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3rd-year MFA Play Wins Another Major Award and Earns More Grant Money:

In addition to being a Kendeda Finalist with readings in New York and Atlanta, and an participant in the upcoming WordBRIDGE Playwrights Lab, Merri Biechler’s play Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver has been named the winner of the 2007 Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award. It will have a reading at the annual conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education this July in New Orleans.

Also, Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver Palliative Educational Program has just this week been named as the recipient of an Ohio University Research and Scholarly Affairs Committee grant in the amount of $6,500. This grant will be used to develop the play as part of an educational program to teach end-of-life and caregiving issues to medical students. (With this grant OU MFA Playwrights have now pulled in nearly $60,000 in funds to support and develop their new plays in the last two years alone.)

2004 MFA Alum Pens Season Finale of Law and Order: Criminal Intent

Jacquelyn Reingold’s final episode of the season will air will air Monday, May 21 and Tuesday, May 22, at 9PM on NBC. (Directed by Norberto Barba, the actors include: Eric Bogosian, Erik Jensen, Leslie Lyles, Julianne Nicholson, Chris Noth, Brooke Tansley, Alec Von Bargen, Kelli Williams, and a bunch more.)

Festival Studio Production Opens:

The studio production of 3rd-year MFA Merri Biechler’s Real Girls Can’t Win opens this week. It runs from May 16-18 this week, as well as May 24-26 next week during the official festival. The show begins at 8:00 pm in the Hahne Theater at Kantner Hall. Tickets are $7.00.

3rd-year MFA Invited to "The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices":

3rd-year Laura Jacqmin has been selected to participate in The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices at the Atlantic Theater in New York this year. Here is a description of the program from their submission materials: “The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices involves workshops with seasoned theater practitioners, an additional workshop with Kevin Spacey, and a chance to produce The 24 Hour Plays with their peers. Due to Kevin’s involvement in Moon for the Misbegotten in New York, we have rapidly moved up our schedule for the inaugural New York version to this Spring and Summer, with a July 2 performance at the Atlantic Theater, one of Off Broadway’s most celebrated stages.”

2nd-year MFA Earns SEA Grant Money:

2nd-year playwright Joseph Gallo as been awarded the SEA grant for 2007-08 in the amount of $5,500. This brings the total grant money earned by OU MFA playwrights, in support of writing and developing their new plays, to over $52,000 since 2005.

1st-year MFA at Karamu House Theatre’s ArenaFest

1st-year MFA Reggie Edmund’s play Redemption of Allah Black will be given two staged readings at Karamu Theater in Cleveland. The first reading is on Wednesday, May 16th at 6pm and the second on Tuesday, May 22nd at 6pm at the Karamu House Theatre’s ArenaFest.

3rd-year MFA to Attend WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Lab:

Merri Biechler’s play, Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver, has been invited as one of only four MFA plays nationally to be workshopped at WordBRIDGE play lab this summer, June 9th-24th. Originally conceived by founders Rich Rice of Eckerd College, and David Kranes, founder of the Sundance Playwriting Lab, WordBRIDGE is now hosted by Clemson University in conjunction with Generous Theater Company. (Erik Ramsey, Asst Professor in the OU MFA Playwriting Program, is a three-time alum of WordBRIDGE and returns this year to work as a “dramatic engineer” on two invited plays.) For more about WordBRIDGE visit their web site: wordbridge.org

3rd-year MFA Produced in the Mainstage Season at OU School of Theater:

Laura Jacqmin’s thesis play Happyslap opened on the Baker Mainstage on friday night. It runs through Saturday, May 5th. For tickets or information call 740.593.4800. For an article discussing the timely issues the play addresses, visit the Athens News web site: Click Here.

Recent Alum at Victory Gardens and Collaboraction:

Recent alum Christopher De Paola is currently understudying the role of Manny in the Victory Gardens’ world premiere production of “Cynical Weathers” by Douglas Post. He will be performing the role on May 8th. Chris has also been recently cast in the play “Autobiography” as part of Sketchbook, the 7th annual festival of short plays produced by Collaboraction and performed at the Steppenwolf Garage. Sketchbook 7 will run May 31 to July 1st. (To see Chris’s recent writing accolades, scroll down a little to his latest commission and his TV show.)

3rd-year MFA Published:

Two monologues from 3rd-year Laura Jacqmin’s short story West of the Moon are being published in the forthcoming Smith & Kraus anthology titled 221 ONE-MINUTE MONOLOGUES FROM LITERATURE (pub. date Autumn 2007). The titles of
the monologues are “Down There” and “Pack Job.”