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Category: Productions

What I did last summer (2019): Skye Robinson Hillis

  • September 20, 2019
  • by Erik Ramsey
  • · Current Students · News · Productions · Reading

For Skye, the summer of 2019 was spent working as the Box Office Manager at the Weston Playhouse in Vermont, which produces six shows over three months’ time in two venues. The highlight of her summer, however, was workshopping her full-length play Into Place as a part of the Headwaters New Festival at Creede Repertory Theatre in Colorado. Additionally, her play The Ordinariness of Everything was named a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award.

Read any of her short plays and full-lengths here: https://newplayexchange.org/users/1125/skye-robinson-hillis

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2018 Alums Cristina Luzárraga and Philana Imade Omorotionmwan Are Jerome Fellows

  • July 5, 2019
  • by Erik Ramsey
  • · alumni · Athena Project · Awards · Br!nk New Works Festival · Jerome Fellowship · La MaMa · Many Voices Fellowship · News · P73 Fellowship · Playwrights' Center · Reading · ScreenCraft Stage Play Award Winner · TV

Cristina Luzárraga (Jerome Fellow, 2019-20) and Philana Imade Omorotionmwan (Jerome Fellow, 2018-19), are two recent OHIO MFA Playwriting alums representing back-to-back years of the Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. The fellowship is often considered career-changing for early-career playwrights; as the PWC press release notes:

Jerome and Many Voices Fellows spend a year in residency in the Twin Cities, working in an individualized and hands-on way with the Playwrights’ Center artistic staff—some of the most experienced and connected theater professionals in the country. In addition to an $18,000 stipend, fellows receive $2,000 in play development funds to workshop new plays with professional directors, dramaturgs, and actors. The Center also builds connections between the playwrights and producers of new work.

Luzárraga (just beginning the Jerome), and Omorotionmwan (just finishing), were in the same graduating class (2018) and often politely competed for awards, fellowships and grants. As far as the Jerome Fellowship is concerned — the two continue to finish in a dead heat, always with very different voices and approaches to their work.

Cristina LuzCristina Luzárraga grew up in New Jersey and still resides there, believe it or not. She’s an alum The Second City Conservatory in Chicago, the town where she once (foolishly?) dabbled in comedy performance of all kinds. Her work has been developed at Towne Street Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, The New Colony, and Tantrum Theater. Her full length plays include Critical Distance, Millennialville, and La Mujer Barbuda (Inaugural ScreenCraft Stage Play Award Winner; 2018 Princess Grace Award finalist). Her short plays have been published in anthologies by Smith and Kraus. She co-wrote and adaptation of Aphra Behn’s The Rover that was produced by Ohio University where she recently earned an MFA in playwriting… Then there’s this, of course, when you need a good laugh…

philana-better-picPhilana Imade Omorotionmwan (o-more-o-tune-wha) is currently based in Minneapolis, MN as a 2018-19 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center. Her plays include Before Evening Comes, The Defiance of Dandelions, Fireflies, and Strong Face, or Misogynoir. Her work has been developed and/or presented at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Br!nk New Works Festival, La MaMa Experiments Series, and Athena Project Festival. She has been a semifinalist for the Relentless Award, P73 Fellowship, and Many Voices Fellowship, as well as a two-time Heideman finalist, and a finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship, the Theatre503 Award, and the Playwrights Realm’s Scratchpad Series. Her short plays have been produced by Ensemble Studio Theatre, Pillsbury House + Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Source, Stay Awake! Theatre, Little Black Dress Ink, 20% Theatre Company Chicago, and Ohlone College. Her poems have appeared in New Delta Review and African American Review. Philana earned a BA in English at Stanford University, where she began writing plays under the mentorship of Cherríe Moraga and also dabbled in spoken word. Philana completed an MFA in Playwriting in May 2018. She is at work on a television pilot about her experiences as a teacher in public charter schools. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild. philanaplays.weebly.com

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Alum Qui Nguyen Featured in L.A. Times

  • March 30, 2019
  • by Erik Ramsey
  • · alumni · New York · News · Press · Productions · Qui Nguyen · TV · world premiere

QuiNguyen2015On April 5th, at South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, California, OHIO MFA playwriting alum Qui Nguyen — a pioneer of  “geek theatre” — will open his new play Poor Yella Rednecks. The play is a sequel to his highly lauded Vietgone, and commissioned by SCR and Manhattan Theatre Club.

Qui is a co-founder of the Obie Award-winning Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company, known as the first and only professional theatre company to be sponsored by New York Comic Con.

Poor Yella Rednecks is the sequel to Nguyen’s Vietgone, which premiered at South Coast Rep in 2015. Rednecks begins previews Saturday and opens a week later. The plays, co-commissioned by SCR and Manhattan Theatre Club, follow the love story of Nguyen’s mother and father, Tong and Quang, who met in the Fort Chaffee refugee camp in Arkansas after they escaped Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. Poor Yella Rednecks, which Nguyen lovingly nicknamed Vietgone 2, zeroes in on the challenges the couple face as blue-collar immigrants, recently married and starting a family. (L.A. Times, March 28, 2019)

Qui writes for TV and film, in addition to continuing to be one of the most sought after playwrights in the country:

“I started in TV, then I went to Marvel, and then I went back to TV for a while and did AMC and Netflix, and now I’m back in film for Disney,” he says. “I feel like I’m late to the game, so I’m hungry to succeed.” (L.A. Times, March 28, 2019)

Writing for likes of Marvel and Disney hasn’t slowed his pace as a playwright: major theaters such as Center Theatre Group in L.A., Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Atlantic Theater Company and Playwrights Horizons in New York continue to commission him.

For more about Qui’s climb to national recognition:

  • New York Times profile of Qui in 2016
  • NBC News on Vietgone in 2017
  • L.A. Times review of Vietgone at South Coast Rep in 2015

And more about his latest play, Poor Yella Rednecks, opening next week:

  • L.A. Times review of Poor Yella Rednecks in 2019

What is “Geek Theatre”?

  • American Theatre takes a stab at defining “Geek Theatre”

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Skye Robinson Hillis’ play AND VASTER, now available at Play4Keeps

  • March 26, 2019
  • by Erik Ramsey
  • · Chicago · News · Productions

Check out 1st Year playwright Skye Robinson Hillis’ full-length play AND VASTER, now available as a recording through Play4Keeps, an off-shoot of the venerable Ashland New Plays Festival! Listen right here, and discover what Play4Keeps is all about.

_MG_4237Skye Robinson Hillis is a playwright, director, and dramaturg in based Chicago. As a playwright, her work has been seen at The Route 66 Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, A Red Orchid Theatre, Piven Theatre Workshop, Artistic Home, Prologue Theatre Company, Polarity Ensemble Theatre, 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 (2015), winner of the Ashland New Plays Festival (2015), and winner of the Holland New Voices Award at the Great Plains Theatre Conference (2017). AND VASTER was also named a semi-finalist for The Princess Grace Award. As a director and dramaturg, she has worked for Hartford Stage, Goodman Theatre, Court Theatre, A Red Orchid, Remy Bumppo, Stage Left, and more.

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“Dauphin Island” to be done at Detroit Rep in 2018!

  • July 15, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · alumni · News · Productions

Jeffry Chastang’s play Dauphin Island is on fire! It was recently at AlabamaShakes and now will be apart of Detroit Repertory Theater’s 2017/18 season.

The play will run at Detroit Rep, Jan 11th to March 18th, 2018 and will be its Midwest Premiere! For more details click here. Congrats Jeff!! Very exciting to see this beautiful, haunting play get so much recognition!

More about the play:

Suspicion and fascination dovetail when (en route from Detroit to a new job on Alabama’s Dauphin Island) Selwyn Tate interrupts the self-imposed isolation of Kendra in the piney woods–dramatizing the risks involved when two displaced souls intertwine.

Go see it at Detroit Rep!!

More about Jeff

Jeffry Chastang Michigan-born Jeffry Chastang received his MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University. His thesis play Dauphin Island reached semifinalist status with the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference selection committee.  Jeffry was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Roger L. Stevens Award for his first play Full Circle, which was produced by Detroit’s Plowshares Theater Company.  Plowshares also produced his second play …Continued Warm, which was named Best New Play by the Oakland Press.  He was commissioned by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) to write Blood Divided, a play marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War in Montgomery, Alabama.  Blood Divided also received an Edgerton Foundation New Plays Award.  Jeffry’s play Preparations was developed in ASF’s Southern Writers Project.  As an actor Jeffry’s professional credits include Fences, The Old Settler and A Soldier’s Play.

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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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Charles Smith’s Play Discussed on NPR’s Weekend Edition

  • June 3, 2017
  • by Erik Ramsey
  • · Chicago · News · world premiere
objects_01_wide-af9f795118f04eaf31f2c07a9b3a66bce388f8e4-s800-c85
Daniel Kyri plays Shedrick Yarkpai in the Goodman Theatre production of Objects in the Mirror.
Liz Lauren/Goodman Theatre

Charles Smith’s Objects in the Mirror is featured in today’s Weekend Edition by NPR (June 3rd, 2017). Listen at the link below:

http://www.npr.org/2017/06/03/531207534/this-play-was-inspired-by-a-real-refugee-s-shakespearean-dilemma

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Jeff Chastang’s new play written about in “American Theater” Magazine!

  • March 31, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · News · Press · Productions · world premiere

Recent alum Jeff Chastang’s thesis play Dauphin Island was written about in “American Theater Magazine”! The article talks about the development process of the play and is a fun read!

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Rominger, the actors, and the dramaturg all stayed on board for the play’s next iteration. The development process from SWP to the main stage season was supported by a TCG Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, a grant which allowed Chastang and the creative team to dive back into the play before mounting the world premiere at Alabama Shakes.

“We did a discontinuous week in the fall, and that gave him more time to work on the piece in a stress-free situation,” says Rominger of the grant. “What an honor to actually work with the playwright and find and craft their story.”

Chastang says the process of picking up the play with the same actors and team has given him the ability to shape the play in new ways and tweak the dialogue.

“There is something really beautiful about Jeff’s writing—he writes these marvelously complicated, messy, and beautifully flawed characters,” adds Rominger. “His dialogue is just so lovely and rich.”

In addition to another ASF production in the books, the world premiere production will mark another achievement for Chastang: After the play opens, he will finally get to visit Dauphin Island.

Read full article here  Congrats Jeff!

 

See the play at Alabma Shakes!!

Dauphin Island

A world-premiere production by Jeffry Chastang.

March 23, 2017 – April 9, 2017

Suspicion and fascination dovetail when (en route from Detroit to a new job on Dauphin Island) Selwyn Tate interrupts the self-imposed isolation of Kendra in the Alabama woods — dramatizing the risks involved when two displaced souls intertwine. Developed by the Southern Writers’ Project.

Dauphin Island is a recipient of the 2016-2017 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.

Buy tickets here

Alabama Shakes Festival- 1 Festival Drive, Montgomery, AL 36117

 

More about Jeff

Michigan-born Jeffry Chastang was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Roger L. Stevens Award for his first play FULL CIRCLE, which was produced by Detroit’s Plowshares Theater Company.  Plowshares also produced his second play …CONTINUED WARM, which was named Best New Play by the Oakland Press.  He was commissioned by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) to write BLOOD DIVIDED, a play marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War in Montgomery, Alabama.  BLOOD DIVIDED also received an Edgerton Foundation New Plays Award.  Jeffry’s play PREPARATIONS was developed in ASF’s Southern Writers Project.  As an actor his professional credits include FENCES, THE OLD SETTLER and A SOLDIER’S PLAY.

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Great press for Jeff Chastang’s new play at Alabama Shakes!

  • March 23, 2017
  • by catherineforever666
  • · News · Productions

Recent alum Jeffry Chastang’s play Dauphin Island opens tonight at Alabama Shakespeare Festival! It has been getting some great press including this article in the “Montgomery Inquirer,” read it here.  Here’s an except from the article:

“Written by Jeffry Chastang through the Southern Writers’ Project, this one-act play with no intermission has a script that will leave the audience “thirsty,” said Pritchett. “The first time we read it, that’s what it did for me,” he said.

“One of my favorite things about this script is that it is an adult love story,” said VandenHeuvel. “I think sometimes in our youth-focused culture, we forget that people over 40 have love lives and feelings and dreams. At 40-something, you can still dream. You can still have a dream for yourself that you would like to fulfill.”

“The great thing that Jeffry Chastang has done with this particular story, I think, is that It’s really just a slice of life story,” said Pritchett.”

Dauphin Island also was Jeff’s thesis play here and had a workshop production at Ohio University. Read an exclusive interview with him about the play by us!

Congrats Jeff on your play opening! Go see if it you’re in Alabama!

 

Details

Dauphin Island

A world-premiere production by Jeffry Chastang.

March 23, 2017 – April 9, 2017

Suspicion and fascination dovetail when (en route from Detroit to a new job on Dauphin Island) Selwyn Tate interrupts the self-imposed isolation of Kendra in the Alabama woods — dramatizing the risks involved when two displaced souls intertwine. Developed by the Southern Writers’ Project.

Dauphin Island is a recipient of the 2016-2017 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.

Buy tickets here

Alabama Shakes Festival- 1 Festival Drive, Montgomery, AL 36117

 

More about Jeff

Michigan-born Jeffry Chastang was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Roger L. Stevens Award for his first play FULL CIRCLE, which was produced by Detroit’s Plowshares Theater Company.  Plowshares also produced his second play …CONTINUED WARM, which was named Best New Play by the Oakland Press.  He was commissioned by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) to write BLOOD DIVIDED, a play marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War in Montgomery, Alabama.  BLOOD DIVIDED also received an Edgerton Foundation New Plays Award.  Jeffry’s play PREPARATIONS was developed in ASF’s Southern Writers Project.  As an actor his professional credits include FENCES, THE OLD SETTLER and A SOLDIER’S PLAY.

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