Just this week the second annual Kilroy List of female and trans theater artists has been announced! On the list there are a small selection of hot new plays that have not been produced enough by female/trans artists as well as a large list of plays that were honorable mentions for the list. The list is supposed to be an advocacy tool for female and trans theater artists and to stop the idea that there’s no good plays by them in the pipeline.
This year Ohio Alum Laura Jacqmin is on the list for her play Residence ! The play is a five person dark comedic drama. Here is the synopsis: When new mom and medical supply saleswoman Maggie moves into an extended-stay hotel in Tempe, Arizona, she brings a troubled history and tenuous grasp on the future with her. While trying to secure her first sale since returning to work, she befriends two hotel employees whose careers and life paths are nearly as shaky as her own.
Ohio alum Dana Lynn Formby is an honorable mention for her play Johnny 10 Beers’ Daughter as well as Cecilia Copeland was on the honorable mention list for her play R Culture !
If a theater is not producing works by these artists, the Kilroy list makes it very easy for them to fix that and produce a strong play that has been vetted by literary managers and other respected theater artists. To read more about the list click here
More about Laura
Laura Jacqmin is a Chicago-based playwright and television writer, originally from Cleveland. She’s the winner of the Wasserstein Prize, two NEA Art Works Grants, the Kennedy Center David Mark Cohen Award, two MacDowell Fellowships, an Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, and has been a finalist for the Heideman Award, the Laurents/Hatcher Prize, the BBC International Playwriting Competition, and the Princess Grace Award. Her play Dental Society Midwinter Meeting was named one of New City Stage’s Top Five Plays of 2010, as well as TimeOut Chicago’s Honorable Mentions: Best Theater of 2010. Her television work includes the forthcoming series “Grace and Frankie” (Netflix) and “Lucky 7” (ABC). She received her BA from Yale University, and earned an MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University.
Plays include Ghost Bike (Buzz22 Chicago), Do-Gooder (16th Street Theater), January Joiner (Long Wharf Theatre), Ski Dubai (Steppenwolf Theatre), Look, We Are Breathing (Sundance Theater Lab), Two Lakes, Two Rivers (O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Royal Court Theatre’s International Residency), and Dental Society Midwinter Meeting (Chicago Dramatists/At Play, remounted 16th Street Theater and Theater on the Lake). Her short play Hero Dad premiered in the 2012 Humana Festival of New Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Her work has been produced and developed by Atlantic Theater Company, Old Vic New Voices, Roundabout Underground, Vineyard Theatre, LCT3, Ars Nova, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Second Stage Theatre, Contemporary American Theater Festival, The 24 Hour Plays Off-Broadway, and the inaugural NNPN University Playwrights Workshop at Stanford University, among others. Jacqmin was a member of the inaugural 2010-2011 Playwrights Unit at the Goodman Theatre. She’s taught playwriting at Ohio University, Carthage College, and was the 2012 Faith Broome playwright-in-residence at University of Oklahoma. Commissions: South Coast Rep, Goodman Theatre, Arden Theater Company, InterAct Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater/NNPN, and Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project. Her plays are published by Playscripts, Inc. and Smith & Kraus.
More about Dana
Dana Lynn Formby’s play ‘If you Split a Second’ will receive a world premiere this May at Pegasus Theatre. Her play ‘American Beautyshop’, was read at Florida Studio Theatre during their Burdick Reading Series, The Illinois Shakespeare Festival and at Steep theatre this past year. Her play ‘Corazón de Manzana’ was recently co-produced at Storefront Theatre in Chicago by The DCA and Mortar Theatre Company. She is a 2012 P73 Semi-finalist. She is a Wendy Wasserstien 2011 Nominee. Her play ‘The Small of Her Back’, a 2009 Kendeda Finalist which was given a workshop production at The Alliance Theatre of Atlanta, a reading at New York Theatre Workshop, and PICT; ‘Inherit the Whole’, which was presented in readings at Premiere Stages, Victory Gardens, and was Mortar Theatre’s inaugural production in 2010; and ‘Armed with Peanut Butter’, winner of the 2009 Kennedy Center National 10-Minute Playwriting Award and was seen in the 2009 Source Festival. The play has enjoyed various productions throughout the United States. She has received commissions from Ohio University’s School of Medicine to write a play dealing with Type II Diabetes (Sugar Bear) and from the Ohio School of Psychology to write a play tackling Sickle Cell (120 Days). Her play Loaded Gavel was invited to the 2007 Houston Urban Reading Series. Dana’s first full-length, ‘Frequency 98.6’, was given a full production at the University of Wyoming in 2005 and invited to the regional American College Theatre Festival in 2006. Her one-act play ‘Monday After Work’ won her a scholarship to the 2005 Playwright’s Intensive at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Dana is the 2008 recipient of the Scott McPherson Playwriting Award. She teaches playwriting here at Chicago Dramatists. She is a Founding member of Mortar Theatre Company. She is a blue-collar playwright whose attitude has been carved by the relentless Wyoming wind—lips tight, eyes squinted, legs crossed because god knows what could blow in. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University.
More about Cecilia
Playwright, Screenwriter, and Founding Artistic Director New York Madness.
Copeland’s plays have been Presented or Produced at the HERE Arts Center, Ensemble Studios Theatre, New Perspectives, Cherry Lane Theatre, New Dramatists, Culture Project, Open Hydrant Theatre, Venus Theatre, IATI Theatre, Chrysalis Theatre, The Anarchist Theatre Festival of Montreal, Stage Left Productions, 13th Street Rep, New York Madness, CAPSLOCK PRODUCTIONS, The Disreputables, and Metro Screen Australia among others. She’s Developed work with terraNOVA collective and the Lark Play Development Center. Copeland has been Commissioned by The Drilling Co, Overturn Theatre Ensemble, The Pink Ribbon Project, The Performing Arts High School, New Perspectives, and Lerer Productions.
Copeland is the recipient of the Lennis J. Holm Playwriting Scholarship from University of Iowa for her Honors Thesis, One Woman which was produced in SWAN Day 2008. She is an inductee into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame, a Semi-Finalist for The O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, The David Calicchio Emerging Playwright’s Prize, Seven Devil’s Playwright’s Conference, Multi-Stages and a Finalist for Mabou Mines Artist Residency.
Copeland is a Kilroys List Nominee for her play, Light of Night.
