2013 Ohio University Seabury Quinn Jr. Playwrights’ Festival
GEORGE BRANT’s plays include ELEPHANT’S GRAVEYARD, GROUNDED, THE MOURNERS’ BENCH, SALVAGE, THREE VOYAGES OF THE LOBOTOMOBILE, GRIZZLY MAMA, ANY OTHER NAME, DEFIANT, DARK ROOM, MIRACLE: A TRAGEDY, GOOD ON PAPER, ASHES, NOK, THE LONESOME HOBOES, ONE HAND CLAPPING, THE ROYAL HISTORIAN OF OZ, LOVELY LETTERS, THREE MEN IN A BOAT, BORGLUM! THE MOUNT RUSHMORE MUSICAL, TIGHTS ON A WIRE and NIGHT OF THE MIME. A Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, his work has been produced internationally by such companies as Trinity Repertory Company, City Theatre, Gate Theatre of London, Page 73, Unicorn Theatre, Borderlands Theater, SF Playhouse, American Blues Theatre, Dobama Theatre, Theatre 4, Premiere Stages, Trustus Theatre, Elemental Theatre Collective, Balagan Theatre, the Drama League, the Disney Channel, Factory Theatre, Debutantes and Vagabonds, StreetSigns Theatre Company, and zeppo theater company, among others. His plays have been generously developed by the Kennedy Center, Cleveland Play House, Asolo Rep, McCarter Theatre Center, New Harmony Project, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Lab, Playwright and Director Center of Moscow, Florida Studio Theatre, New Jersey Rep, Contemporary Drama Festival of Hungary, the Hangar Theatre, Equity Library Theatre, and Ground UP Productions, among others. His scripts have been awarded the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center, the Smith Prize, the Keene Prize for Literature, an NNPN Rolling World Premiere, an Austin Critic’s Circle Best New Play Award and an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for 2012. He has received writing fellowships from the James A. Michener Center for Writers, the McCarter Theatre Center, the MacDowell Colony, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Fundacion Valparaiso and the Blue Mountain Center as well as commissions from Dobama Theatre and Theatre 4. George received his MFA in Writing from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. He is published by Samuel French and Smith & Kraus.
KIA CORTHRON was recently awarded the 2012 Lee Reynolds Award, sponsored by the League of Professional Theatre Women. Her plays include A COOL DIP IN THE BARREN SAHARAN CRICK (Playwrights Horizons co-production with The Play Company and the Culture Project), TRICKLE (Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Marathon), MOOT THE MESSENGER (Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival), LIGHT RAISE THE ROOF (New York Theatre Workshop), SNAPSHOT SILHOUETTE (Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre), SLIDE GLIDE THE SLIPPERY SLOPE (ATL Humana, Mark Taper Forum), THE VENUS DE MILO IS ARMED (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), BREATH, BOOM (London’s Royal Court Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Yale Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre and elsewhere), FORCE CONTINUUM (Atlantic Theater Company), SPLASH HATCH ON THE E GOING DOWN (New York Stage and Film, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Yale Rep, London’s Donmar Warehouse), SEEKING THE GENESIS (Goodman Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club), DIGGING ELEVEN (Hartford Stage Company), LIFE BY ASPHYXIATION (Playwrights Horizons), WAKE UP LOU RISER (Delaware Theatre Company), COME DOWN BURNING (American Place Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre), CAGE RHYTHM (Sightlines/The Point in the Bronx). Awards and fellowships include the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Creative Arts Residency (Italy), Dora Maar Residency (France), MacDowell Colony, Siena Arts Institute Visiting Artist (Italy), Playwrights Center’s McKnight National Residency, Masterwork Productions Award, the Wachtmeister Award, Columbia College/Goodman Theatre Fellowship, Barbara Barondess MacLean Foundation Award, AT&T On Stage Award, Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, Mark Taper Forum’s Fadiman Award, National Endowment for the Arts/TCG, Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, Callaway Award, and in television a Writers Guild Outstanding Drama Series Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award for The Wire. Most recently Kia has written a novel. She currently serves on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, is a member of the Writers Guild of America, and is an alumnus of New Dramatists.
DENNIS ZACEK held the position of artistic director at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago for 30 years, and recently accepted the Actor’s Equity Association’s (AEA) Spirit Recognition Award. The Spirit Award is given to institutions that “have made non-traditional casting a way of life.” He also received the 2005 Jeff Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chicago Equity Theatre. He, his wife Marcelle McVay, and the theater are co-recipients of the 2001 Tony Award® for Outstanding Regional Theatre. He is also the recipient of the 2004 Artistic Leadership Award from the League of Chicago Theatres. Mr. Zacek and Ms. McVay received the 1999 Rosetta Lenoire Award from Actors’ Equity and the 1998 Sidney R. Yates Arts Advocacy Award from the Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation. He has directed more than 250 productions in his career, including, most recently, the Chicago premiere of Blackbird by David Harrower, the world premiere of Jeffrey Sweet’s Class Dismissed, James Sherman’s Relatively Close, the Midwest premiere of A Park in Our House by Nilo Cruz, the world premieres of Cynical Weathers by Douglas Post, Denmark by Charles Smith, the inaugural production at Victory Gardens’ new home at the Biograph, Symmetry by David Field, The Family Gold by Annie Reiner, Affluenza! and The Old Man’s Friend by James Sherman, Unspoken Prayers by Claudia Allen, The Action Against Sol Schumann and Flyovers by Jeffrey Sweet, and others. Additional projects include Marisha Chamberlain’s Scheherazade (National Winner of the FDG/CBS competition), John Olive’s Clara’s Play (production and direction award, Academy of TheaterArtists and Friends), and James Sherman’s Mr. 80% (direction award, Academy of Theater Artists and Friends). Mr. Zacek directed Arthur Cantor’s production of James Sherman’s Beau Jest at the Lambs Theater in New York, where it holds the record as the longest-running show in the history of the theater. Other New York credits include Lonnie Carter’s The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy, presented by Woody King’s New Federal Theater, and Charles Smith’s Jelly Belly, which was produced by the New Federal Theater. Mr. Zacek is a professor emeritus of Loyola University and was included in 2005 in Utne magazine’s first-ever list of “Artists Who Will Shake the World.”
by Mark Chrisler
Directed by faculty member Shelley Delaney
April 17th, 19th, 25th,& 27th at 8:00pm
April 20th at 2:00pm
The Syllogism of a Golden Hippo
by Rebecca Abaffy
Directed by Ryan Holihan (MFA Directing Program)
April 18th, 20th, 24th, & 26th at 8:00pm
April 27th at 2:00pm
1pm RECONSTRUCTED by Jeffry Chastang
4pm ON THE ROAD WITH INVISIBLE VERMIN by Patsie Varkados
8pm BEHEADING VAMPIRE PUPPIES: A LIVING ROOM ENCOUNTER by Greg Aldrich
1pm THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH by Morgan Patton
4pm HOT PINK by Anthony Ellison
8pm FRACKTURE by Jeremy Sony
2pm BATTLE CRY by Bianca Sams
1pm GAS ON THE RIGHT, BRAKES ON THE LEFT by Neal Adelman
4pm BLACK AS THE DIRT by Chanel Glover
WORSE THAN TIGERS
by Mark Chrisler
Directed by Shelley Delaney
8:00 pm April 17th, 19th, 25th & 27th;
Olivia and Humphry have a safe, comfortable, enviable life. And it’s eating them alive. Worse Than Tigers is the story of a couple who desperately need to embrace their misery in order to be happy. Luckily, there’s an escaped, maneating tiger ravening outside their front door…
THE SYLLOGISM OF A GOLDEN HIPPO
by Rebecca Abaffy
Directed by Ryan Holihan
8:00 pm – April 18th, 20th, 24th & 26th;
Zhao, a child who can’t be born, is born in Beijing. He thinks he is brilliant to his very core. However, his mother banishes him to the oilfields of Sudan for being embarrassingly stupid. Zhao is determined to change his mother’s judgment with a syllogism. And feminism. And a monkey. Or a golden hippo.
RECONSTRUCTED
Written & Directed by Jeffry Chastang
1:00 pm, Wednesday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
Reconstruction is grinding to a halt in post Civil War Alabama, and though slavery is abolished, freedom is more a concept than a fact. Lee-Anna, a determined ex-slave seeking a better life for herself and her loved ones, has set secret plans in motion to leave the south behind. But her possessive former owner is bent on keeping her within reach. The play RECONTRUCTED dramatizes Lee-Anna’s unorthodox attempt to escape to a better life.
ON THE ROAD WITH INVISIBLE VERMIN
Written by Patsie Varkados
Directed by Brian Evans
4:00 pm, Wednesday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
Twenty-year-old, lower class overachiever Ripley is estactic when her first big job opportunity comes along in the form of a photojournalistic road trip chauffeur. That is, until her eccentric boss Cunningham Pearl, a middle aged, has-been shock photographer, brings along some baggage that doesn’t quite fit in the backseat. Strewn with menstrual fluid, invisible rats, adoption, mental illness and tooth decay, ON THE ROAD WITH INVISIBLE VERMIN is a comedic journey that turns a three week trip into a life changing choice.
BEHEADING VAMPIRE PUPPIES: A LIVING ROOM ENCOUNTER
Written by Greg Aldrich
Directed by Mark Chrisler
8:00 pm, Wednesday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
On a frigid Alaskan night, Vivian leads her recently dumped best friend Clara to an eccentric loner’s cabin for an evening of distraction. Through drinking, drugs, and discussion, the trio tries to cipher the meaning of unhappiness by posing questions such as the morality of beheading vampire puppies and by digging up past skeletons.
THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH
Written and Directed by Morgan Patton
1:00 pm, Thursday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
Sophia finally got the record deal she has always aspired to, but when she comes home to relay the good news, it’s quickly squelched by the worst news she could fathom: her brother Mason may be dying. So how do you choose between following your dreams and aiding your family?
HOT PINK
Written and Directed by Anthony Ellison
4:00 pm, Thursday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
Gretchy is stuck in a retirement home bed, doing the best she can to protect her life from Clyde and her sanity from Ella. Summer is Gretchy’s grand daughter with hot pink hair. She’s a real wild turkey, and now Gretchy must dye her own hair hot pink to prove to Summer that she’s not like the other people in the home. Problem is, Gretchy has no money, no car, and she can’t walk on her own.
FRACKTURE
Written & Directed by Jeremy Sony
8:00 pm, Thursday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
Would you sacrifice everything you have in order to save it? When his oldest brother dies and leaves the family with a mountain of debt, Mitch discovers what could be the answer to their prayers: hydraulic fracturing. Trying to make up for years of pain he caused his brothers, Mitch’s help causes more harm than good, forcing him to ask what he’s willing to give up to keep his family together.
BATTLE CRY
by Bianca Sams
Directed by Emily Penick
2:00 pm, Friday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
Nine months before Rosa Parks’ arrest, a fifteen-year-old girl’s refusal to give up her seat thrust Montgomery, Alabama into a Civil Rights battle that led to desegregating buses and dismantled her personal life. So, why don’t we know her name?
GAS ON THE RIGHT, BRAKES ON THE LEFT
by Neal Adelman
Directed by Anthony Ellison
1:00 pm, Saturday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
BLACK AS THE DIRT
Written by Chanel Glover
& Directed by David Haugen
4:00 pm, Saturday, Elizabeth Baker Theater, Kantner Hall
When Clairetta’s son is charged with raping their white neighbor, she struggles to win his freedom, tirelessly confronting timeworn questions. Why must her teenaged black son face jail time for potentially being involved with a young white woman? Set in present day Stone Mountain, Georgia, BLACK AS THE DIRT examines the effects of history’s continual reach into the present.
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