Interview with 2nd Year MFA Katherine Varga about Her Seabury Reading: Cora

April 22, 2018
by ouplaywrights
· Current Students · Festival · News · Seabury Quinn, Jr.

The 24th Annual Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights’ Festival officially opens tonight! The featured, Thesis Productions of our Third Year MFA Playwrights debut this weekend in Kantner Hall on the Elizabeth Evans Baker Stage. To celebrate the opening of the featured productions, and leading up to the festival staged readings on the 26th, 27th, and 28th, we will be featuring daily interviews with the current playwrights about their work. We’ve interviewed the 3rd Year MFA Playwrights, Philana, Cristina, and Natasha on their Featured Thesis Productions, now learn a little more about the upcoming staged readings presented by the 2nd and 1st Year MFA Playwrights!

Second Year MFA Katherine Varga (pictured below!) was interviewed by Third Year MFA Philana Omorotionmwan about her play, Cora.

Philana Omorotionmwan: Cora is set in a world in which people can separate themselves from their hearts, which allows them to perform their jobs more efficiently. What inspired you to write this play?

Katherine Varga: I was originally inspired by a workshop from Michael Bigelow Dixon, who encourages playwrights to embrace theatricality in the 21^st century. During his talk, he challenged us to create theatre that reflects what living in the digital age is like – an age where you’re constantly bombarded with vivid imagery and sharp contrasts (just scroll through your social media feed!). While I don’t think I lived up to his challenge, I was interested in exploring the effects of constant exposure to horrifying news, and our desire for instant gratification.

In the world of Cora, when you separate yourself from your heart you need to hire an Ellie (which is basically a digitalized room) to keep it safe. Since most of my friends and family live outside of Ohio, I spend a lot of my time communicating with them through my phone and laptop. Sometimes it feels like my heart is trapped inside a computer.

Philana: A little birdie told me that you didn’t outline this play before you wrote it. Can you talk a little more about what your process was like and how that may have differed from the way you approached writing previous plays?

Katherine: I started writing last semester based on a premise: “What would happen if computers could babysit our hearts?” I didn’t have much time to start something new but was worried if I didn’t start writing, I’d lose my excitement for the idea. I started writing three pages by hand every morning before I got out of bed. They were sort of in order, but if I was struggling I’d just jump ahead to whatever scene interested me that day. If I couldn’t think of anything, I’d force myself to just write a throwaway scene – usually by the third page I’d have discovered something interesting about the characters or the world.

For previous plays, I’ve written first drafts having a good idea of where I was going – usually an outline, or at least a list of major scenes. With this play, I had no idea where it was going, and I often didn’t know a scene would exist until I was writing it. Once I had a substantial amount of pages, I went back to my outlining comfort zone to put together a coherent draft (and ended up throwing out a lot of the pages I wrote). But I really enjoyed letting myself discover moments in the play through writing pages.

Philana: As a second-year playwright, you get to collaborate with a director for your staged reading. I know it’s still a little early, but how does working with a director influence your process?

Katherine: Working with a director is rejuvenating. It helps me look at my own play with new eyes and often opens up opportunities in the text I hadn’t realized were there. So far I’ve only had one talk with Olivia, my Playfest director, but she’s insightful and creative and I’m really excited to get into the rehearsal room with her.

Philana: What play (or playwright) do you read over and over again, and what keeps bringing you back to it (or them)?

Katherine: I’m going to go rogue and answer with a musical! Technically, the main reason I’ve listened to Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days over and over again is that I have the original cast recording in my car, and it’s a nice way to pass the time on long car drives. But I also love the journey I go on when listening to the album. The songs are full of great character-driven language (and some lovely internal rhymes). The Deb/Warren storyline in particular exemplifies the types of stories I’m drawn to – a friendship love story that celebrates art and appreciating everyday moments.

Philana: If your play were a flavor of ice cream, what would it be and why?

Katherine: A twist, because the play’s split into two stories. The Woman is vanilla (because she doesn’t have a heart) and Cora is chocolate.

Katherine Varga is a millennial playwright working through her love-hate relationship with the Internet. Her first play Energy Mass Light was selected for a developmental staged reading at the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY and was later student-produced on the University of Rochester campus. Her shorter plays have been seen at Writers & Books (Rochester), the 2015 First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival, 20% Theatre Company (Chicago), and Curious Theatre (Denver). Her full-length screenplay It’s Not Rocket Science was a finalist in the 2017 LezPlay Contest. She also freelances as an arts journalist for the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, a Gannett paper. Website: http://katherinevarga.weebly.com

Cora

by Katherine Varga, directed by Olivia Rocco
4:00 pm, Friday April 27th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

A young photojournalist travels overseas to document war crimes. But first, she must agree to leave her heart behind. Fortunately, her news corporation has state-of-the-art technology to ensure the hearts are protected and thoroughly entertained. Cora explores how a digital culture that connects us to the world can separate us from ourselves.

Tickets for the Stage Readings are FREE and open to the public.

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Interview with 2nd Year MFA Inna Tsyrlin about Her Seabury Reading: Exodus of Dreams

April 21, 2018
by ouplaywrights
· Current Students · Festival · News · Seabury Quinn, Jr.

Second Year MFA Inna Tsyrlin (pictured below!) was interviewed by Third Year MFA Cristina Luzárraga about her play, Exodus of Dreams.

Cristina Luzárraga: Your play Exodus Of Dreams is about Russian Jewish immigrants in New York. As a Russian Jewish immigrant to Australia, what do you see as the differences between the American and Australian immigration experience?

Inna Tsyrlin: The wave of Russian Jewish immigrants from the late 80s to mid-nineties all had similar experiences, irrespective of where they ended up. A majority came to America; then many went to Israel; some to Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. Many of these immigrants, myself included, experience a mix of gratitude to be free from Soviet anti-Semitism and a strong nostalgia for Soviet culture that is difficult to replicate in Western countries. The assimilation of Russian Jews into Australian society is more evident than in American society, but that’s mainly to do with the larger population of these immigrants to America. I would say that irrespective of where Russian Jews are, leaving the former Soviet Union was a necessity and there is immense appreciation to those countries who opened their doors to us.

Cristina: Trump has obviously changed the state of immigration in the U.S., and your plays are often politically charged. How does Exodus Of Dreams relate to the current climate?

Inna: My intension with Exodus Of Dreams was to write a play that focusses on the story of an immigrant family looking for salvation and opportunity in America. The current administration wants to literally wipe out immigration to America, a country that, despite its strict immigration policy (even before Trump coming to office), was known as a country of immigrants not only from a historical perspective but as part of its identity. If my play sheds a new light or reaffirms the importance of both continuing immigration to America – and other Western counties – and supporting immigrants who try to build new lives post their arrival, then I feel like I’ve added something to the heated and currently fraught conversation on immigration.

Cristina: Your characters are very committed to keeping kosher. What’s your own relationship like to Jewish laws and tradition?

Inna: I’m Jewish in faith, ethnicity and identity. How much I practice or don’t practice changes as I feel a greater pull to certain aspects of the faith, while other aspects I’m still attempting to understand. I’ve always been told that because I went to a Jewish school, my parents and grandparents felt more connected to Judaism, something they never physically experienced in the Soviet Union, like having a seder (Passover meal) every year since we came to Australia.

Cristina: Your play centers on the dilemma of transplanting a pig heart into a human. How close is this to reality? When might we expect to start harvesting animal organs?

Inna: From the research that I’ve found the answer is soon. There are shortages of human organs and animals are probably the next best thing, as long as the human body can accept the organ. Additionally, the chromosome structures of pigs are very close to our own, so the idea of pig organs being a viable option isn’t far-fetched. There’s the saying “you are what you eat”, perhaps it will be a phrase that isn’t only apt for healthy eating.

Cristina: There is a talking pig in your play. If you could have a talking animal as a friend, what would it be, and why?

Inna: Can I just be friends with all the animals in the zoo? Animals are fascinating to me and I’d love to get their perspectives on life; from the ones that fly to the ones that crawl. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a bat describe its life and compare that to what a platypus may tell us? I’d like to ask my dog a few things; like would he prefer to watch a rom com or thriller… I like getting a group consensus on the important things.

Inna Tsyrlin at five years of age left Russia to emigrate to Australia where her and her family no longer had to face an anti-Semitic social and politic system. She now lives in America, trying to reconcile her own identity and politics in her writing. Her plays include Tattoo on My Arm (The Rising Sun Performance Company 2017 Lab Series, NY); I (Heart) Subway and Happy Anniversary (one acts for Emerging Artists Theater, NY); My Wife (HB Playwrights Foundation Shorts Festival, NY); and Principal’s Office (semi-finalist of Manhattan Repertory 2014 One Act Competition). More info: innatsyrlin.com

New American Dreams

by Inna Tsyrlin
4:00 pm, Thursday April 26th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

Can a kosher child live with a non-kosher heart? While Avram struggles to integrate himself and his family into American society, and meets constant obstacles in keeping his faith, his daughter befriends a pig. This pig may be the answer to the family’s heart transplant predicament, but if Avram accepts a pig’s heart for his sick daughter, will he still be a good Jew?

Tickets for the Stage Readings are FREE and open to the public.

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Interview with 3rd Year MFA Natasha Renee Smith About Her Featured Seabury Production: Vessel

April 20, 2018
by ouplaywrights
· Current Students · Festival · News · Seabury Quinn, Jr.

The 24th Annual Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights’ Festival is almost here! The featured, Thesis Productions of our Third Year MFA Playwrights debut this weekend in Kantner Hall on the Elizabeth Evans Baker Stage. To celebrate the opening of the featured productions, and leading up to the festival staged readings on the 26th, 27th, and 28th, we will be featuring daily interviews with the current playwrights about their work.

Third Year MFA Natasha Renee Smith (pictured below!) was interviewed by First Year MFA Jean Egdorf about her play, Vessel.

Jean Egdorf: For anyone who saw your second-year reading of Vessel in last year’s Play Fest, they are in for a brand new experience of the script; what are some highlights of your experience in getting to work with a script over two years, from staged reading to full production?

Natasha (Nat) Renee Smith: New play development can take years, and I’m still figuring out how to be a playwright. So my journey with Vessel has taken me all over the place. At first I was very focused on structure, then I let the creative process take over, and this year I think the two have started to balance each other. I feel lucky to have had so many wonderful collaborations; Anne and Carson were both involved in my second-year reading, so they have helped this play through its many iterations. When we finally got into production, it was like bunch of puzzle pieces coming together at last. And I’ve learned so much about the play in the rehearsal process! Now I’m ready to take a step back—when you’re this wrapped up for this long, it’s hard to be objective about your own work.

Jean: Your play includes a number of images and ideas that seem like they would be disparate, yet come together in harmony (the metronome/music, biology and bacteria, chaos theory…). What inspired you to build these images into your play?

Nat: I have no idea. I try to have a sense of my artistic process (and purpose), but it’s difficult to track how everything develops. The images I work hardest to find do nothing for my play and get cut, while images that randomly appear really resonate. I suppose that’s what artists mean when they talk about “flow” and accessing the unconscious. Obviously, it’s not really random—but it happens in ways that can be surprising. Of course, one image often leads to another. Magnets are connected to metronomes, which are connected to music, and so on. I write many, many, many drafts. As the story shifts, so do the images, and sometimes I lose moments I loved in rewrites. Playwriting is like breaking your own heart over and over again.

Jean: Your play is set at MIT. Did you ever want to pursue an education in STEM fields?

Nat: I went through a phase where I really wanted to go to MIT. I always did well in math—and I really enjoyed problem-solving. When I was a junior in high school, I advanced to the second round of the American Math Competition. I was pulled out of classes for a day to study with the other six people from my school who had advanced. They were all boys, and I felt totally out of place. I avoided a lot of pursuits I might have enjoyed because I didn’t feel safe or welcome in all-male spaces. And I was terrified of failure. In the arts, there’s a lot more freedom to be yourself. Both are challenging, but in different ways.

Jean: What sort of research did you undertake for writing this play? How did it compare to your usual process of incorporating research into a script?

Nat: I was really intimidated at first and thought I needed endless research. I read books, dug through websites, tracked down articles… I think a part of me wanted to sound really smart! I still worry that I should have done more research, but I pulled back for a reason. It’s easy to take one idea and run with it, and notice too late that it’s clouding the story. So I pruned a lot of the explicit scientific research. I tried to keep the most evocative language and beautiful images. Hopefully, everything I’ve learned about chaos theory can be put to use in another play someday!

Jean: You use piano music throughout your play. What is your favorite composition/who is your favorite composer?

Nat: My dad is a classical pianist, so I grew up hearing piano music constantly—and I can’t hear Rachmaninoff or Debussy without thinking of him. When I was a kid, he would test me and my siblings by playing the opening bars of a movement of a Beethoven symphony. We had to guess which one it was. I also played cello, and loved Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. So hearing classical music often takes me back to childhood.

Natasha Renee Smith studied playwriting at Amherst College with Constance Congdon, where her play In Her Place (Denis Johnston Playwriting Award) was produced. Through a Civic Engagement Fellowship, Nat spent the summer of 2010 teaching fiction writing in Nairobi, Kenya. The three-time recipient of the Roland Wood Fellowship, she apprenticed at Horizon Theatre Company and interned at the Alliance Theatre and Arizona Theatre Company, where her play Catapult was featured in the Café Bohemia Reading Series. Her ten-minute play “Tried” was a KCACTF Region 2 semi-finalist; “The Party,” a monologue, appears in My Mother#!^!#! College Life (Dramatic Publishing 2017). She writes about unsettling facets of love and family, illuminating the deceptive beauty of human flaws.

Vessel

by Natasha Renee Smith, directed by Anne McAlexander
2:00 pm – April 21st & 28th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
8:00 pm – April 26th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

Metronomes are controlled by magnets. Magnets are controlled by the Earth. The Earth is controlled by the sun. Who—or what—controls Tiana? The MIT sophomore enters into dual orbit with Luke, a professor of chaos theory. This darkly romantic play explores mental illness, power dynamics, and the poetry of visceral pain.

Tickets for the Featured Productions are $5 general admission or FREE for OU Students (with valid student ID) through Arts for Ohio; available at the Templeton–Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium box office.

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Interview with 3rd Year MFA Cristina Luzárraga About Her Featured Seabury Production: La Mujer Barbuda

April 19, 2018
by ouplaywrights
· Current Students · Festival · News · Seabury Quinn, Jr.

Third Year MFA Cristina Luzárraga (pictured below!) was interviewed by First Year MFA Liv Matthews about her play, La Mujer Barbuda.

Liv Matthews: Your play, La Mujer Barbuda, is inspired by the painting of the same name by Jusepe de Ribera. How did you find this painting? As a playwright, do you often incorporate other forms of art in your work?

Cristina Luzárraga: My grandmother directed me to the painting. She asked me what I was planning to write next, and I told her I was researching St. Wilgefortis, a female medieval saint commonly depicted as crucified and having a beard. My grandmother, who is very cultured and a font of wisdom (and might be reading this because I know she Googles me on occasion—Hi Abuela!) said the image reminded her of a painting she saw in Toldeo, Spain. I looked up La Mujer Barbuda and then couldn’t stop thinking about it. My first year play at OU was also inspired by visual art. The play is about the relationship between an art history PhD student and a security guard at the Guggenheim; the sculpture Daddy, Daddy by Maurizio Cattelan figures prominently.

Liv: For research, you’ve been working with Jacqueline Wolf, a professor at Ohio University who specializes in the history of breastfeeding, among other subjects. How has her expertise influenced your usual research and writing process?

Christina: She filled in some big gaps in my knowledge. For instance, I didn’t know that breast pumping is a relatively new practice and an awkward, less than ideal substitute for breastfeeding that we as a society have settled on in lieu of adequate maternity leave (cue the frustration that drives this play). I didn’t know that milk stasis is a phenomenon. Or just how painful and dangerous mastitis can be. Or that breast milk can treat a variety of maladies, including HIV. Or that with enough persistence on the part of the infant, women can lactate throughout their lives, long after weaning and the onset of menopause. And the list goes on and on. I’m very grateful for her expertise. As someone who’s never given birth, I was flying blind and I’m glad she steered me straight.

Liv: La Mujer Barbuda follows two women from two different time eras and countries, but their stories parallel in many ways. Are there any parallels between you and Maggie and/or Magdalena?

Cristina: My maternal grandfather is from Italy, so we’re all of Italian heritage. (Like the characters of Paco/Fransico/Jusepe, I’m also part Hispanic.) Beyond that, I relate to Maggie’s desire to be a mother and a career woman. I don’t have kids yet, and the prospect of balancing those ambitions makes me very anxious—and fuels my writing.

Liv: Maggie’s career choice as a pilot is, in part, influenced by the film Top Gun. Was there a film from your childhood that influenced your career choice?

Cristina: Well, I’m not a mermaid, so unfortunately my childhood association with Ariel didn’t pan out. (Turns out, mermaid is actually a career option.) I also watched Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet about once a week throughout middle school and high school. And now I’m playwright. So maybe The Bard rubbed off on me (although I was really more interested in Leo DiCaprio than Shakespeare). By the way, I still maintain that’s a great movie, and you can fight me on it.

Liv: Pretend you’re being chased by an angry mob. Why are you being chased and who in your play do you trust to get you out of that situation?

Cristina: Probably Rita, the flight attendant, because she seems like the most competent and levelheaded character. A seasoned flight attendant is a force to be reckoned with. Jusepe de Ribera would be a close second though. Besides his art, that guy was famous for skipping town and evading his creditors, which, as a penniless playwright, I’ve got to respect.

Cristina Luzárraga is a New Jersey native who writes dark comedies about weird things like talking ova and women getting their pinky toes chopped off. Her full-length plays include Due Unto Others, Critical Distance and Millennialville. She graduated from Princeton University and subsequently moved to Chicago where she studied sketch and improv at iO Theater and The Second City Conservatory and performed stand-up comedy at Zanies and around town. Her play “Egg Timer” won audience 1st prize in the 2017 Towne Street Theatre Festival in L.A., and her play “Favor” is published in an anthology by Smith & Kraus. She co-wrote an adaptation of Aphra Behn’s The Rover, which was produced by Ohio University in 2017. She spent this past fall as an intern at New Dramatists in NYC.

La Mujer Barbuda

by Cristina Luzárraga, directed by Jonathan Helter
8:00 pm – April 20th, 25th & 28th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

2 women. 4 breasts. 1 beard.
Maggie is an American airline pilot and new mother. When she tries to pump breast milk in the cockpit, she almost perishes in a plane crash––and that’s not even the worst of it.
Magdalena is a 17th century Italian weaver and new mother. When she suddenly grows a beard and nurses a baby at age fifty-two, she sets off a domestic and civil crisis––and that, too, is not even the worst of it.
La Mujer Barbuda explores the intersecting lives of two women, separated by time and space and united in the struggle to thrive as a mother in a man’s world.

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Interview with 3rd Year MFA Philana Imade Omorotionmwan about her Featured Seabury Production: The Defiance of Dandelions

April 18, 2018
by ouplaywrights
· Current Students · Festival · News · Seabury Quinn, Jr.

Third Year MFA Philana Imade Omorotionmwan (pictured below!) was interviewed by First Year MFA Jordan Ramirez Puckett about her play, The Defiance of Dandelions.

Jordan Ramirez Puckett: What inspired you to write The Defiance of Dandelions?

Philana Imade Omorotionmwan: A lot of different things. Prior to grad school, I spent several years working in secondary education. I came to feel that a lot of the practices in the public system were designed to break students (and prepare them for prison) rather than empower them. So I applied to grad school knowing that I wanted to write one of my plays about what I saw. Initially, I intended to write a play about a black boy at three different ages (a la Albee’s Three Tall Women) as he moves through the school-to-prison pipeline. However, the acting pool here couldn’t accommodate that. Around the time my ideas for a thesis were taking shape, Moonlight came out. The film did three ages so well that I knew whatever I came up with wouldn’t be very good in comparison. Shortly thereafter, I attended a talk by Dr. Akil Houston in which he said that the way to get justice for everyone is to center people at the margins. Because we live in a patriarchal society, black girls and women are often ignored in conversations about the systemic problems in this country. Once I began to focus on the experiences of black girls specifically, the research I found discussed the way gender intersects with race to impact decisions about discipline. (Black girls are 5 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white girls. In comparison, black boys are 3 times more likely than white boys.) All of this combined with an interest I had in having a space in which a significant number of the black women in the department could share a rehearsal process and stage together. And now, here we are.

Jordan: The Defiance of Dandelions is full of beautiful and poetic imagery. What draws you to write this story for the stage as opposed to another medium?

Philana: First, thank you for saying that. Now as for what draws me other than being in an MFA Playwriting program… Well, there’s what Lorca said — “A play is a poem standing up.” So I suppose I chose the stage because this story felt like it needed to stand up and be embodied. In addition to that, as I wrote, I figured out that one of the final images of the play is something that can only happen onstage. Or rather it was something that I wanted to see happen onstage.

Jordan: Each character in The Defiance of Dandelions has a movement that is specific to them. Is that something that you dictated in the script or did the director and actors discover the movement in the rehearsal?

Philana: I indicated in the script that I wanted each character to have her own phrase of movement. However, I’m not a dancer (nothing from my ballet classes stuck), so I’m extremely grateful that everyone was willing to go on this journey and figure out movement (and a lot of other things) together. The actors developed the specific movements, as well as all of the other movement that happens in the play, in conversation with one another and the director during rehearsals. Rebecca has also gone in to work with them in some of the rehearsals.

Jordan: Is there one thing that you hope the audience walks away feeling at the end of your play?

Philana: Yes! Thank you for asking me what I want them to feel, as opposed to what I want them to think. I want the audience to walk away feeling two things simultaneously: really happy and really sad. I’m sure there’s a more poetic way to say that, but I’m going to keep it simple.

Jordan: What kind of art excites you? Is there something you’d like to see more of on stage?

Philana: I like work that’s interdisciplinary and blurs the lines between genres (of theatre, dance, music, poetry, and so on). I just read …And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi by Marcus Gardley for the first time, and now I really want to see a production. The script begins with Lorca’s “A play is a poem standing up” as an epigraph. The images that Gardley creates are so strikingly beautiful and interesting and poetic and can only happen onstage. One of the characters takes the moon down from the sky and puts it on as her hat. Another describes the way she’s looked at by someone as “her eyes walked into my eyes.” I want to see (and figure out how to write) plays like that.

Jordan: Is there one lesson that you will take away from your time at Ohio University after graduation?

Philana: About grad school, playwriting, or life? I suppose a lesson that applies to all of them is the Audre Lorde quote the characters in my play repeat — to be “deliberate and afraid of nothing.” And no one.

Philana Imade Omorotionmwan (o-more-o-tune-wha) is originally from Baton Rouge, LA and completed a BA in English at Stanford University. Her writing frequently considers how the processes by which we are “othered” can often lead to our bodies feeling like prisons. Her plays include Before Evening Comes (Relentless Award Semifinalist, Princess Grace Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Br!nk New Play Festival, La MaMa Experiments Series), Fireflies (TDPS New Play Reading Series, Tantrum Rising Voices Series, Women Works Runner-Up), and Strong Face (Athena Project Festival, Scratchpad Series Finalist, KCACTF Region II NPAT Finalist, Landing Theatre NAV Finalist). Philana has been a two-time finalist for the Heideman Award (“Fireflies” and “Dis Da Hood”), and her produced short plays include “The Settlement” (Ensemble Studio Theatre), “Black Boys Don’t Dance” (Manhattan Theatre Source), and “Mama Moon” (20% Theatre Company Chicago). When she isn’t writing, Philana enjoys biking, practicing yoga, and perfecting her RBF. philanaplays.weebly.com

The Defiance of Dandelions

by Philana Imade Omorotionmwan, directed by Jeanette L. Buck
8:00 pm – April 19th, 21st & 27th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

Do not speak too loudly or too little or too much.
Do not get out of the place you’ve been assigned.
Do not give birth to a meadow of dandelions.

For as long as they can remember, The Strongness, The Queerness, The Boisterousness, The Brazenness, The Thickness, and The Softness have been trapped in the In-School Shading Room. While they wait for a release that seems like it may never come, a bouquet is born and they begin to remember the selves and the world that they forgot.

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2018 Festival Info!

April 5, 2018
by ouplaywrights
· Beth Blickers · Deborah Brevoort · Doug Wright · Events · Festival · News

Production Schedule and Mentor Bios

Featured Thesis Productions

The Defiance of Dandelions

by Philana Imade Omorotionmwan, directed by Jeanette L. Buck
8:00 pm – April 19th, 21st & 27th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

Do not speak too loudly or too little or too much.
Do not get out of the place you’ve been assigned.
Do not give birth to a meadow of dandelions.

La Mujer Barbuda

by Cristina Luzárraga, directed by Jonathan Helter
8:00 pm – April 20th, 25th & 28th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

Vessel

by Natasha Renee Smith, directed by Anne McAlexander
2:00 pm – April 21st & 28th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
8:00 pm – April 26th, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall

STAGED READINGS

Staged readings are free and open to the public.

How to Bake a Genoise Sponge without Breaking Any Eggs

by Jean Egdorf
1:00 pm, Thursday April 26th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

Hello, bakers! Thank you for joining me for this very special episode of Melissa B’s Genoise. Today we’re making the trickiest cake there is: the genoise sponge. I better be able to perfect this recipe if I’m going to make it studying pastry at Le Cordon Bleu! My mom and my therapist think I’ll crumble under the stress, but I’m sure with help of my friends, Ms. J and Sylvie, neither me or my cake will fall apart.

Exodus of Dreams

by Inna Tsyrlin
4:00 pm, Thursday April 26th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

She Moves in Her Own Way

by Liv Matthews
1:30 pm, Friday April 27th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

Three seconds on the clock. Rolling Hills Middle School is down by two. All eyes are on point guard Alex Williams. She dribbles, pliés, and shoots the ball. It pirouettes in the rim and Alex’s mind leaps across time to her coach and former Atlanta Hawks player Anthony Prince. As the athletes wait for the ball to land, Alex’s journey through basketball and dance begins a duet with Anthony’s distant rise to NBA stardom.

Cora

by Katherine Varga, directed by Olivia Rocco
4:00 pm, Friday April 27th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

A Driving Beat

by Jordan Ramirez Puckett
1:00 pm, Saturday April 28th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

2,000 miles, a cross-country car ride
adopted son and mother travel side by side
white woman, brown son in the same space
9 states to the hospital, the teen’s birthplace
4 days, if all goes according to plan
5 nights, of doing all that they can
to find his birth mom, identity, or home
but by the end of their journey
will any answers be known?

The Water Baby

by Trip Venturella, directed by Ernesto Ponce
4:00 pm, Saturday April 28th, Forum Theater, RTV Building

The year is 1930, and Theofanis Tombras has returned from his tour of duty in the Marines with an unnamed baby in tow. He finds a country bruised by economic crisis; Alexandra, his arranged fiancée, stranded across the ocean; and an unlikely opportunity offered by an old friend. As a better life beckons, it becomes clear to his young family that Theo will sacrifice nearly anything to sustain his growing ambition, and contain the specters of his past.

Guest Artists In Residence

Each April, three nationally recognized, industry professional guest artists are invited to be in residence for the Seabury Quinn Jr Playwrights Festival to respond to the MFA plays and work with the MFA playwrights.

We are pleased to announce the guest artists joining us for the 2018 Seabury Quinn Jr Playwrights Festival:

Deborah Brevoort is a playwright and librettist from Alaska who now lives in the New York City area. She is an alumna of New Dramatists, an original company member with Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre and a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders. She is best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, which won the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays Award and the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition. The play is produced all over the US and internationally. It is published by DPS and by No Passport Press in a volume with The Comfort Team. The Comfort Team, about military wives during the surge of Iraq, was written with a commission from the Virginia Stage Company, where it premiered in 2012. My Lord What a Night a one-act play about Marian Anderson and Albert Einstein, premiered in 2016 at Premiere Stages. She has since turned it into a full length play. The Blue-Sky Boys, a comedy about NASA’s Apollo program, was written with a commission from the EST/ Sloan Foundation. It was produced at the Barter Theatre and Capital Rep where it was the #1 critics pick for 2016. The Poetry of Pizza, a cross cultural comedy about love, was produced at Purple Rose Theatre,Virginia Stage, Mixed Blood Theatre, California Rep, Centenary Stage, and others. The Velvet Weapon, a back stage farce, won the national playwriting contest at Trustus Theatre. It is published with The Poetry of Pizza by No Passport Press. Blue Moon Over Memphis, her Noh Drama about Elvis Presley, is published by Applause Books in “The Best American Short Plays.” It is produced byTheatre Nohgaku who is touring it internationally. Into the Fire won the Weissberger Award. Signs of Life won the Jane Chambers Award, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and the gold medal in the Pinter Review Prize for Drama. Both are published by Samuel French.

Deborah has also written the librettos, books and lyrics for numerous musicals and operas. She holds MFA’s in playwriting from Brown University and in musical theatre writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her website is: www.DeborahBrevoort.com.

Beth Blickers is currently an agent at APA, where she represents artists who work in theatre, opera, television and film. Before joining APA, she was an agent at Abrams Artists Agency, Helen Merrill Ltd. and the William Morris Agency, where she began work after graduating from New York University.

Beth has served on the jury panel for the Weissberger Award, the Ed Kleban Award, the Lark’s PONY Fellowship and Playwrights Week, participated in the Non-Traditional Casting Project, Inc.’s roundtable on inclusion and diversity in the theatre and has presented workshops and sessions on agenting, playwriting, directors and choreographers and related topics for organizations such as the Society of Directors and Choreographers Foundation, the Dramatists Guild, League of Professional Theatre Women, the Lark, New York University, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Texas Educational Theatre Association and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

She is a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc. where she served on the board for fifteen years; the President of Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas; and is the Board Chair Emeritus of Theatre Breaking Through Barriers, a New York company that works with artists with disabilities.

Doug Wright was most recently represented on Broadway by the musical War Paint, which played at the Nederlander Theater. His earlier plays include I Am My Own Wife (Tony Award, Pulitzer Prize), Posterity, and Quills (Obie Award), as well as books for the musicals Grey Gardens (Tony Nomination), The Little Mermaid and Hands on A Hardbody. (Drama Desk Nomination). Films include the screen adaptation of Quills (Paul Selvin Award, WGA) and production rewrites for director Rob Marshall, Steven Spielberg and others. Acting credits include two appearances on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and the films Little Manhattan and Two Lovers. He is president of The Dramatists Guild and on the Board of The New York Theater Workshop. He has received grants from United States Artists and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and is a graduate of Yale University (BA) and New York University (MFA). He has been a frequent guest at Yaddo and the MacDowell Art Colonies, and has taught or guest lectured at the Yale Drama School, Princeton University, Julliard and NYU. He lives in New York with his husband, singer-songwriter David Clement and cats Glynis and Murray.

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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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Tyler Whidden’s book of short plays is available to buy!

July 6, 2017
by catherineforever666
· alumni · News · Publications · Tyler Whidden

Tyler Whidden has a new book of short plays, many of which were written at OU through madness! You can purchase the book through Amazon by clicking here. The collection is entitled “F*** it!” cause Tyler is edgy.

More about the collection: F*CK IT is a collection of mundane situations made exceptional. This collection of stories will introduce you to characters who jump into the water no matter how cold. They’re daring, mouthy, and they really don’t give a f*ck. Inspired by politics, history, social awkwardness, injustice, or just good ol’ sexy sex times. This is not theater for your grandmother. Unless Nana likes dick jokes. Multiple Characters. Various ages & genders. Any race. Whatever.

Congrats Tyler!! This is a great edgy gift for your more mysterious, brooding friends who your not sure what they actually like! Get it today!

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. 2016 also saw the premier of his play, Occupation: Dad, as part of the 21st Annual Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights Festival.

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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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