OHIO MFA Playwriting alums Jackie Reingold and Laura Jacqmin served on the writing staff for the premiere season of “Grace and Frankie”, a new Netflix series starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston. The series debuts on May 8th, streaming on your nearest interweb device. Read a preview here: http://www.people.com/article/grace-and-frankie-netflix-jane-fonda-lily-tomlin
Tag: Ohio University playwriting alumni
Two MFA Playwriting Alums Write for Netflix’s “Grace and Frankie”
Dates Announced for the Seabury Quinn Jr Playwrights Festival
The dates and times for the 2015 Annual Seabury Quinn Jr Playwrights Festival are now posted on the website! Included in the lineup are full productions of “Only Good Things Happen at the Fair” by Neal Adelman and “Dauphin Island” by Jeffrey Chastang, as well as 6 readings. The festival runs April 23rd to the 25th, 2015 in Kantner Hall on the campus of Ohio University.
Readings featured in the festival include “Fools Gold” by Morgan Patton, “Random House” by Aaron Johnson, “Bait Shop” by Ryan Patrick Dolan, “ChocolateSexPuppyTacos (A Non-Denominational Comedy)” by Tyler Whidden, “Karate Hottie” by Catherine Weingarten, and “Tight End” by Rachel Bykowski.
Click here for the full schedule. And click here read more about this year’s festival mentors!
Ohio MFA Playwrights Open One-Act Plays in Chicago
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.
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)
Molly Hagan’s SWING OF THE SEA Published by Samuel French
OU BFA Alum, Molly Hagan, had her play, SWING OF THE SEA, published by Samuel French. It was Molly’s undergrad “thesis” play at Ohio. It was produced at Arcadia University in December 2011, and it won the KCACTF Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award in 2012. Before that it had readings in New York, Louisville and at Ohio University.
Samuel French’s Synopsis: Boots, a girl who wears yellow rain boots even when it’s not raining, and a boy called Eggs take a journey through memory and imagination following the sudden death of their friend, Peter. As Eggs dreams of asking Boots to the upcoming Favorites Dance, Boots loses herself in a world of fallen leaves, consumed by her quest to remember the last words Peter said to her before he died. The Swing of the Sea is a play about growing old without aging that examines the way fantasy and memory converge when we lose someone we love.
You can follow Molly on twitter at @mollyhagan_.
Bianca Sams’ “Rust On Bone” 1 of 4 Plays Chosen for a New Works Festival.
Bianca Sams’ play “Rust on Bone” was one of four plays chosen for the Gulfshore Playhouse’s 2nd Annual New Works Festival in Naples, Florida. Sams, OU MFA ’14, will work with actors and director for a week before a staged reading of her play the weekend of the festival, Sept 4-7, 2014.
Late May & June Play-Opp Updates
No fear, suckahs. We have brand new play submission opportunities on our Opp-Log calendar.
Two Ohio Alumni Named to Playwrights’ Center Core Playwriting Program
The Playwrights’ Center (PWC) announced this year’s core writer’s and Jerome Fellowship recipients last week. Qui Nguyen was named a Core Writer, and Bianca Sams was named a Core Apprentice.
Nguyen was one of eight new writers to join the group of 25 Core Writers. “The Core Writer program brings a diverse range of playwrights to the Center for play development workshops in collaboration with prom is the Co-Artistic Director of the Nguyen is an OBIE Award-winning Vampire Cowboys of NYC. His plays include “She Kills Monsters,” “Soul Samurai,” “Alice in Slasherland,” “The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G,” and the musicals “Krunk Fu Battle Battle,” “War is F**king Awesome” and “Samantha Rai and the Shogun of Fear.” He is a proud member of The Playwrights’ Center, New Dramatists, Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Ma-Yi Writers Lab. His company, Vampire Cowboys, often considered the pioneers of “Geek Theater,” holds the unique distinction of being the first and only professional theater organization to be sponsored by NY Comic Con.inent directors, actors, dramaturgs and designers. Over the three-year term with the Playwrights’ Center as an artistic home, selected work by Core Writers is showcased in the community through the PlayLabs festival and the Ruth Easton New Play Series.”
Sams, a MFA graduate this year, was one of five playwrights named a Core Apprentice. That program”pairs student playwrights with a mentor and offers play development support.”
Sams is an Actor/Writer/Producer based in New York City. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School, where she earned the distinction of being Tisch’s first ever Triple Major (Acting, Dramatic Writing, Africana Studies). At NYU she studied acting through the Strasberg Film Institute and Royal Academy Dramatic Arts (RADA) London, England. Her writing mentors at NYU included Richard Wesley, Beth Turner, George Malko, John Guerre (Honors), Kenneth Lonergan (Honors) and Daniel Goldfarb. Since graduating her work has been seen at Karamu House, Cleveland Public Theater, Old Vic Theater London and Public Theater in New York. She has performed as an actor at Cleveland Public Theater, Florida Studio Theater, Old Vic London, Public Theater NY, and can be seen on film in Rent directed by Chris Columbus. She is a full member of the Old Vic New Voices Network New York under Artistic Director Kevin Spacey. She has produced several ten minute play festivals in New York and Los Angeles, and is moving into full length off broadway theater. She is recent graudate from the MFA in Playwrighting at Ohio University with Charles Smith. For more information go to www.biancasams.com.
The Playwrights’ Center is “one of the nation’s most generous and well-respected theater organizations, the Playwrights’ Center focuses on both supporting playwrights and promoting new plays to production at theaters across the country. The Center has helped launch the careers of numerous nationally recognized artists, notably August Wilson, Lee Blessing, Suzan-Lori Parks, Jordan Harrison, Carlyle Brown, Craig Lucas, Jeffrey Hatcher, Melanie Marnich, and Kira Obolensky. Work developed through Center programs has been seen nationwide on such stages as the Yale Rep, Woolly Mammoth, Guthrie, Goodman, and many others.”
Jeremy Sony’s “Pathogenesis” streamed live Sunday on HowlRoundTVs Livestream Channel.
This Sunday night, May 11, a reading of OU Alum Jeremy Sony’s new play ‘Pathogenesis’ will be streamed live on the internet thanks to HowlRoundTV’s Livestream channel, http://www.livestream.com/newplay/ (visit the link and look for Upcoming Events).
Sunday, May 11
5pm PDT / 7pm CDT / 8pm EDT
Pathogenesis by Jeremy Sony.
Synopsis: A global pandemic, a dangerous cure, and a father / daughter relationship set to explode at the end of the world.
Synopsis: A global pandemic, a dangerous cure, and a father / daughter relationship set to explode at the end of the world.
This reading is part of the Ingram New Works Lab at Tennessee Repertory Theatre in Nashville, where Sony has been developing his new play during the 2013-2014 season.
Participate in a talkback with Sony immediately following the performance on Twitter. Direct your questions to @tnrep and use #newplay
See more at: http://howlround.com/livestreaming-the-ingram-new-works-festival-at-tennessee-repertory-theatre-sun-may-11-wed-may-14
You can also read more about ‘Pathogenesis’ on Sony’s website at http://www.jeremysony.com/plays.html
Tyler Whidden ’16 Reading of “Run, Kingsbury, Run” This Weekend in Cleveland.
Classes are over. Commencement has taken place. Ohio MFA playwrights are getting busy this summer.
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
OHIO 