2004 Ohio University Seabury Quinn Jr. Playwrights’ Festival
Guest Mentors
Rick Cleveland is a writer and Co-Executive Producer on HBO’s Six Feet Under. He won an Emmy Award, a Writer’s Guild Award, and a Humanitas Award for writing on The West Wing. He earned his MFA from the University of Iowa’s Playwriting Workshop. His feature film, Jerry and Tom was an official selection at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals. Rick is also a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered.
Rebecca Gilman is a playwright whose work includes Spinning into Butter, Boy Gets Girl, Blue Surge, and The Glory of Living. Her plays have been produced at the Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, The Public Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Manhattan Class Company, as well as other theatres around the country and abroad. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Prince Prize for Commissioning New Work, the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, and the George Devine Award. Ms. Gilman was named as a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Glory of Living. Her play The Sweetest Swing in Baseball premiered at the Royal Court in London in March 2004, and her adaptation of Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter will premiere at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta this fall.
Chris Jones is a staff theater critic, columnist and arts reporter for the Chicago Tribune who writes a weekly column chronicling the Chicago theater community. Chris also serves as the Midwestern theater critic and theater reporter for Variety and Daily Variety, publishing several hundred reviews and news articles, especially on the business of touring Broadway theater. He has specialized in reviewing pre-Broadway tryouts and other new work. He has served briefly as Variety’s Broadway critic and legitimate theater editor. Chris has also written for the New York-based American Theatre and Stagebill magazines and for The New York Times. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and numerous other publications. He has contributed theatre reviews, interviews, and reports for WCBE-FM in Columbus, Ohio and has served as the film and theater critic for Columbus Alive newspaper. His work has appeared in Theatre Studies and Popular Culture Review. In 1989, he received his doctorate in theater from Ohio State University. Formerly Assistant Chair of the School of Theatre Arts at Northern Illinois University, Chris currently teaches theater criticism on the adjunct faculty of the Theatre School of DePaul University.
2004 Festival Line Up:
May 26th
1:30PM A Story About a Girl by Jacquelyn Reingold
8:00PM Blind Man’s Blues by Michael Dice Jr.
May 27th
1:00PM Home Town Proud! by J.C. Christiansen
8:00PM Swamp Baby by Aaron Carter
May 28th
1:00PM Jimmy from the Bronx by Mark Witteveen
8:00PM The Critic by Melissa Gawlowski
May 29th
12:00PM Elements of Form by Christopher De Paola
3:00PM Womyn’s Spirit by Anika Alvar
8:00PM Fullest Vigour by John Ray Sheline