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First year playwright Trip interviewed by us!

August 1, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · News

Curious about who the incoming MFA playwrights are?? Well in this interview series we will get to learn a little bit about these awesome writers and their interests. First up we have Trip Venturella, a Boston friendly playwright who just put up a musical this summer called “Killer Maples.” Sounds fun to me!! Read on to learn more about him and look out for our two other interviews with the other writers!! Check out Tripp’s writing in Midnight Madness, coming to you in late August!

1. What got you excited about OU? What specifically are you looking forward to about our playwriting program?

I was excited to spend three years working on my craft. Taking time to write was why I wanted to do an MFA program in the first place. OU appealed to me because of the focus on play production: a play is a living document, a blueprint for a thing that speaks, moves, acts, and breathes in space. Without an awareness of how the form and structure of a play is related to its final “playing,” you will write a boring play! I am also interested in the flexibility of the curriculum, since a play requires not only a deep knowledge of drama, but also a deep knowledge of the play’s subject matter. So I am most excited about/looking forward to staging lots and lots of ideas, crafting exciting plays, living in an environment that encourages the open exchange of ideas, and collaborating with and learning from smart, talented people.

2. Who/what are some of your artistic influences?

There are many! I’m kind of like a food processor, but for art: I try to take ideas from a lot of sources. When it comes to live theatre, I really admire the work of Boston’s Matthew Woods, whose devised scripts with his company, imaginary beasts, consistently blow my mind. Boston-based Johnny Kuntz writes killer plays; the kind I wish I wrote (or aspire to write). Spaulding Grey and Mike Daisy are two of my favorite raconteurs and storytellers, and I am fascinated with dramatic storytelling as a tool for theatre. Bedlam, a company based out of New York, is also one of my favorites when it comes to imaginative interpretations of classic plays. I’ve spent nearly 3 years working at Apollinaire Theatre Company, whose director, Danielle Jacques, has great taste in plays, and who has introduced me to some of my favorite contemporary playwrights, including Young Jean Lee, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Aaron Posner. I also love Neil Simon, Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, David Ives, and the amazing plays of Paula Vogel. Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, and Lin Manuel Miranda are all incredible storytellers when it comes to musicals. I also love poets, with Anne Caron, Ann Sexton, W.S. Merwin, and Robert Lowell being some of my favorite “greats,” and Mark Bibbins, Natalie Diaz, and Naomi Shaib Nye as some of my favorite modern poets.

3. If you could get locked in the closet with one celeb, who would it be and why?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson. If I’m to spend 7 Minutes In Heaven, I want to spend it with someone who knows his way around. Aaaayoooo!

4. At this point in your playwriting work, what kind of stories and questions are you drawn to?

I’m interested in taking low theatrical forms and using them to tell high stories. I’m also interested in using absurdist storytelling elements in otherwise-believable situations. I also like writing about events in the past that reflect or comment on our present moment. Fortunately, we’re living in absurd times. I have been thinking about that a lot in my writing. I am particularly interested, in this moment, in writing a biographical play. One question I’ve been mulling over: how does a democracy become a dictatorship? I also have a bunch of other ideas puttering around, but I feel like my next big play is going to be biographical, and address this question.

5. Tell us a fun fact about you!

For one summer, due to poor planning on my part, I lived at home and worked as a traveling olive oil salesman. Because my parents live in a fairly rural area of Connecticut, I went to a lot of farmers markets frequented by the New York weekender crowd. At one of these markets, I was approached an exceptionally pretty lady and her mother. Definitely weekenders, I thought. They picked out the cheapest bottle of olive oil I had. I tried to upsell them and and they demurred, but I still made the sale. Once they had left, the lady working next to me informed me that I had just sold a bottle of olive oil to Natalie Portman. She could have afforded a more expensive bottle.

Now that you are obsessed with Trip, read some of his work!!

WRITING SAMPLE:

[The door swings open to reveal the inside of the sugar shack. A spigot drips slowly into a tank of sap. In the center of the shack, connected to a mound of knotted roots, is MIKE, still in a tux but now with a flannel shirt thrown over this shoulders, with a drink.]

SUE
Mike!

MIKE
Sue
My dear sister

SUE
What’s happened?

MIKE
I am become a name, Sue!
The trees spoke, and I was the only one to hear their call
I have drunk the glory and the wisdom of the woods

SUE
Mike, you, you’ve—

MIKE
Transforméd?
Yes, but entirely by my own will
Gone mad?
Yes, Sue, I have gone mad, quite mad, suuuuuper-villain mad
It began weeks ago, when I discovered the anger latent in the forests
I discovered ways to make the trees move, to make them kill, to follow the bugs and find prey
I listened to their whispers, but the more I spoke to them, the more I realized it was only a matter of time until I joined them, and now behold the grove and I transforméd, evolvéd, creating a new nature
my end is not to annihilate humans,
it is to transform them from the greedy, destructive killers that they are;
to convert greedy hands to nuuuuuuutrient-seeking roots!
I have shaped, in this grove, a new ecology, where the needs of man and the needs of nature to flourish are no longer at odds
I am the first to take the step, and so the rest of humanity shall follow

REG
He’s not speaking
Sue, your brother is dead
Those are the trees speaking, he’s their puppet

MIKE
He may be right, he may be wrong
Regardless, this fool will be killed!

[REG is entangled in roots]

REG
Ack! I am entangléd in roots!

SUE
Mike, let Reg go
This is between you and me
This is the home we built, and it’s for us alone to decide who will take it with them

MIKE
Hardly, this is between humans, and the rest of the world
I will remove your man
And Sue, you will join me!

REG
Don’t listen to him!
He’s nuts!
He just confessed his madness

MIKE
I may be mad, but madness is reasonable in the face of a our enmeshed history, and fantastic future

More about Trip

Trip Venturella is a graduate of Colby College with a degree in Religious Studies. He has worked with Colby College’s Theater and Dance Department, the human rights group ANHAD: Kashmir, Delhi University in New Delhi, Floating Space Theatre Company in Sri Lanka, and many, many groups in the Boston area. He has done field work on Chams Dance in Sikkim and studied Chhau Dance in Delhi. He currently serves as the Development and Outreach Director of Apollinaire Theatre Company in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where he has overseen the conception of, fundraising for, and buildout of the Riseman Family Theatre and the Chelsea Blackbox Theatre, as well as the production of three years of Apollinaire in the Park: a free, outdoor, bilingual summer theatre production. His original musical “Killer Maples: The Musical!,” a collaboration with the composer Andres Ramos, was produced by Yelling Man Theatre in June of 2016.

Two exciting summer projects by alums!

August 1, 2016
by catherineforever666
· alumni · News · podcast

Both Chanel Glover and Jacquelyn Reingold are up to awesome things this summer! Jacqueline has a new TV show on CBS called “BrainDead” and Chanel has a new podcast “Overqualified and Drunk” that’s now available on ITunes! Enjoy the rest of your summer with some OU flavor, download and record these things today!!

To download Chanel’s podcast click here

Description

Two Overqualified & Drunk black lesbians living in New York City talk spirituality, lesbian love (or nah), and the two things that bind them together, music and booze. Thirty-something year-old Chanel and twenty-something year-old Chloe (going on 50) discuss what ultimately makes them ‘overqualified’ and drunk. Disclaimer – this is raw, extremely jaded and uncut. If you want to tell us why you’re overqualified and drunk or just want to hit us up, you can reach us at: Twitter: @ODChanelChloe Instagram: @ODChanelChloe

More about “BrainDead”

BrainDead” is a comic-thriller set in the world of Washington, D.C. politics that follows Laurel, a young, fresh-faced Hill staffer who discovers two things: the government has stopped working, and bugs are eating the brains of Congress members and Hill staffers. The daughter of a Democratic political dynasty who left Washington, D.C. to become a documentary filmmaker, Laurel is pulled back into THE FAMILY business when her brother, Luke, the Democratic whip Senator from Maryland, needs her help running his Senate office. On the Hill, Laurel becomes unlikely friends with Gareth, the smart, hardworking Legislative Director to a top Republican, Senator Red Wheatus.

Ronnie Koenig has article in the NY Times!

July 29, 2016
by catherineforever666
· alumni · News · Publications

OU Playwriting alum Ronnie Koenig has a feature in the NY Times called “When Friends Get a Home Together” The fascinating and fun article about real estate looks at different groups of friends who have bought houses together and their reasons for doing it. Congrats Ronnie!

Here’s a little excerpt:

For some New Yorkers who have been priced out of New York City’s real estate game, pooling resources with friends and siblings has become the quickest path to homeownership. And while sharing a front door can put even the best relationships to the test, some are finding it’s worth the risk.

For Laurie Savage, a writer and restaurant server, and her husband, Garette Henson, a filmmaker, both 36, the arrival of their son, Fox Henson, almost 2, sparked the idea of buying real estate with a friend. That friend was Alix Frey, 37, whom they had met when they were all students at Sarah Lawrence College.

The group recently moved into a three-story two-family townhouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Ms. Frey, the director of the Blum & Poe gallery in Manhattan, occupies the top level while the couple have the lower level, including the basement and the backyard. The parlor level is divided between the Savage/Hensons and Ms. Frey.

More about Ronnie

She began writing freelance articles for Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Penthouse and iVillage. Her work has also appeared in The Atlantic, Self, Men’s Health, Parents, American Baby, Babble, AOL Moviefone, The Saturday Evening Post and American Way (in your seatback pocket!). Her weekly column for amNY newspaper entertained subway riders and she’s the co-author of Naughty New York: A Lady’s Guide to the Sexy City and Penthouse Presents: Working Stiff.

She has been a well-spoken guest on Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, CBC Radio One and Sirius XM. She performed on the NYC stage at Ars Nova, 92nd St. Y and the East Village’s Kraine theatre. She was fortunate enough to teach a comedy writing class at Gotham Writer’s Workshop and She’s lectured at colleges across the US.

Jeff Chastang’s play in the Alabama Shakespeare Fest!

July 25, 2016
by catherineforever666
· alumni · Awards · News · Productions

Recent alumni Jeff Chastang has been racking up some exciting accomplishments with his play Dauphin Island, which had a production at OU. At OU people were super impressed by the plays fascinating and troubled characters and the smooth storytelling. The play was previously developed through the Southern Writers’ Project and will be presented at Alabama Shakespeare Festival this April ! Look at those OU plays out in the world!

The play has also won the prestigious Edgerton Foundation New Play award for 2016-17. Broadway World writes about this award,” the Edgerton Foundation has distributed New Play Awards every year since 2006, inviting hand-picked theaters “with a strong and consistent track record of producing new work” to apply. Awards provide new plays by American playwrights with an extended rehearsal period, allowing for a more thorough development process than many new plays are afforded.”

Congrats Jeff!

Go see the play!

March 23rd, 2017-April 9th, 2017

A world-premiere production by Jeffry Chastang, developed by the Southern Writers’ Project in which 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.

Location: 1 Festival Drive
Montgomery, AL 36117

Buy tickets here

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.

More Details on Leean Kim Torske’s new company “the Blue Ring”!

July 16, 2016
by catherineforever666
· News

Alum Leann Kim Torske just started a new theater company in Chicago with Mary Rose O’Connor(who previously worked on a new play by alum Ryan Patrick Dolan) called The Blue Ring.” The company is working with a lot of exciting new writers, including OU alums Mark Chrisler, Dusty Wilson and Dana Lynn Formby.

Their Fractured Atlas page reads, “The Blue Ring produces plays about characters who are lacking in resources, experience, or information and are working through issues reflective of current events. Our name is inspired by our spirit animal, the blue ringed octopus, which is beautiful, malleable, slightly unexpected, and through evolution has become deadlier over time.”

Blue Ring’s first season consists of a podcast called the Octopod which will have new short plays by up and coming playwrights and there will also be a production of Machinal.

The Blue Ring has a fundraiser this Sunday night, July 17th in Chicago, go check it out!

Event: The Blue Ring Launch Party, Date: July 17th, 2016, Time: 610pm, Location: The Den Theatre

1333 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60622 Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/ event/2562364

Here’s how to support this new company:

–peruse their website

–Like them on Facebook

–Tweet at them

–Donate and watch their fundraising video!

More about Leann

Leean Kim Torske is a Chicago-based Korean/Norwegian-American playwright and dramaturg from the great state of Wyoming. She earned her MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University and her MA in Literary Studies from the University of Wyoming. Her play Pity Party is featured in Smith & Kraus’s anthology 105 Five-Minute Plays for Study and Performance, publication fall 2016. She is the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of The Blue Ring in Chicago, IL. Leean has been an Artistic Engagement Associate with Steppenwolf Theatre Company since June 2012.

Ira Gamerman has new short play at Serials in NYC this month!

July 14, 2016
by catherineforever666
· alumni · New York · News

Alum Ira Gamerman has gotten a new short play “Jeffs Jewish Dating Service” in the highly competitive “serials” live theater competition series produced by the in-house acting troupe, the Bats, at the Flea Theater in NYC.

Here is how they describe this fun play competition on their website:

#serials@theflea is a raucous late night play competition featuring The Bats and some of NYC’s hottest young playwrights and directors. This event, which runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 11:00pm includes 1 FREE beer with the purchase of a ticket. All tickets are only $12.

In #serials@theflea, five teams of Bats perform original ten-minute episodic plays. The audience votes for its three favorite plays, which return the next week with a new installment. The teams with the two least popular stories must likewise come back the following week, but with entirely different serialized plays.”

Ira’s play runs this Thursday through Saturday (14th-16th) and next Thursday-Saturday(21st-23rd). Buy tickets here!! Congrats Ira!

More about Ira:

IRA LAWRENCE GAMERMAN is a Baltimore-bred AustraliAmerican Playwright, Podcaster, Script Consultant, Screenwriter, Musician, and Educator based in NYC.

Ira’s theatrical work has been performed at The Kennedy Center, Samuel French OOB, Ensemble Studio Theater, Short & Sweet Sydney, Collaboraction (at the Steppenwolf Garage), F*It Club, Source Festival, Single Carrot, The Australian Broadcast Corporation, and The Chicago New Media Summit (among many other places around the globe). In 2006, City Paper voted Ira “Best Playwright Of Baltimore”. In 2009, Dated: A Cautionary Tale For Facebook Users was a New York Innovative Theater Award nominee for best short play. Ira has received playwriting grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and Chicago Union League. BILLY BITCHASS will be published in THE BEST 10 MINUTE PLAYS OF 2016 by Smith & Kraus.

Ira holds a BA in Theater from Towson University, an MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University, and studied Devised theater at the (now defunct) Dartington College Of Art in the UK. He is a script consultant for Serbian Filmmaker Milica Zec (Sundance New Frontiers 2015). Ira has been published by Consequence Of Sound, High Times, Eleven Magazine, and Howlround. His work on The Wire remains his favorite acting gig to date.

Two Alums are up to exciting things this summer!

July 13, 2016
by catherineforever666
· alumni · News

Both Jacquelyn Reingold and Leean Kim Torske have exciting summer news! Reingold has a new TV show which she is writing/producing called “BrainDead” currently on CBS. It premiered Monday, June 13th at 10PM on CBS and is currently running. It was created by the “Good Wife” creators and ,” it centers on the Capitol in Washington, D.C., where alien bugs infect members of Congress.”(Wikipedia)

Leean Kim Torske just started a new theater company in Chicago with Mary Rose O’Connor called The Blue Ring.” The company is working with a lot of exciting new writers, including OU alum Mark Chrisler. Their Fractured Atlas page reads, “The Blue Ring produces plays about characters who are lacking in resources, experience, or information and are working through issues reflective of current events. Our name is inspired by our spirit animal, the blue ringed octopus, which is beautiful, malleable, slightly unexpected, and through evolution has become deadlier over time.” The Blue Ring has a fundraiser this Sunday night, July 17th in Chicago, go check it out!

More about Leean

More about Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Reingold writes for theatre and television. She is currently a writer/producer for BRAINDEAD, created by Robert and Michele King, airing on CBS starting June 2016. She wrote for Netflix’s GRACE AND FRANKIE, created by Marta Kauffman and Howard J. Morris, starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston. Other TV writing includes: NBC’s SMASH (Executive Producer, Theresa Rebeck), HBO’s Peabody Award winning IN TREATMENT (Executive Producer, Warren Leight), writing the “Mia” episodes for Emmy nominated Hope Davis and Gabriel Byrne. Recent plays include: I KNOW in Ensemble Studio Theatre’s One-act Marathon and UP AND DOWN for Christine Jones’ Theatre for One. Other plays include STRING FEVER at Ensemble Studio Theatre, starring Cynthia Nixon and Evan Handler, also produced at Playhouse West in California, and in Washington DC at Theatre J. She wrote an episode of the serialized play, CEDAR CITY FALLS, created and produced by Liz Tuccillo. Her one-acts THEY FLOAT UP, and A VERY VERY SHORT PLAY were produced in ’10 and ’08 at Ensemble Studio Theatre. Another one-act 2B (OR NOT 2B) was produced at The Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2009. Her full length play, A STORY ABOUT A GIRL was part of the JAW Playwrights Festival at Portland Center Stage, Oregon, and was workshopped at The Williamstown Theatre in ’13. Her other plays: GIRL GONE, 2B (OR NOT 2B), ACAPULCO, FOR-EVERETT, DEAR KENNETH BLAKE, DOTTIE AND RICHIE, TUNNEL OF LOVE, JILEY & LEDNERG, JOE AND STEW’S THEATRE, LOST AND FOUND, A.M.L., and FREEZE TAG have been produced or workshopped in New York at the MCC Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Naked Angels, HB Playwrights Theatre, the Drama League at HERE, All Seasons Theatre, Atlantic Theatre, and the Working Theatre; in Los Angeles; at theatres across the country; in London, Berlin, Belgrade, New Zealand, Australia, and Hong Kong.

Joseph Gallo has new play in New Jersey this month!

July 7, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Books · Events · News · world premiere

OU Playwriting alum Joseph Gallo has a new one man play “Long Gone Daddy” at Mile Square Theater that will be running July 21st through August 7th in Hoboken, New Jersey!

He also has a recently published play collection Two Plays: My Italy Story and Long Gone Daddy out! The book signing will be at Little City Books in Hoboken (100 Bloomfield Street) on Thursday, July 7 at 7:30 pm. There will be a Q & A afterwards conducted by Chris O’Connor, Artistic Director of Mile Square Theatre.

Congrats Joseph! Go see the play if you’re in the area!

Details on play

JULY 21 – AUGUST 7
Thurs-Sat @ 8pm • Sun @ 3pm
Tickets: $20 • $12 students/seniors

JULY 20 Preview
Wednesday, July 20 @ 8pm
Tickets: $18

Purchase tickets here

Long Gone Daddy chronicles the comic misadventures of becoming a stay-at-home father. From Bruce Springsteen concerts to OBGYN appointments to the Hoboken playgrounds and back again, Gallo’s semi-autobiographical play also wrestles with the memory of his own Dad, a former fireman, and the existential question, “When does a father earn the right to be called Dad?”

Recommended for audiences 16 and up.

More about Joe

Joseph Gallo’s play My Italy Story, which had its New York debut Off-Broadway at the 47th Street Theatre, and was nominated for the Gay Talese Literary Prize, was recently revived at Mile Square Theatre. His full-length plays include Warning: Adult Content (Theatre 54) and Staten Island (Circle Rep Lab), while his solo shows include Whizzy and The Jealousy Piece, both of which premiered in the American Living Room festival at HERE. He co-created, and wrote the text for two dance/theater pieces Tannhauser: A Dance Play and 80% of Love, both of which debuted in New York at the Obie award-winning Ice Factory Festival at the Ohio Theatre; the latter done in collaboration with company Rindfleisch, and subsequently transferred to the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. His work has additionally been seen on the stages of the Barrow Street Theatre, the Lark, Pearl Theater, Samuel Beckett Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Penguin Rep, TheaterWorks, 12 Miles West, 78th Street Theatre, Waterfront Ensemble, Atlantic Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Delaware Stage Company, Seven Angels Theatre, Orlando Fringe Festival, Manhattan Class Company, the Kennedy Center, Bridge Theatre Company, and at both the Hudson Guild Theatre and Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles. He holds an MFA in playwriting from Ohio University, and is a current member of the Actors Studio Playwrights and Directors Workshop. He has also worked extensively in the development of both film and television projects, including a film chronicling the life of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and on the screenplay adaptation of the memoir Woody, Cisco & Me. His original screenplays include My Italy Story, and the pilot episode for the television series Gotham House. He most recently wrote the story Robert Zarinsky for truTV, and the pilot episode for the television series How Did You Meet? Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Significant Other! He wrote and directed two short films, M*O*N*E*Y and No Parking, and also did the screenplay adaptation of the Raymond Carver short story Careful. He studied film at New York University, and currently teaches screenwriting at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

Dana Lynn Formby featured on prestigious ‘Kilroy’ List!

June 30, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Chicago · News

OU Alumni Dana Lynn Formby is once again honored on the Kilroy list! Her play “The Labeler” was one of honorable mentions. This list was a tool created by the all female LA activist group of writers who were looking for ways to promote gender parity in the theater. They said so many gatekeepers were saying there were no good plays by female artists, so they got gate keepers to vote on the most exciting unproduced plays by women. Dana also had a play on the list last year.

Here is a little synopsis of “The Labeler”: Two sisters, one “successful” one “…not so much”, must agree on the best way to lay their mother to rest. One sweet boon is she left them a piece of her in the form of a podcast, downloadable on iTunes. This is a hilarious, heartbreaking, suspenseful play that examines what it means—and what it takes to finally say goodbye.”

The play had development at Chicago Dramatists and was a semi-finalist for the Blue-Ink Prize at American Blues Theater.

Congrats Dana! Hope this place finds a good, friendly home!

About Dana

Dana Lynn Formby is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists. Her play JOHNNY 10 BEERS’ DAUGHTER was listed on the Kilroys’ Honorable mention list for 2015. Her play AMERICAN BEAUTY SHOP was read at Steppenwolf’s First Look 2014. It was also nominated for Kilroy’s 2014’s “The List.” Her plays have been produced, workshopped, and read by Pegasus, Chicago Dramatists, Mortar Theatre Company, Steep, PICT, Victory Gardens, WordBRIDGE, Florida Studio Theatre, The Alliance Theatre of Atlanta, The Kennedy Center, and New York Theatre Workshop. Her short play A DECK OF MONSTERS was featured in Goodman’s New Play Bake-Off. Her play UNTIL DEATH was produced in 2015 at Concordia University Chicago in association with Chicago Dramatists. She is represented by The Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency in New York. She was a Finalist for the 2015 Princess Grace Award in playwriting.

Tyler Whidden’s thesis play to be produced at Ensemble Theater in Ohio!

May 25, 2016
by catherineforever666
· News

Recent Alum Tyler Whidden’s new play “Occupation:Dad” will be part of the 2016-17 season at Ensemble Theater in Cleveland. The play received a thesis production at the Seabury Quinn Jr Festival and also received the prestigious Trisolini Fellowship. He has worked on previous plays with Ensemble including “Dancing with N.E.D” and “Run Kingsbury Run.”

Synopsis of Occupation:Dad: Jason has a job, okay? He just works from home now. Things are tough nowadays what with the economy and all. So, stop looking at him like that. Lots of dads stay home with their babies. Right? It’s no big deal and it’s really not that tough. Except his kid won’t walk. And his mother won’t help. And his older brother’s a jerk-off. And his sister’s kids are already perfect and the playground moms are psychotic and everybody on Facebook hates him. But, other than all that, everything is just hunky-dory. Except his dad – you know what, forget his dad. It’s fine. Seriously. Everything is …

Congrats Tyler! Check the play out in Ensemble’s next season!

More about 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. As a comedian, Tyler was labeled by critics and fans alike as, “hilarious,” “tragic,” and “probably stoned.” 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 Theatre of Cleveland.His play Dancing With N.E.D. has seen productions in New Jersey, Ohio, and Washington. 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 and his one-act play, Detour, was part of the “Truck Stop Plays” production in Chicago.He is the 2015 – 2016 recipient of the prestigious Anthony Trisolini Named Fellowship and 2016 graduate of the MFA Playwriting program at Ohio University under Charles Smith and Erik Ramsey.