Third year MFA Dana Formby, 2nd year MFA David Robinson, and alumnus Merri Biechler have all been named as semi-finalists for the renowned WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Lab held each year in June. (Biechler is a former lab participant in 2007 and a semi-finalist this year in the alumni slot.) For more on WordBRIDGE: http://wordbridge.org/.
Category: News
Three OU Playwrights Are Semi-Finalists for WordBRDIGE Playwrights Lab
3rd Year MFAs Invited to Prague Writing Program
Kara Dunn recently received the John Woods Scholarship to attend the 2009 Prague Summer Program held at Charles University and hosted by Western Michigan University. The program offers artists professional mentors in their field, the culture and history of the Czech Republic, and the ambience of Prague. This years theme is “The Nature of Mother Nature: Women, Power, and the Environment” http://www.praguesummer.com/. 3rd year MFA Reginal Edmund will also be attending the summer program in Prague.
3rd Year Is a Finalist for KC/ACTF National 10-Minute Play Award
Third year MFA playwright Dana Formby has been selected as a finalist for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival’s National 10-Minute Playwriting Competition. Formby’s play, “Armed With Peanut Butter” will receive a staged reading at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. during the national festival in mid-April. Only four plays are selected as finalists from the hundreds submitted from graduate and undergraduate playwrights nationwide. Formby’s accomplishment marks the third time in five years that an OU playwright has been selected as a national finalist. (Ryan Dowler, currently a 2nd year MFA, won the award shortly before joing the program; including Dowler, OU playwrights have been at the top of this list four out of the last five years running.)
3rd Year MFA Writing Wins at National Tournament:
Third Year MFA G. William Zorn’s reader’s theatre scripts THE GREAT AMERICAN FREAK SHOW and MAKE VOYEURS OF US ALL took first and second place, respectively, for the Ohio University Forensics Team at the 2009 Pi Kappa Delta National Tournament. Fifty colleges and universities from around the U.S. contributed entries to the tournament, hosted by Louisiana State University. The works were commissioned by OU’s Director of Forensics, Dan West. In addition to writing the works, Zorn also directed.
3rd Year MFA Is Twice Named National Runner Up
Third year MFA playwright Reginald Edmund has been named first runner up for both the 2009 Lorraine Hansberry Award and the 2009 Rosa Parks Playwriting Award for his play “Southbridge”. Reggie will be honored at the National Kennedy Center ACTF Festival in April for his achievements.
3rd Will Be Doctoral Candidate at WMU:
Third year MFA G. William Zorn was accepted as a doctoral candidate at Western Michigan University, beginning in the fall of 2009. He will be studying Creative Writing with an emphasis in Playwriting.
MFA Plays to be Published in Lit Mag
“Touch The Pillow” by Kara Dunn, 3rd year MFA, and “Mammals” by 2nd year MFA Ryan Dowler will be published in the Third Coast Magazine in the fall of 2009. “Third Coast is one of the nation’s premier literary magazines—and one of only a handful of nationally distributed literary magazines by graduate students. Third Coast consistently publishes excellent, and often award-winning, fiction, poetry, non-fiction and drama.”http://www.thirdcoastmagazine.com/.
First Year MFA in Residence
First year MFA playwright Jason Hall was selected to be Playwright-in-Residence for the third annual 24 Hour Play Festival at Marietta College. Jason mentored six collegiate writers who crafted one-act plays inspired by articles found in the syndicated column “News of the Weird”; the plays were given workshop productions and performed the following evening.
OU MFAs Winners at KC/ACTF
Third year MFA playwright Dana Formby has been selected as co-winner of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region 3 ten minute play festival. Her play Armed with Peanut Butter will now be one of sixteen considered for inclusion at the national festival in Washington DC, in contention for the national ten minute play award. Cecilia Copeland’s and Reina Hardy’s one act plays were selected as first runner up and honorable mention in the one act play competition.
MFA Alum Update: Jacqmin
2007 alum Laura Jacqmin’s play AND WHEN WE AWOKE THERE WAS LIGHT AND LIGHT has been selected as a winner of Aurora Theatre Company’s 2009 Global Age Project, along with plays by Joel Drake Johnson, Wendy MacLeod, and Dan Hoyle; a reading is scheduled for February 23. Additionally, her play SPACE wil be published in 24 by 24: The 24 Hour Plays Anthology(Playscripts, Inc.) along with plays by Adam Bock, John Clancy, Mike Doughty, Will Eno, David Ives, Warren Leight, David Lindsay-Abaire, Terrence McNally, Elizabeth Meriwether, Mac Rogers, Lucy Thurber, and Stephen Winter. Her play 10 VIRGINS will be published by Playscripts, Inc. later this year, and both MENUS and PARKERSBURG are slated to be published by Smith & Kraus in the coming year.
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