Madness | OHIO

“Typecast” Madness coming this Friday! Let’s get radical!

November 4, 2014
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · Events · Madness · News

The seventh madness of the semester will be produced by first year playwright, Rachel Bykowski! Her prompt is “Typecast Madness”. Typecast is defined in wikipedia as the process by which an actor is strongly identified with a specific character,role or trait. Rachel has asked the playwrights to think critically about the actors they cast and how we can show the audience another side of them.

Show is November 7th, 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 Rachel

Rachel Bykowski was born and raised in Chicago. She writes plays that examine the masks people wear to conceal their true identities to blend into society and explores the repercussions when the masks are ripped off. Her work often includes proactive female characters that raise awareness to issues surrounding women. Rachel received her BFA in Playwriting from The Theatre School of DePaul University. Her playwriting credits include her full length plays: Original Recipe produced by DePaul University; staged reading of Got to Kill Bitch presented by Cock and Bull Theatre in Chicago; and staged reading of Glory vs. The Wolves presented by 20% Theatre Company Chicago and hosted by Women and Children First Bookstore as part of an event to raise awareness about rape culture. Her one act plays include: The Best Three Minutes of My Life produced by Bradley University; Break-Up Court and Pay Phone produced by 20% Theatre Company Chicago; The Invisible Onesproduced by Fury Theatre in Chicago; and She Sings For You produced and published by Commedia Beauregard in Chicago. Rachel is also a proud company member of 20% Theatre Company Chicago. She is very excited to continue her writing career and pursuing her MFA in Playwriting under the tutelage of Ohio University. For more information about Rachel, please visit her website at www.rachelbykowski.com

“Coffin Block” Madness coming Friday October 10th!

October 5, 2014
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · Events · Madness · News · Tyler Whidden

The fifth madness of the semester will be produced by second year playwright, Tyler Whidden! His prompt is “Coffin Block” Madness. Every playwright must have a coffin block onstage; but TWIST, the coffin block must be depicted in the play as something other than a coffin block.

Show is October 10th, 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 info on 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. 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 Theater of Cleveland. His play Dancing With N.E.D. was produced in 2012 in Cleveland and 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. He’s excited to be back where it all started and he lives with his beautiful wife, Angie — way out of his league — and their beautiful boy, Booker — his intellectual equal.

“Revolution” Madness coming this Friday!

September 23, 2014
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · Events · Madness · News

The fourth madness of the semester will be produced by second year playwright, Ryan Patrick Dolan! His prompt is “Revolution” Madness.

Show is September 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.

“Hungover Madness” Coming this Friday!

Madness this week will be produced by second year playwright, Aaron Johnson! The theme is “Hungover Madness” and the night will explore various takes on how one deals/works through a hangover.

It will be 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. Hope to see ya there!

Behind the scenes Video & Article on OU’S Madness in the The Post

For the Ohio University Master of Fine Arts playwriting students, there is no “Syllabus Week.” They don’t get out of class early after only having read the professor’s classroom policies. They don’t take a month to groom their first play.

They only have four days.

That’s the lead paragraph from the feature article on our “Madness” show that was published this week in Ohio University’s Independent Student Newspaper,The Post.

Click here for a two-minute news clip with an interview with Charles Smith, the Head of the MFA Playwriting program, and clips for rehearsals and tech.

A link to the online article, with several pictures from rehearsals and tech, written by Meryl Gottlieb can be found here.

The next madness is Friday, September 19th, and is being produced by 2nd year MFA playwright, Aaron Johnson.

Photo credits: Lauren Bacho, The Post

OU mention in “Dramatists” Magazine!

September 10, 2014
by catherineforever666
· alumni · Current Students · Madness · News

OU’s MFA Playwriting program is profiled in the September/October issue of The Dramatist, the Dramatists Guild’s magazine.

The article focuses on various aspects of the program, but particularly how unique “Madness” is, and how writing a short play every week is a great benefit for the writer to get to work, putting less pressure on the muse. The article says “OU might be one of the best kept secrets in graduate training for playwrights.”

First Madness of the Semester is Sept. 5th

The first Madness of semester is upon us. 3rd year playwright, Neal Adleman, is producing. His prompt is “Use Your Damn Hands” Madness.

Show is September 5th, 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.

Madness is back this week. “This Is Why We Rock.”

MADNESS is back for the second to last time this semester. Third-year MFA playwright, Bianca Sams, is producing. Her prompt is “This Is Why We Rock” Madness.

Hahne Black Box Theater.
Kanter Theater Building
Friday, April 4th.
11pm

The line to get the free tickets usually starts around 10pm in the lobby.

Until then, enjoy the song that inspired Bianca’s theme:
“This Is Why We Rock” by Mims Ft. Purple Popcorn.

“As You Like It” Opens this week. No Madness.

There is no “Madness” show this week. Instead the theater department opens AS YOU LIKE IT, which we have been lead to believe was written by William Shakespeare (see Facebook Profile Pic above.)

Not be confused, this is a different play than Joe McKenzie’s AS YOU LIME IT which is a whimsical play about a sweet yet sour romance between two pastry chefs.

AS YOU LIKE IT runs from March 26 – April 5 in the Forum Theater in the RTV Building. $10 admission. $7 for Seniors (elderly not students), and Free for Students (including seniors.) Show starts at 8pm.

WOUB Highlights Playwrights Production Class

Photo credit: Hannah Van Brunt

Known affectionately as Madness, our weekly playwrights production class came to the attention of writer Taylor Evans. After attending several of our Friday night shows, she sat down with several current playwrights and the head of our program, Charles Smith, to find out what goes into a Madness, how it began, and why we do it. Read the WOUB article here.

Madness performances are free and open to the public nearly every Friday night at 11:00 p.m. in the Hahne Theater in Kantner Hall. Visit the Madness page on our website for the Winter Quarter schedule.