Ohio University MFA Playwriting Program
MID-YEAR UPDATE
In July, 2020, Third-Year MFA Playwright Skye Robinson Hillis‘ play Bury the Rest was performed on the podcast Unstaged, hosted by Jenna VanWeelden. The episodes are linked below, or you can listen to Unstaged on most major podcast platforms.
Act I: https://anchor.fm/unstagedpod/episodes/Bury-The-Rest-by-Skye-Robinson-Hillis–Act-1-eg15pm
Act II: https://anchor.fm/unstagedpod/episodes/Bury-The-Rest-by-Skye-Robinson-Hillis–Act-2-ege78v
MID-YEAR UPDATE
First-Year MFA Playwright Steven Strafford’s play Safe was workshopped at the 16th Street Theater (August, 2020) and is currently a semifinalist of both the 2021 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the 2021 New American Voices Playwriting Festival. Safe was also selected by Tantrum East for an October, 2021 workshop.
In addition, Steven’s short play Use Your Noodles was produced at Middlesex College.
MID-YEAR UPDATE
First-year MFA Playwright Eryn Elyse McVay’s new short play The Weight of It All will be performed as a “splash” piece at the 2021 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Region 7. A “splash” piece has the actors rehearse the play separately from each other and then not meet each other until the performance! The Region 7 festival runs February 17-20, 2021.
As the call for the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award goes out for 2021, we’re reminded that the pandemic preempted a post about 2020 MFA alum Olivia Matthews, whose play Absentia was the 2020 student award winner. Furthermore, current third-year MFA Skye Robinson Hillis‘s play Bury the Rest was runner up in the 2020 competition. Congratulations to both!
STUDENT CONTEST WINNER 2020
ABSENTIA by Olivia Matthews: After living in the secluded Florida woods for eight years with only her overprotective father and pet rabbit Robyn, 20-year-old Esther Harris longs to be reunited with her long-lost mother. Meanwhile, only miles away, Diana Baines gathers with her community to mourn the loss of her young daughter, Neoma. When Esther’s father kills her beloved Robyn, she flees from their cabin and returns to her hometown, turning Diana’s grief on its head. Soon, their lives collide as Esther learns more and more of how everyone around her has moved on in her absence. And as she is haunted by a mysterious death from her path, Esther must fight to reclaim her space and identity in her old home.
STUDENT HONORABLE MENTION
BURY THE REST by Skye Robinson Hillis: Following the death of their 17-year-old daughter Lucy in a mass high school shooting, friendly exes Margot and Colin find themselves at a moral impasse. Colin’s position as a Republican U.S. Senator makes it difficult for Margot and the rest of the family to reconcile the root of their grief with his continued support of the NRA. As Margot and Colin intertwine themselves during the grieving process, their relationship takes a dark turn that leaves Colin’s new wife Laura on the outside and their remaining daughter Samantha to navigate this brave new world on her own. Each member of the family tumbles deeper into the cavernous rabbit hole of devastation, loneliness, and anger while Lucy, inexplicably caught between the living and the dead, must confront the truths of her short life while facing the terrifying looming reality that is her death. As they navigate the intimacies of their reforged relationship and rebuild themselves as a family, it may in fact be Lucy who decides their fate.
THE JANE CHAMBERS AWARD recognizes new feminist plays and performance texts created by women and genderqueer writers for the stage that present a feminist perspective and contain significant opportunities for female performers. We welcome plays that experiment with form and/or that feature non-binary characters. This annual award, established in 1984, is given in memory of lesbian playwright Jane Chambers who, through her plays A Late Snow, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, My Blue Heaven, Kudzu, & The Quintessential Image, became a major feminist voice in American theatre. Sponsored by the Women and Theatre Program (WTP) with the Association for Theater in Higher Education, the Jane Chambers winner receives $250 and a
reading at the WTP Conference.
What does it mean if something is home cooked? Is it a comfort? A burden? Is it time well spent with the family and friends, or is it take out and TV? Are there specific rules that make something uniquely home cooked? Let’s find out! In this week’s Madness, we will combine 6 playwrights, a handful of creativity, a dash of ego, and a few sweet burns to explore what it means for something to be home cooked. Friday, 1/29 at 6:00 p.m. EST. Produced by 2nd-year playwright, Klae Bainter.
How to attend Madness this spring (2021):
More about Madness at https://ohioplaywriting.org/madness/.
After a long, isolated break, Madness is ALIVE! To celebrate its return as a live Zoom-show this semester, OHIO’s MFA Playwriting Program will explore the things that make us feel alive — that remind us we live and breathe and exist despite a distanced society. Produced by 3rd-year playwright, John Hendel.
How to attend Madness this fall (2020):
More about Madness at https://ohioplaywriting.org/madness/.
For the past twenty-five years, the School of Theater at Ohio University has hosted the annual Seabury Quinn Jr. Playwrights Festival celebrating the plays written by the writers in the MFA playwriting program and featuring one-on-one mentorship for our students by nationally recognized playwrights and other leaders in new play development. The recent pandemic has forced us, as well as other theaters and universities around the country, to cancel these plans and explore new ways to give our writers a culminating experience with outside mentors in recognition of their work over the past year. Here’s more about our approach and the schedule of events.
John spent the summer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts as the House Manager for Barrington Stage Company. He realized two things during this time: 1) he’s irrationally afraid of skunks and 2) he’s a big ol’ dork who’s grown to really like school.
Bio
John Hendel is a playwright most recently from Los Angeles. His plays include Pulling Off Procreation (Or Is It Wrong to Keep Fucking if the Baby Starts Crying?) (2013 Cincinnati Fringe Festival, winner: Founders’ Pick of the Fringe), Wearhorse (2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival), Fame Confusions and The Greatest Play Ever (If You Don’t Think So, You’re a Basket of Farts) (NY Artists Unlimited International Cringe Fest, 2009 and 2010, respectively). He has twice been a PlayLab writer at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, AK. His work online includes his 64 Plays in 64 Days project, as well as writing about movies and television. He received his Playwriting BFA from Ohio University. Follow him on twitter @hendyhendel.
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
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 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 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
