MFA playwriting | OHIO

Ohio MFA Playwrights Open One-Act Plays in Chicago

August 7, 2014
by rpdolan
· alumni · Chicago · Current Students · News · Productions · world premiere

Three current MFA Playwrights and one recent alumnus are opening 10-4: THE TRUCK STOP PLAYS at CIC Theater in Chicago on Friday, August 8th. The plays run through August 30th.

Ryan Patrick Dolan ’16 enlisted three other playwrights Neal Adelman ’15, Tyler Whidden ’16, and recent grad, Anthony Ellison ’14, to write one-acts to take place at a truck stop. The result is four dark comedies with strong, funny female characters.

The directors are four women from the Chicago theater scene: Karisa Bruin, Jeri Frederickson, Ashley Neal, and Mary O’Connor. Each director cast the plays with Chicago actors.

Recent Ohio University student, Cat Abood (pictured above in red), appears in Anthony Ellison’s play. Ellison coached Abood in Ohio University’s improv group, Black Sheep.

More information appears on the play’s website: truckstopplays.wordpress.com or CIC’s website.

Great Advice On Writing from Ta-Nehisi Coates

OU Professor Erik Ramsey found this video interview by Atlantic Monthly author Ta-Nehisi Coates. He offers some great advice on writing, and dealing with stress when writing, and finding breakthroughs. (It’s six minutes and worth watching.)

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/iframe/280025/

Thanks to Professor Ramsey for finding it. We call him Professor E-Ram aka E-Ramsey aka The Pharaoh of Playwriting.

(Professor E-Ram *fistbump*.)

Bianca Sam’s “Rust On Bone” Wins 2nd for Athe’s Jane Chambers student award

OU Alumnus, Bianca Sams ’14, won 2nd place for Athe’s Jane Chambers student award.

“The Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award recognizes plays and performance texts created by women that present a feminist perspective and contain significant opportunities for female performers. This competition is open to both graduate and undergraduate students. The Jane Chambers Award for emergent playwrights encourages diversity of style and content. All forms of drama are accepted, including solo performance work. Your play will be recognized at the Women and Theatre Program’s Pre-Conference in Scottsdale, AZ on July 24th and a synopsis and information about your work will be posted to the WTP website.”

Reading of Ryan Patrick Dolan’s MORAINE at Chicago’s Greenhouse Theater

Ryan Patrick Dolan ’16 is having a reading of MORAINE as part of the Trellis Reading Series at the Greenhouse Theater in Chicago on Tuesday, July 22nd at 7pm.

Dolan wrote “Moraine” during his first year in the Ohio MFA Playwriting program, and had a reading at the 2014 Seabury Festival at Ohio University in the spring.

MORAINE synopsis: Fighting time and the most brutal Chicago winter in recent memory, Mark attempts to keep his ad-hoc collection of friends from disintegrating in the face of illness, ambition, and betrayal. Moraine is a play about family, brand awareness, and ice cream that’s so goddamn good it’ll make you cry.

The reading features two recent Ohio BFA alumni, Becky Markert and Emily Page Auwaerter. Becky is reprising her role as “Mackenzie.” Emily played the “Nurse” in an earlier classroom reading, and is reading stage directions.

The play is being directed by Mary Rose O’Connor. The cast includes Rebecca Sohn, a longtime improv and acting veteran in Chicago, who taught Ryan improv at Annoyance Theater, and Natalie West, who recently performed to rave reviews in Marisa Wegryzn’s “Mud Blue Sky” at A Red Orchid Theater .

The cast is:
Jeff Duhigg
Delia Baseman
Josh Bywater
Terry Francois
Rebecca Sohn
Becky Markert
Emily Paige Auwaerter
Natalie West

Reading of Bianca Sams’ RUST ON BONE in NYC July 15th

Bianca Sams ’14 will have a reading of her thesis play, RUST ON BONE, JULY 15TH IN New York at the Manhattan Theatre Club. It will be directed by the Goodman Theater’s Chuck Smith, and feature OU alumnus Marissa Wolf, and current OU MFA actor, Thomas Daniels.

Synopsis: Trapped by a stranger in her office, psychologist Dr. Devra Mendoza must use her training to maneuver her way through a game of cat and mouse with life and death consequences. Rust on Bone looks at the personal cost of war, societal stigmas of therapy, and the ripple effects of trauma and mental illness.

You can RSVP by emailing BIANCASAMS (at) BIANCASAMS (dot)COM.

Details:
MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB
STUDIO SPACE #3
311 W. 43 R D STREET
JULY 15, 2014 @ 7:30PM

Alum Bianca Sams Finalist for Playwright Foundation “Bay Area Playwrights Festival.”

Bianca Sams (MFA ’14) was named a finalist at the Playwright Foundation “Bay Area Playwrights Festival” for her play BATTLE CRY. There were 20 finalists out of 500 submissions.

From their site: “The Bay Area Playwrights Festival supports the development of six full-length plays annually: five selected from our annual open submission process to reflect the outstanding quality, diversity, and daring for which the Festival is known, and the sixth play a Producing Partnership that offers developmental resources to a play advancing toward production.”

SYNOPSIS: BATTLE CRY is inspired by the life and travails of an unsung hero in the Black Civil Rights Movement named Claudette Colvin. At 15, Claudette refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus 9 months prior to Rosa Parks’ arrest. BATTLE CRY tells the personal story of a naïve but passionate 15-year-old girl whose impact on the world has been left out of history books. The play looks at issues of class, ethnicity, and behind the scenes politics in the fight for Civil Rights in America while also highlighting Claudette’s personal courage in the face of injustice.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY/AWARDS FOR BATTLE CRY:
Ohio University MFA Workshop (3x)
Seabury Quinn Festival of New Plays – Staged Reading
Tides Theater SF as part of DGA Footlights reading Series
Marrietta University Black History Month Event – Staged Reading

AWARD HISTORY
Kennedy Center ACTF – Lorraine Hansberry Award (2nd pl) and Rosa Parks Award (2nd pl)
ATHE – Jane Chambers Student Playwright Award (2nd pl)
The Playwright Foundation – Bay Area Playwright Festival (finalist)

Tyler Whidden (MFA ’16) Finalist in Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte Festival

July 1, 2014
by rpdolan
· Awards · Current Students · Festival · News

Tyler Whidden’s play, DANCING WITH NED, was named a finalist for the 3rd Annual nuVoices Festival at the Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte Festival. Tyler’s play was one of 13 chosen.

From ATCharlotte’s website: “Each play selected for the festival will get two script in hand staged readings, with assigned directors, dramaturgs, and actors. Each playwright selected will be brought to Charlotte and provided housing for the duration of the rehearsal process. They will be included in the entire week of rehearsals and will also receive $500 honorarium. The winning play will then be invited to have a full production mounted during Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte’s 2015-2016 season.”

NYC: Chantal Bilodeau’s Translation of Mohamed Kacimi’s “Holy Land” Opens 4/18

April 17, 2014
by rpdolan
· New York · News · Productions · world premiere

Ohio MFA Playwriting Alum, Chantal Bilodeau, has a new translation of Mohamed Kacimi’s HOLY LAND by 3rd Kulture Kids Theater Company at HERE Arts Center in New York City opening April 18th.

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.

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.

2014 SEABURY QUINN, JR. PLAYWRIGHTS’ FESTIVAL

The annual festival runs from April 23 – April 26, 2014. For the full information and schedule, please visit the Festival 2014 page.

Three MFA students’ plays invited to Regional 2 – KCATCF

MFA Playwrights Neal Adelman, Bianca Sams, and Morgan Patton all had plays invited to the region 2 Kennedy Center American College Festival – Region 2, January 2014.

Neal was invited for his one-act play, and Morgan and Bianca were invited for 10-minute plays.