Tag: current students

First Year Playwrights win Scripps Innovation Challenge!

March 28, 2017
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · News

The current first year playwrights:Inna Tsyrlin, Katherina Varga and Trip Venturella won the prestigious Scripps Innovation Challenge yesterday and a hefty cash prize! They concocted a creative and fun proposal for the NRC which involved twitter participation, celebrities and cute animals! This is a really exciting example of playwrights making waves in the university and not just within the theater department.

“The 5th Annual Scripps Innovation Challenge is a university-wide student competition to create innovative solutions to real-world media and communication problems. It is open to all Ohio University students, regardless of major. The goal is to harness the creativity of Ohio University students to develop new and innovative products, tools, or strategies that could be the basis for a startup business or a new entrepreneurial venture by an established company.”

Inna Tsyrlin gave me an EXCLUSIVE quote for our blog about their big win:

“We took this challenge on because we wanted to work as a team (ahhh… the days when we were energetic newbies to the program) and also to do something outside of the theatre department. After all the research and hurling one creative idea after another, we tried to come up with something fun; our challenge was to come up with an innovative way for the Natural Resource Defense Council (one of the largest environmental non-profits) to get more donors. We thought about how do we shape our idea and message into a story. Our playwrights’ brains kicked into gear and leaned on the structure of crafting a dramatic narrative to present our idea. And what’s more dramatic than climate change… #sad. We care about the causes of the NRDC and learning about what the non-profit does has been very interesting and inspiring. We were pleasantly surprised that we won, but grateful for the recognition of our work. Also, a big thank you to our fellow playwrights who supported us leading up to the day and during the presentation; to Erik, Charles and Merri for coming along to hear our pitch; and also to the Scripps school who made this competition open to the whole university. ”

Congrats First years and don’t spend it all in one place!

Learn more about this challenge here

Like this:

Like Loading...

First year MFA Playwrights are finalists for Scripps contest!

February 1, 2017
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · News

Our current first year class: Trip Venturella, Katherine Varga and Inna Tyrlin are finalists for the Scripps Innovation Challenge. the OU website describes it as:

The 5th Annual Scripps Innovation Challenge is a university-wide student competition to create innovative solutions to real-world media and communication problems. It is open to all Ohio University students, regardless of major. The goal is to harness the creativity of Ohio University students to develop new and innovative products, tools, or strategies that could be the basis for a startup business or a new entrepreneurial venture by an established company.

The Post recently interviewed them about their project!!

Here is a little sample of that:

The second finalist team, The Players, includes Trip Venturella, Kathrine Varge and Inna Tsyrlin, three first-year graduate playwriting students. They chose to create a team to think outside the box and focus on how their skills as writers can also make a difference.

“We were like ‘wouldn’t it be cool not only to engage a different part of our brains than the artistic playwriting part, but also develop something that might someday be employed to having social good or social benefit,’ ” said Venturella.

Their challenge came from the National Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit organization that promotes wildlife protection. The challenge required looking at today’s media and coming up with an innovative way to educate people about the organization’s mission while also raising money.

“It was a matter of looking at the media itself, like the internet, and saying ‘OK, when people go to the internet, what are most people interested in? What will grab their attention?’ ” Varge said.

Read full article about them here Congrats Katherine, Inna and Trip!!! We hope you win!

Like this:

Like Loading...

Rachel Bykowski’s play “Tight End” is finalist for Source Festival!

December 8, 2016
by catherineforever666
· News

Rachel’s full-length play “Tight End” is among one of the 20 finalists for the D.C Source Festival! The play already was developed at the Kennedy Center MFA workshop. Congrats Rachel!!

Here’s the blurb for “Tight End”:

Ash Miller’s dream is to catch the winning touchdown pass for the Westmont High Titans’

Homecoming game.Football is in her blood, but in order to make the team, Ash will have to prove she is “one of the guys,” even if that means sacrificing her body for the love of the game.

Here’s more about Source Festival:

CulturalDC’s Source Festival combines the forces of rising talents with established artists. Driven by creativity, collaboration and invention, artists from across the nation present 24 new works over three weeks. The relationships built here lay the path for the next generation of outstanding performing artists.

Now in its ninth year, Source Festival has built a reputation as a vital launching pad for new work and a proving ground for the district’s actors, directors, and designers. In the last nine years, three of the Source Festival Full-Length Plays have been finalists for the American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg Award. Topher Payne’s remarkable PERFECT ARRANGEMENT (Source Festival 2013) won the ATCA’s 2013 Osborn Award and Nathan Alan Davis’ outstanding DONTRELL, WHO KISSED THE SEA (Source Festival 2014) received the ATCA Steinberg Citation in 2015. COLLAPSING SILENCE, an Artistic Blind Date that debuted at the 2011 Festival, inspired the launch of Washington’s interdisciplinary arts organization Force/Collision. The Festival continues to deepen its engagement with playwrights and the Washington community as a whole though script development workshops and partnerships.

More about Rachel

Rachel Bykowski, a Chicago native, writes plays to raise awareness about social issues. Specifically, much of her writing features women and analyzes gender roles, rape culture, and male privilege. Rachel’s full-length play TIGHT END was selected by the National New Play Network to be workshopped at the Kennedy Center for the MFA Playwrights’ Festival. TIGHT END will be receiving its world premiere production with 20% Theatre Company Chicago in May of 2017. Rachel was one of six graduate students at Ohio University to be awarded a Named Fellowship, The Trisolini. The Trisolini will allow Rachel to work with Ohio University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department to research violence against women perpetrated by male privilege for the 2016-2017 academic year. This research will be showcased in her thesis play VOODOO DOLL during the 2017 Seabury Quinn Playwrights’ Festival at Ohio University. Other playwriting credits include her full lengths: ORIGINAL RECIPE workshop production (DePaul University,) GOT TO KILL BITCH staged reading (Cock and Bull Theatre,) GLORY VS. THE WOLVES staged reading (20% Theatre Company and Women and Children First Bookstore,) and A GIRL NAMED CHARLIE staged reading (Ohio University). Rachel’s ten minute plays have been produced with various companies around Chicago and the Midwest including 20% Theatre Company, Fury Theatre, Commedia Beauregard, and Actors’ Theatre of Louisville Apprentice Company. Rachel received her BFA in playwriting from the Theatre School of DePaul University and is currently attending Ohio University for her MFA in Playwriting. Rachel is a proud company member and Literary Manager for 20% Theatre Chicago. For more information, check out her website www.rachelbykowski.com

Like this:

Like Loading...

Rachel Bykowski is published on Howlround!

November 13, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Chicago · Current Students · News

Current student Rachel Bykowski has an original article on Howlround called, “Yes, All Men (Need To Listen): Making Rooms for Womanhood in American Theater” that explores why female playwrights need to be heard.

Here’s an excerpt:

“It’s really not surprising to see the gap between male and female playwrights when the majority of the gatekeepers to the American stage are men. A study by the Wellesley Centers for Women and the American Conservatory Theatre show that since 2013 women have never held more 27 percent of leadership positions for the American nonprofit theatre. The study goes on to note only fifteen women served as artistic directors or executive directors in the seventy-four LORT theatres.

With men in the driver seat of the American theatre, can we as women truly tell stories that may cast men as the bad guys? Or is the privileged fragility of the male ego silencing our voices and only allowing women to come along for the ride as long as we behave like good, little girls?”

Read full article here

Congrats Rachel!!

More about Rachel

Like this:

Like Loading...

First Year Playwright Inna Tsyrlin interviewed by us!

August 5, 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. Next up we have Inna Tsyrlin , who is from Australia! Read on to learn more about her and look out for one other interviews !! Check out Inna’s writing in Midnight Madness, coming to you in late August!

Read on below to learn more about her!:

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

What was exciting to me about OU was the structure of the playwriting program. It is so heavily focused on production and working with other departments of the theatre faculty. I love collaborating with other writers, directors, actors. I think that is where the magic happens; when we are all working towards creating great pieces of theatre. I’m really looking forward to exploring and playing with unconventional ideas, concepts, and themes. I think the program will allow me to try writing plays that I may have not even known I had in me to write but given the space and influence, anything can happen.

What are some of your artistic influences?

I’m interested in absurdist theatre; really dispelling belief but reflecting a certain truth of our world, our existence. Thus, I’m interested in the works of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Edward Albee, and Anton Chekhov, who isn’t technically an absurdist playwright but his work certainly calls for it. But I’m also influenced by all art, music, film, literature, and despite sounding like a cliche, I’m influenced by life. There is so much wonderful creation out there, it would be naive to limit oneself to one style or medium. I believe in looking at art and ideas very broadly and selecting from a variety of influences to help shape my work. I try to search for specific elements for my writing, but I cast the net out as widely as I can.

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

I’m a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, so I wouldn’t mind getting locked in a closet with him. I’ve got a lot of questions to ask the man; he creates great characters in his films and gives them authentic and entertaining dialogue. I hear his work being quoted and referred to a lot around me because his style is distinct and his influences are broad. I’d pick his brain about that and brainstorm some ideas I have.

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

I’m drawn to stories where characters’ discover their truth and their individuality. I feel that we get distracted from the things we want and from what we are capable of. The world is a noisy place and we can find it difficult to find our place in it, so I’d like to explore those journeys that lead characters to a path of awareness and contentment. Additionally, I want to explore social and political questions that we are facing at the moment. Like many, I am concerned about the current racial, ideological and environmental tensions that have created pretty extreme divisions that I feel my work should respond to.

Tell us a fun fact about you!

I’m Aussie and when I first arrived to America and I kept telling people I have a pet kangaroo. No one batted an eyelid. I found it fun to play that up; it is fun to fall into your nation’s stereotypes, sometimes.

Read a Writing Sample of Inna’s Work!!

Two weeks notice

(Woman, late 20s/early 30s, sitting at a desk, typing on her computer, in a small apartment in East Village, New York City.)

WOMAN

Dear New York City. It is with sad regret that I formally provide my two weeks notice.

Sad regret…that’s bullshit, I don’t regret at all. In fact, I’m happy. I’m joyous. I’m sensationally ecstatic.

(clears throat) I’m grateful to the people who have provided valuable lessons that I’m going recall for some time to come. Thank you for letting me be a part of this…

Thank you? Thank you? No, fuck you! Fuck you New York City for running me into the gutter time and time again. Fuck you for the broken heart, broken knee, three broken iphones that smashed on the ground, slipping through my fingers only because you force me to run for the G train because it never comes. It just never comes.

And you know what New York City, New York City… overall, generally, for all intents and purposes, FUCK YOU!

But. But. (Pause) I did say, with sad regret. And regret it is. I regret that there’s an end. Even if it’s temporary and I’ll be back in ten years, or maybe in two… okay even if I’m back in six months. It is, after all, six months without you, New York.

More about Inna

Inna Tsyrlin has been writing and producing shorts and one acts in New York City including: “My Wife” for the HB Playwrights Foundation shorts series; “Happy Anniversary” and “I (heart Subway)” for Emerging Artists Theatre; and “Principal’s Office” for the Manhattan Repertory Theater. She has co-written/co-produced “Eggs”, short film, and reviews theater for StageBuddy.com

Like this:

Like Loading...

First year playwright Katherine Varga interviewed by us!

August 3, 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. Next up we have Katherine Varga , a journalist as well as playwright! Read on to learn more about her and look out for one other interviews !! Check out Katherine’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’m super excited about Madness! Limitations help me be creative, so the idea of having a new prompt and deadline every week sounds incredibly fun. I’m also a nerd for structure, and love that the program balances its hands-on performance opportunities with a focus on theory.

2. What are some of your artistic influences?

I had to change the ending of my first full length play because it was too reminiscent of Arcadia, so I guess Tom Stoppard is an influence. I’m also pretty obsessed with Lauren Gunderson and Sarah Ruhl.

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

Lin-Manuel Miranda for many reasons, but mostly because he’s Lin-Manuel Miranda.

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

I tend to be drawn to larger-than-life situations that examine how people are influenced by everyday forces such as identity, community, and belief systems. Much of my writing so far has looked at the interplay between science and the humanities. I also have a lot of feelings about puppets.

5. Tell us a fun fact about you!

One summer I interned at the Scherer Library of Musical Theater, where I got to scrape mold off the original Broadway scripts of Man of La Mancha.

WRITING SAMPLE

Here’s a short monologue from her recent play World Without N:

PATRICIA

To make a painting you have to buy paint.

You have to buy paintbrushes.

You have to buy a canvas.

You have to buy a black tea and a butter croissant every time you’re there to paint, or else the barista will passive aggressively accuse you of loitering.

In then end you have a painting you didn’t have before.

Something only you could have created.

The baristas like you, so they put your artwork on display. And I have learned— you buy all these commodities, and the ultimate thing you get out of it isn’t a thing you can own or consume.

It’s a moment, the look on someone’s face when they see your art on the wall and are clearly thinking, ‘Who the fuck took time out of their precious life to burden the rest of us with this piece of shit?’”

Read more about Katherine!

Katherine Varga is a freelance writer and playwright originally from New Britain, CT. She recently received her B.A. English from the University of Rochester, where she was awarded a Take Five scholarship to study urbanization and the arts. Her plays have been developed at Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, New York and Curious Theatre in Denver, Colorado, and read at the 2015 First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival.

Like this:

Like Loading...

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.

Like this:

Like Loading...

Rachel Bykowski selected for Kennedy Center MFA Summer Workshop!

March 25, 2016
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · News

Rachel Bykowski’17 was selected as 1 of 6 playwrights to participate in the prestigious National New Play Network (NNPN) Annual MFA Playwrights Workshop at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.. Over the summer, she will workshop her play, TIGHT END(which was developed at OU) for a week at the Kennedy Center. She will be paired with an NNPN director and dramaturg as well as actors from the D.C. Theatre area.

Here is more about her play TIGHT END:

Ash (believe me, you do not want to call her “Ashley”) Miller’s dream is to catch the winning touchdown pass for the Westmont High Titans’ Homecoming game. Football is in her blood, but in order to make the team, Ash will have to prove she is one of the guys even if that means sacrificing her body for the love of the game.

Here is some info the NNPN website about the program:

Universities are asked to nominate current MFA candidates for the program, and those who are selected are paired with professional directors and dramaturgs from NNPN member theaters—recognized leaders with years of experience in the development of new work—and Washington, DC-based professional actors. The process gives young writers an education in professional play development, unparalleled mentorship in the creation of their work, and a valuable entrée to some of the country’s most vital new play theaters.

The Kennedy Center often invites other professional theaters or developmental centers to workshop a play during the same week, allowing the participating student playwrights’ and dramaturgs’ opportunities for interaction with potential future collaborators such the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, which joins the Workshop annually with its upcoming Kendeda Prize Winner. The Workshop now links to more than 70 MFA programs across the country, and scripts developed at the MFAPW have gone on to productions at NNPN member theaters well as nationally-recognized companies. To find out more about the program click here.

Congrats Rachel on this awesome honor!!

More about Rachel

Rachel Bykowski was born and raised in Chicago. She writes plays that examine the masks people wear to conceal their true identities to blend into society and explores the repercussions when the masks are ripped off. Her work often includes proactive female characters that raise awareness to issues surrounding women. Rachel received her BFA in Playwriting from The Theatre School of DePaul University. Her playwriting credits include her full length plays: Original Recipe produced by DePaul University; staged reading of Got to Kill Bitch presented by Cock and Bull Theatre in Chicago; and staged reading of Glory vs. The Wolves presented by 20% Theatre Company Chicago and hosted by Women and Children First Bookstore as part of an event to raise awareness about rape culture. Her one act plays include: The Best Three Minutes of My Life produced by Bradley University; Break-Up Court and Pay Phone produced by 20% Theatre Company Chicago; The Invisible Onesproduced by Fury Theatre in Chicago; and She Sings For You produced and published by Commedia Beauregard in Chicago. Rachel is also a proud company member of 20% Theatre Company Chicago. She is very excited to continue her writing career and pursuing her MFA in Playwriting under the tutelage of Ohio University.

Like this:

Like Loading...

“Revolution” Madness coming this Friday!

September 23, 2014
by catherineforever666
· Current Students · Events · Madness · News

The fourth madness of the semester will be produced by second year playwright, Ryan Patrick Dolan! His prompt is “Revolution” Madness.

Show is September 26th, 11pm, in the Hahne Black Box theater. Admission is free. We recommend you get there 45 to 60 minutes ahead of time to assure yourself a seat.

For more information about Madness the fall semester, check out our Madness page.

Like this:

Like Loading...