Ohio University MFA Playwriting Program
Alum Mark Chrisler has a reading of his play “Worse Than Tigers” at the Stella Alder Studio tonight in NYC at 7pm. It’s at 31 W. 27th Street, New York, NY.
It’s part of “The First Breath Play Reading Festival” taking place all week at the studio.
(In Ohio, nothing is worse than Kamchatka. It’s better to be in NYC to see this reading. )
On Wednesday, OU alumnus Chantal Bilodeau (red scarf) talked to current Ohio University playwrights in their Seminar class. Bilodeau is writing a series of eight plays called “The Arctic Cycle.” Each play takes place in a different Arctic country, United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia, and focuses “on the power of storytelling to investigate, and attempt to understand, the many challenges posed by climate change.”
Conversation topics covered a multitude of topics including developing voice, supporting oneself as a playwright, writing grants, the challenge of writing a series of plays on one particular theme and idea, and the similarities between Athens, Ohio and Manhattan (not really.)
The playwrights also read Chantal’s play, SILA, which is the first play of the Arctic Cycle and was commissioned by the Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company. It’s won a slew of awards:
Honorable Mention from the Women in the Arts & Media Coalition as part of their Collaboration Awards, 2011.
First Prize, Uprising National Playwriting Competition (Canada), 2011.
First Prize, Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival, 2012.
Woodward International Playwriting Prize, 2014
Sila has an upcoming production at the Underground Railway Theater in April 2014.
Neal Adelman, second year MFA playwright, has been named a National Finalist of the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play for this year’s Kennedy Center American Theater College Festival. His play TARRANT COUNTY is one of three plays nominated.
The festival is April 14th through April 19th at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Started in 1969 by Roger L. Stevens, the Kennedy Center’s founding chairman, the Kennedy Center American College Theater (KCACTF) is a national theater program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide which has served as a catalyst in improving the quality of college theater in the United States. The KCACTF has grown into a network of more than 600 academic institutions throughout the country, where theater departments and student artists showcase their work and receive outside assessment by KCACTF respondents.
Jacob Juntunen’s play SADDAM’S LIONS is published in a new anthology “Plays for Two: A Dazzling New Collection of 28 Plays for 2 Actors” by Vintage Press.
His work is included alongside David Ives’ Venus in Fur and plays by Steven Dietz, Halley Feiffer, Neil LaBute, Elizabeth Merriwether, José Rivera, Paul Rudnick, Doug Wright.
Check out Jacob’s website at jacobjuntunen.com.
OU Alum Cecilia Copeland has been very busy in New York.
MFA Alum, Mark Chrisler‘s play WORSE THAN TIGERS has garnered two accolades. It’s been selected for The Stella Adler Studio’s First Breath Festival in New York. (The site for the festival isn’t full operational yet, but the link is to the main site.)
The play was also semi-finalist for The New American Voices Festival put on by the The Landing Theater in Houston!
Alumni, Jeremy Sony and Garret Schneider, have 10-minute plays that will be part of Playhouse Nashville’s 10-Minute Playhouse February 9 & 10 in Nashville.
Sony’s play is NEXT STOP CENTRAL STATION, and Schenider’s is EX-GIRLFRIEND IS THE CENTERFOLD.
Check out their site for more information: http://www.tenminuteplayhouse.com/
Alum Laura Jacqmin’s new play “Do-Gooder” was “Jeff-Recommended” in its World Premiere at 16th Street Theater in Chicago.
The Jeff Awards are Chicago’s version of the Tony’s. “The designation of “Jeff Recommended” is given to a production when, after the opening night of its run, at least ONE ELEMENT of the show was deemed excellent by the opening night judges of the Joseph Jefferson Committee. The entire production is then eligible for nomination for awards at the end of the season.”
For more information about the play, check out Do-Gooders webpage and video.
You can learn more about Laura Jacqmin by visiting http://www.laurajacqmin.com/
OU MFA Alum, Mark Chrisler, had a play run at this year’s Rhinofest in Chicago. The Chicago Reader’s, Zac Thompson, highlighted Chrisler’s play “Phones, Frauds, and Fakes.”
In Chrisler’s Phonies, Frauds, and Fakes, the writer-performer reads from a script while seated at a table, Spaulding Gray style. What starts as a witty lecture on history’s biggest lies soon morphs into the fascinating story of Chrisler’s four-year involvement with a girlfriend who turned out to be a pathological liar. As he relates how he fell for one whopper after another, Chrisler is insightful on self-deception and the way great liars exploit our willingness to believe what we want to believe, even when the truth is staring us in the face.
Check out Mark Chrisler’s website for more information about his work.
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