Classes are over. Commencement has taken place. Ohio MFA playwrights are getting busy this summer.
Tyler Whidden MFA ’16
Tyler Whidden, MFA Class of 2016, is having a reading of his play, RUN KINGSBURY RUN, at the Ensemble Theatre in Cleveland this weekend.
Inspired by the 1938 events surrounding the catch and release of Cleveland’s Torso Killer, RUN KINGSBURY RUN, tells the story of the men out to save the city form a butcher, and the secrets that refuse to remain buried within the city’s forgotten capillaries.
Saturday, May 10
2pm
2843 Washington Blvd., Cleveland Hts., OH 44118
216.321.2930
info@ensemble-theatre.org
Your last chance to catch a festival play is today at 1:00, 2:00, 4:00 or 8:00 pm. Check the festival page for details. It has been a rip-roarin’ good time.
Great pyramid as seen from inside nearby Pizza Hut. Photo by William Missouri Downs.
Bilodeau, who came back to visit the MFA Playwrights this spring, translates French plays in addition to currently working on her English written Arctic Cycle plays.
Chantal Bilodeau
This is the American Premiere of HOLY LAND, which has been produced worldwide in Paris, Vienna, Prague, London, Milan, Jerusalem, Rio de Janeiro, Stockholm, Hamburg and Avignon Festival.
A city under siege. The landscape is white, dusty and devastated. Carmen has disappeared at a checkpoint. Her daughter Imen must face the soldier’s house searches alone, a soldier who listens to Stravinsky. In the house next door, Alia, the midwife, prepares her coffee as if nothing else matters while Yad, her husband, gets away from it all by smoking tobacco and drinking arak. The only hope seems to reside in Jesus: the cat. A dark and humorous story of 5 characters hanging on to the banality of day-to-day life, at times to the point of insanity, as a way to transcend the atrocities of war.
You can purchase tickets and find more information about the show here.
Since it was established in 1965, the O’Neill “Playwrights Conference has developed more than 600 plays. During the Conference, playwrights live on the grounds of the O’Neill for a full month and each engages in a week-long process of rehearsals culminating in two script-in-hand public readings. Up to eight playwrights are selected for this intensive laboratory each summer. Conference playwrights represent a wide range of experience from those working on a first play to Broadway veterans; directors and actors have also worked on and off Broadway, in film, and in regional theaters, and represent emerging artists and seasoned professionals. Virtually every major American playwright has been part of the Conference, including Julia Cho, Rebecca Gilman, Regina Taylor, John Guare, Israel Horovitz, David Henry Hwang, David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp, Lanford Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein and August Wilson.”
THE IMAGINARY CRITIC WHO DOESN’T EXIST synopsis: Lacey runs what’s, like, probably the most influential music site on the internet – a site that can determine whether an act pops off or becomes an endnote in pop history. But when she uses the site’s clout to hype a gifted but controversial MC, it threatens to unravel everything she’s built. The Imaginary Music Critic Who Doesn’t Exist, a play with endnotes, is about aging out, authenticity, and what we’re willing to do to stay relevant.
Also see our earlier post about Robinson’s other spring projects.
“Magic Madness” produced by Sir Anthony Ellison. Friday Hahne Theater 11pm.
You are now rewarded with the music video “Magic.” Coldplay’s first video post-Gwyneth. If you’re bored and hanging out with your parents or in-laws, throw this on and that’s another five minutes you won’t have to talk about your career choice.
Updated on our OppLog: The University of Wisconsin extended the date of their Djerassi Playwriting Fellowship to April 20th. Go to the OppLog calendar for April 20th and find details.
The fellowship consists of a “$27,000 stipend, generous health benefits, and a one-course-per-semester teaching assignment.”
Here’s a description of the fellowship from their website:
The Carl Djerassi Fellowship in Playwriting was established by scientist and author Carl Djerassi to encourage beginning-to-mid-career playwrights whose work is not only performed, but also has intrinsic literary value. To realize Dr. Djerassi’s vision, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Program in Creative Writing annually awards a fellowship to a playwright whose whose plays can be read and discussed as works on the page as well as performed on the stage. Playwrights whose works have been published as well as performed are especially of interest. Applications must be postmarked by April 20.
Here’s a picture of one of the past Wisconsin Djerassi Fellows in the official Djerassi uniform.
The Tennessean, Nashville’s ‘Paper of Record,’ had a glowing review that called it “devastatingly honest.”
The play was originally developed by the Ingram New Works Festival in 2013 at Tennessee Rep. Schneider did an interview in conjunction with the festival that you can find here.
Below is a picture of Garrett from that article. All Ohio MFA grads receive safety goggles upon graduating, but I’m not at the liberty to explain why.
Jacob Juntunen is an alum from Ohio University, and currently the head of playwriting at Southern Illinois University. His play, JOAN’S LAUGHTER, opens tonight at SIU and runs April 3 – April 6.
On Monday, March 24th, Juntunen attended a book release at the Tony-award-winning Drama Bookshop in NYC where the anthology Plays for Two (Vintage) had a preview performance and book signing. His ten-minute play Saddam’s Lions is included in the volume, which also includes David Ives’ VENUS IN FUR currently enjoying a successful run at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.
On Thursday, March 27th, his short play SEE HIM? was performed around the world as part of the Belarusian Dream Theater, a collaboration of 18 theaters in 13 countries. SEE HIM? was performed at Southern Illinois University (where he also produced the evening), The Global Theatre Project in Los Angeles and Florence, The Troika Collective in Vancouver, Stage Left in Chicago, the European Humanities University in Vilnius, and at TLS Frankfurt.
OHIO 