabury play “Millenialville”!

  • April 7, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · Current Students · Events · Festival · News

Hi everyone!

Welcome to our interview series with the current rockin MFA playwrights, leading up to Seabury Quinn! This year the interview series will be a little different since different pairs of writers interviewed eachother! These pairs of writers were chosen by the head of the program to be “writing partners” and give each other feedback on each others plays throughout the spring semester.

This interview is questions for Cristina by first year writer Trip Venturella. Cristina Luzarraga is a second year playwright and wrote the funny, dystopian-ish play, “Millenialville” which will be presented Saturday, April 22nd at 4:00pm!!  So go see THAT and also watch out for all of the other interviews with our other writers!

 

Trip Venturella: You use humor a lot in your plays, and you have a comedy background. What disturbing thing happened in your childhood to push you to adopt humor as a coping mechanism?

Cristina Luzarraga: I had the terrible misfortune of growing up with thick eyebrows in an era (late 90s/early 2000s) when pencil thin brows were de rigueur. There were some incidents of overzealous plucking from which my self-esteem never recovered. But it’s all for the best. If Cara Delevingne was around when I was twelve, I’d probably be a lawyer.

Trip: So your play for the festival, Millennialville, is set approximately 100 years from now. It’s about a bunch of people who work at a theme park devoted to our time period. As they learn the truth about “Millennial Times,” the scales fall from their eyes about the times that they live in. It’s a very cool concept. What got you excited to write this? What has been the most fun for you during the process writing this play?

Cristina: I was inspired by the short stories of George Saunders and my experiences at places like Medieval Times and Colonial Williamsburg. Saunders has written several terrific stories about theme parks dedicated to different eras (Pre-historic, Civil War, Middle Ages), and I got to thinking: what would be an interesting epoch to recreate? I decided on the American West and wrote a pilot for a show called Westworld. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Anyway, after I was sued for copyright infringement, I decided there’s no time like the present, and stumbled upon a thought experiment: How might future generations portray today? If the world were to fall apart in the next decade or so (which doesn’t seem implausible), Millennialville might be our resulting legacy, a theme park about today that’s as accurate as Medieval Times is, which is to say, not very.

It’s been fun to think about our world from a point of historical distance. What are the defining characteristics of our place and time that will be perceived as backwards in the not so distant future? Musing on that question, I’ve come up with answers both silly and serious. For instance, it’s weird to me that our country still uses still toilet paper. (Bidets are better for so many reasons!) On a more important note, it’s weird if not depressing that in this era of a shrinking middle class, it has become increasingly difficult to strike a balance between doing meaningful work and raising a family. Millennialville focuses on the latter issue but still has plenty of toilet paper observations to keep things light.

Trip: Millennialville is post-apocalyptic, but it also has a lot to say about where we’re at right now as a people/nation/planet. Once the apocalypse comes and a future society is digging through our detritus, what about our time and place do you hope they take away from your play?

Cristina: If my play survives the apocalypse, I’d be shocked. But I hope future historians recognize that there were a lot of people out there who were very worried about the future. If climate change and unfettered capitalism turn out to be our undoing, it’s not like there weren’t millions of Cassandras. I wonder if the dinosaurs were worried about comets. Maybe they were, and the small-handed Trumps––err, I mean T-Rexes––were too busy preying on the weak to avert disaster.

Trip: One day you’re young, wild, and free. Then all of a sudden 30 years have passed, your kids are gone, and you realize you hate your spouse. Your job as a car dealer has hit the skids. Ya can’t… sorry, sorry, I’m just venting here. It’s been tough since Snookums, my cat, died. As you can see, I’m just an average guy. Why should I come and see your show?

Cristina: You should come see Millennialville because although this play can’t replace your cat, it can instill in you a newfound appreciation for penguins, which really are the cats of Antarctica. I caution saying more, but this is a play in which cute penguins play an outsized role. Also, Millennialville is both funny and profound (or at least trying to be) and really, what more could you want?

 

Now that Cristina is your spirit animal, go see her play!

DETS

MILLENIALVILLE
Written by Cristina Luzarraga
directed by Daniel Winters
4:00 pm, Saturday April 22nd, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

BLURB: It’s the year 2175, and life’s just dandy—or at least that’s the story’s at Millennialville, a historical museum dedicated to reenacting the life and times of the early 2000s. Thisbe and Oren work at Millennialvile. Thisbe and Oren are in love. Thisbe and Oren need to make a big decision: will one or both them go on Productolife? Also, did penguins have ears? For sake of their relationship, Thisbe really needs to know.

 

More about Cristina

Cristina Luzarraga was born and raised in Short Hills, New Jersey, save for a few teenage years spent in London, England. She graduated in 2011 from Princeton University with B.A. in Comparative Literature. Subsequently, she moved to Chicago where she studied sketch writing and improvisation at iO Theatre and The Second City Conservatory and performed stand-up comedy at Zanies and elsewhere. Her full-length play Due Unto Others was produced by Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts. Her short plays Hippo Woman and Baker’s Three were produced at Greenhouse Theater in Chicago.

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