Venues for Women Playwrights

For all the lamenting we do about the places that are NOT producing works by women playwrights, there are quite a number of venues dedicated to making sure female playwrights get their due. Here are a few places you can go to see wonderful new works by women, and for my fellow playwrights out there, places you can send your own brilliant scripts.

The Looking Glass Theatre Writer/Director Forum for Female Playwrights: A semi-annual festival in which emerging women playwrights and directors present their interpretations of new and classic short works, seeks new short plays (running time 15-35 minutes) by women. Their Spring Forum just wrapped up on June 26th, but they are accepting manuscripts for their Winter Forum, to take place in December 2012, until August 15.

Independent Actors Theatre Women’s Play Festival: Independent Actors Theatre of Columbia, MO, is seeking short plays (max. 10-12 minutes) by women playwrights for its fifth annual short Women’s Play Festival – “the plays are short, not the women.” Plays will be staged and produced by local women theatre directors and stage managers in March 2013. Manuscripts are due by September 1.

Women’s Theatre Festival of Memphis: A 3-day festival planned for August 2-4, 2012, in the Midtown Theatre District of Memphis, TN at The Circuit Playhouse, Playhouse on the Square and TheatreWorks. For three days, audiences are invited from all over the world to West Tennessee to enjoy quality theatrical performances written by women, directed by women and about women at the first annual Women’s Theatre Festival of Memphis.The Festival is designed to highlight and award the contributions of women in theatre arts and showcase theatrical productions.

The Arizona  Women’s Theatre Company: Produces contemporary plays by women playwrights. The company is entering its  7th season and is committed to producing work that reveals women’s lives and  documents women’s experiences. As a non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation,  AZWTC relies totally on volunteers and donations. The Pandora Festival is  funded in part by the Scottsdale Cultural Council and Arizona  Commission on the Arts. The most recent Pandora Festival finished in May, but AWTC will soon be preparing for next year’s festival.

In addition, check out the following link for even more playwriting opportunities for women: http://www.womenarts.org/fund/TheatreOngoingSubmissions.htm

And if you’re in the Mechanicsburg area, you MUST attend the staged reading of Cindy Dlugolecki’s new play SNAP! at the Little Theatre of Mechanicsburg!

That’s all for this week!  Next week my husband and I are off to New York City for a week-long stage combat intensive with Art of Combat.  I’ll be sure to blog about the experience…if I don’t die.  😉

Newsday…Thursday: The Tony Awards

I know, I know…it doesn’t have the same ring as “Newsday Tuesday.”  😦  Breaks my heart a little. The truth is, once we get out of these dog days of summer I may go back to blogging twice a week. We’ll see.

Today I want to talk a little bit about the Tony Awards.  I know this isn’t exactly news (unless you count OLD news), but I’m sort of just getting around to it because, honestly, (and I hate to admit this as a self-described theatre person) I MISSED the Tonys this year.  (!!!)  It’s true. It was the same evening as our cast party from Romeo & Juliet, blah blah blah, excuse excuse excuse, and yeah…never got to see it.  So I decided to check the results today.  And to be honest…I was a little disappointed.

Not because of who won, or even because of who was nominated…but because of who wasn’t nominated.  And you know who wasn’t nominated?  WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS.  Best Play nominees – NO WOMEN. Best Book of a Musical nominees – NO WOMEN. Best Original Score – NO WOMEN.

But wait, wait, wait!!  One shining, glimmering beacon of hope – nominee for Best Revival of a Play: WIT!  Written by Margaret Edson!  YAY!!!  And yet…for Best Revival they don’t even list the playwright – not any of them – alongside the play’s title.  Our next closest moment of rejoicing comes with the nomination (and win) of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess which had strong female influences in the way of a fantastic director and a Tony-winning performance by Audra McDonald. See, award shows never have a problem honoring female performers – they have entire categories dedicated to them – but I ask again…

Where are all the women playwrights?

This is just a question.  I’m not one of those people (really, really, really NOT one of those people) who think we should sacrifice QUALITY in the name of EQUALITY (example of one of the worst equality moves ever: lowering standards for female fire fighters because they are smaller and weaker.  Because when I’m in a burning building I REALLY want a 90 pound female WHO CANNOT CARRY ME to show up at my door).  But you can’t tell me that all women are out there writing crap. That when it comes right down to it, ALL the best new plays are being written by men.  It just can’t be true.  And I think the Tony Awards, though not to blame, are evidence of what I’ve been responding to since the beginning of this blog – WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS ARE NOT BEING PRODUCED IN OUR COUNTRY. That’s that.

I’m not doubting the excellence of Once or the brilliance and poignancy of Clybourne Park. I’m not saying there’s a play by a female playwright on Broadway at this moment that was slighted or that any of the plays that were nominated didn’t deserve it. I’m just saying that if we don’t give female playwrights a chance to get their work produced, they’ll never have the chance of being justly honored or rewarded. And if we give our female playwrights a chance, we’ll find even more fantastic plays like Wit…and not just in revival.

So lay it on me…what plays written by women do YOU want to see on Broadway?

Views and Reviews: BLOOD RELATIONS by Sharon Pollock

So right now I am in the middle of catching up on my Shakespeare (I am woefully under-read when it comes to Shakespeare…which is really sad since I produce Shakespeare in the Park annually), plus re-reading both The Glass Menagerie (by Tennessee Williams) and Eurydice (by the ever-amazing Sarah Ruhl) for the intermediate playwriting class that I teach on Saturdays at the local library. Why am I telling you all this?  The real question is “Hmmm…waitaminute-is-this-just-a-big-fat-excuse-for-not-having-read-any-new-works-by-women-playwrights-recently?”

Why yes…yes it is.

BLOOD RELATIONS by Sharon Pollock. Jane Perry as Miss Lizzie, Laurie Paton as The Actress, Shaw Festival, 2003. Photo by David Cooper.

So I’m going to fudge a little and tell you about one of my favorite theatrical experiences (even if I haven’t actually READ the play): seeing Blood Relations by Sharon Pollock at the Shaw Festival in Canada.

I just realized it has literally been a decade – a FULL DECADE – since I saw this play (craziness!).  I remember this because (bunny trail) after we saw the play I and the three other ladies I was with were starving and we found that absolutely no restaurants were open…except in casinos. And I was the only one under 21. And even though I had no intention of drinking, they check your ID at the door since free drinks are abundant. Fail.

Fortunately, in Canada, the legal drinking age is 18!  (Yes, I can literally hear you under-21-year-olds renewing your passport and hopping in the car.)  And since I was 19…SUCCESS!

But back to the real story.  🙂

BLOOD RELATIONS by Sharon Pollock. Photo by David Cooper.

Blood Relations is a compelling mystery/drama about Lizzie Borden, the infamous 19th century alleged ax murderer, exonerated in court but condemned by society as the killer of her father and step-mother. The play (which had a stunning set, by the by) opens on Lizzie Borden and a woman simply known as “The Actress,” who is questioning Lizzie about the day of the murders. The biggest question hanging on her tongue – the one she cannot help asking – is “Did you do it, Lizzie? Did you?”

This is when the play does what no other artistic medium can do (not well, anyway); Lizzie offers to guide The Actress through the days leading up to the murders with Lizzie playing the role of the family’s maid and The Actress taking on the role of Lizzie herself. It’s almost like a play within a play – we watch them interact with Lizzie’s father, step-mother, sister, a family friend and doctor – but it’s more like a living memory imparted on someone else. Lizzie doesn’t bring in other actors to interact with The Actress; she weaves a tale so intricately that The Actress brings everyone back to life so she can experience exactly what Lizzie went through. And what’s really amazing about this play is that the question “Did you do it, Lizzie?” is never answered; all we learn is what The Actress – and indeed, what we – might have been compelled to do in Lizzie’s place.

Playwright Sharon Pollock. Photo by Jennifer Pollock.

Sharon Pollock is one of Canada’s most well-known female playwrights, and she has been praised for being “drawn to issues and ideas” in her writing. The issue in Blood Relations goes beyond the quandary into a historical murder mystery, and instead asks the audience to consider what impact psychological abuse might have on a person, and whether or not it might lead them to kill. In essence, Pollock asks us to feel empathy towards a possible murderer, and to ask ourselves if we – though not murderers ourselves – would have, could have, considered such a crime.

I’ll be adding Sharon Pollock to my list of female playwrights whose works I must read…and soon.

Welcome to the Other Side

Juliet in her treehouse…yes, TREEHOUSE. Photo by Dan Lanton of Darkershadesofbrown Photography

Well, here I am, on the other side of Shakespeare in the Park, off and running with a hundred new projects (freelance proof-reading, teaching playwriting workshops, writing a YA novel…hahahaha) and it tugged at my gut a little today that I haven’t blogged in so long. Truth be told, I’ve been done with Shakespeare for a good week and a half (a successful run, by the by, entertaining almost 1,000 people over two weekends), but it is only today that I’ve felt refreshed enough to embark again on my blogging routine.

With a few minor changes. Hehehehehe. (stick with me)

Romeo sees Juliet (while dramachicky does directorial work in the background; yay dress rehearsal!) Photo by Dan Lanton of Darkershadesofbrown Photography

I think I can only handle blogging once a week – at least, mentally, it’s all I can handle right now. I enjoy blogging – I really like learning about playwrights and passing on that information to others around the world – but I’m starting to burn out a teeny tiny bit. So this is your fair warning; I will try to be consistent, but we are taking things down a notch. At least for the summer. Hey; we all need a break, right?

So what on earth will I talk about today?  Well, my title is two-fold (muah-ha! I love pretending I’m clever!) and the event that had me itching to blog today is the production of my play, Empathy.

I think I mentioned a few months back that I was one of six playwrights commissioned to write a short one-act play (mine was about 10 minutes) with no specifications EXCEPT that it must take place in a kitchen. The concept for this series – aptly entitled PLAYROOM – is the brainchild of friend and fellow playwright Matthew Hinton of Gaslight Theatre Company in Wilkes-Barre, PA (as always, not to be confused with mine and my husband’s theatre group, Ghostlight Productions, in Clarks Summit).

PLAYROOM poster designed by Jenny Hill

So back in April (I think), I wrote a play and passed it on to Matt. And then…nothing. I did nothing with it. I did not attend rehearsals, I did not help with casting, I in no way directed, acted in, or even viewed the play until its performance last weekend. This might seem like a “duh” moment to some of you, but let me tell you – this is the first time I have EVER done this. And it totally freaked me out.

Now, I’ve had my stuff “produced” before, but I’ve always had my hand in the pot. I wrote things that my husband and I performed together, or I wrote and directed (ok, and acted in) my senior project in college. But I’ve never written something, waved goodbye, and passed it on to a theatre group with no knowledge of how it might turn out. It was kind of an awesome feeling – and really, really, REALLY scary.

So last weekend, after R & J had closed (and I had cried), my husband and two of our friends piled in the car to visit King’s College Theatre where Gaslight was performing my play (and five others). I was a bit of a nervous wreck. Thank God my play was the second one to be performed because (apologies to the author) I don’t think I heard a word of the first play, I was in such a state of nerves. Then the lights go down, it’s clearly an evening setting and a man in a bathrobe shuffles into the kitchen, staring at the refrigerator with anticipation and anxiety. And I watched as the words that I wrote came to life.

WOW.  WHAT AN AWESOME FEELING!

You playwrights who have had your works produced, you know what I’m talking about. Of course there’s that fear of the unknown – what did they do with it? what did they change? who is playing this character or that character or will they completely ignore my stage directions and what if I wrote CRAP?! – but actually watching it happen…there’s something truly fulfilling knowing that you created the words, the action, the story behind what everyone sees and hears. You are the creator…I love that about being human; the ability to CREATE.  So yeah…it’s a pretty cool experience.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that moment in my little playwright’s life. In a way, it wasn’t anything huge – I did not have a full-length play produced by a professional company in a big city; I didn’t win a contest and no agents came up to me afterward and said “we love your work!”  But it was still a monumental occasion, because for the first time, someone else took my work and shared it with others. And isn’t that why we write?  Isn’t that the hope, the dream?  That someone else will look at our work and say, yes, yes…THIS is worth sharing.

Where’d she go?

So my blogging for the past month has been inconsistent at best. Basically, Shakespeare in the Park is eating my life and until I can shake the beautiful mongrel from my leg in four weeks, I’m afraid I’m consumed.

I did come across a post today from a favorite blog of mine that I think you all should read.  It’s about a book club for actors and it got me thinking; shouldn’t we/couldn’t we have a similar “book club” for playwrights?  I know I need to broaden my horizons, read more plays regularly (as I once committed to do; SIGH), and get to know more amazing playwrights.  So check out The Green Room’s post (and surf some other posts while you’re there; may I recommend Movie Musical Monday?  SO FUN) and I will see you on the other side of Shakespeare.

Thanks, all!

Combat Chicky!

Two weeks ago, my husband and I had a fun, relaxing weekend.  Ok, wait…no…it wasn’t relaxing. Not even a little bit. But it was FUN.  What did we do?  Go hiking?  Drive up and down the east coast?  Dance ’til the break of dawn?

Nope.  We fought.

WITH BROADSWORDS.  🙂

Let me rewind. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my husband and I are the founders of a small theatre group, Ghostlight Productions. We are most well-known in our area for providing a Shakespeare in the Park production every June at our local park. This year I am directing Romeo & Juliet. Since one of our goals is to increase the quality of every show that we do, we’ve added elements to this show that truly stretch the bounds of outdoor community theatre – live original music, Irish step dance, Italian folk dance, and, of course, stage combat.

Which brings us back to the broadswords. Well, actually, it brings us to the three-hour unarmed combat workshop, which THEN brings us to the three-hour broadsword combat workshop, as well as about six hours of fight choreography, all of which we managed to cram into a weekend.  PHEW!  (See why it wasn’t relaxing?)

The fantastic Scott Ticen drove up from his home base in the Lancaster area to teach both workshops and choreograph our Romeo & Juliet fight scenes (there are several, as you may know). Those two days were intense, especially for my actors who took the workshops AND participated in the choreography. My husband, who plays Mercutio, can attest to just how exhausting and exhilarating the entire experience was.

Scott Ticen (center) guides us through unarmed stage combat. Photos by Laura Moore.

But I know what you’re thinking…”this is nice and all…but what does it have to do with playwriting?”

Something Scott said both in choreography and in our workshops got me to thinking; he told us that creating a fight sequence isn’t just about making it look like a good, realistic fight. It’s about telling a story. He asked us a number of times, “What story are you telling?” whether we were plotting out how Tybalt kills Mercutio or just figuring out what our face might communicate when taking a punch.

As a writer, storytelling resonates with me deeply.  I know some people write because they love language; for me, it always has been and always will be about the story and the people in the story. I am just in love with stories.  Now, to this point I haven’t written many plays, but when I think back to the two most recent in my repertoire, both have scenes of violence in them. Why?  Just to draw a crowd?  Just to be shocking?  No…because those violent moments are essential to telling THE STORY.

I’ve posted before how annoyed I’ve become with the ineffectual use of language and nudity in modern playwriting…it’s funny how those things tend to bother me more than excessive, gratuitous violence. But this workshop reminded me of an essential truth that’s at the heart of this matter – that’s at the heart of all ineffectual storytelling, actually – that everything we do in a play, everything we write, everything we perform, every movement, every entrance and exit, every character, voice, choice, word, action, reaction, and silence…EVERYTHING should tell a story.

And if it doesn’t…then why is it there?

I know this concept is pretty basic, but I think we lose it sometimes in the midst of our own literary cleverness. Sometimes we want to keep something because it’s witty or exciting or we just think people will like it.  But what does it say to our audience about who these characters are or about what’s happening to them?  What about the STORY?

Off soapbox. Back to broadswords.  😉

Our weekend of stage combat was a blast, which is a good thing since Jonathan and I will be hitting NYC this coming July to do a stage combat intensive with Art of Combat.  We just got our scripts today and I am SOOOOO beyond excited.  And a little scared.  But hey, if I can handle a sword, I can handle anything.  And just for kicks and giggles, here’s a link to the video of my husband and I in the tiny piece we choreographed and performed at the end of our workshop. And this link will take you to the unarmed fight I did with my friend Abby. Hope you enjoy.  🙂

On Stage: An Interview with Mame Hunt

One of the great things about having a mentor like Juanita Rockwell is that she introduces you to so many interesting people. Today I have for you, my faithful readers, an interview with dramaturg Mame Hunt. While not strictly a “playwright,” Hunt is a true theatre artist with an impressive amount of experience in new play development. In addition to being the lead dramaturg at the Sundance Theatre Lab and teaching at Georgetown University, Hunt has worked across the country with theatre artists such as Nilo Cruz, Anna Deavere Smith, Pamela Gien, Jon Robin Baitz, Marlane Meyer, Claire Chafee, Erin Cressida Wilson, Jose Rivera, Kate Whoriskey, Eisa Davis, Heather McDonald, and many, many others.

So without further ado…

dramachicky: What is the first play you ever wrote? What inspired it?

Mame Hunt: Well, I’m a dramaturg, but I have written several (hidden and unproduced) adaptations of novels. The play I wrote that was produced was an adaptation of the Anita Hill – Clarence Thomas hearings transcripts entitled Unquestioned Integrity.  At the time, I was the Assoc. A.D. at Magic, and the A.D., Larry Eilenberg conceived the idea for an adaptation. In the process of looking for someone to adapt the transcripts, I ended up deciding to do it myself.

dc: What are some of the things that inspire you as a dramaturg?

MH:What inspires me as a dramaturg is the discovery of a new voice, encouraging that voice, making sure the writer works with the right collaborators to reveal their vision. I love matchmaking: playwrights with directors, playwrights with producing organizations. The moment that I read an authentic, innovative playwriting voice for the first time – it always takes my breath away. Then when that writer is produced, praised by others – it’s the best. I imagine it’s a little like seeing your kid become Secretary of State or the Pope or something. It’s a reach into the future; I get to facilitate legacies.

dc: Is there an overall driving force behind your work or particular themes you like to explore?

MH: I’m going to translate this into the work I love to discover. I’m not a fan of realism at all, because my life doesn’t resemble linear narrative logic so much as episodes of magical realism and transformation of what we call reality. Each play/story has an interior logic all its own, and to make it behave according to someone else’s exterior logic makes no sense to me. I like to work with writers who are adventurous and brave, who make a deep investment of self in their work, who surprise me (which is difficult to do because I’ve read SO MANY plays), who write on a canvas that is larger and more challenging than individual psychology. Shepard is a great example of someone who puts blood on the page, but he transcends psychological realism by touching on the mythical.

dc: What would you say is the function of theatre (and other arts) in our world today? Or maybe, what should that function be?

MH: To make the world bigger. To stretch our brains and our hearts. To teach evil. To help us make moral choices in an amoral world.

dc: Can you tell us a little about your involvement in the new play development process?

MH: I don’t like to give feedback without first having heard the play. I can give a brief response, mostly identifying structural or story glitches, from just reading a play once or twice, but plays are less written now and are more (when they’re good/brave) blueprints in an ever-growing theatrical vocabulary of music, sound, video, movement. I LOVE language plays. I saw Tarrell McRaney’s THE BROTHERS SIZE last week — I’m always happy in the theatre when I can ride the language to the center of the story. I try to follow the internal logic that is unique to that play or playwright. I’m a structure freak, which only means I encourage the writer to follow his/her logic rather than someone else’s.

I don’t do scholarship dramaturgy: research, program notes, lobby displays, study guides. For reasons I’ve forgotten, dramaturgs didn’t used to have to do that kind of thing. Our focus was on reading and recommending new work and playwrights that shared the nature of the theatre’s obsessions. And that was a huge challenge. There were more plays circulating – the O’Neill used to get over 3,000 submissions every year. I don’t know what they get now, but at Sundance this year, it was our biggest year to date and we received just over 900 submissions.

dc:How did you first get involved with dramaturgy?

MH: I interviewed with Greg Mosher at the Goodman, and he suggested that I get involved with the theatre by reading scripts. So I did. Five a week, $5 per script. I got to the point where I loved playwrights and their work more than I loved actors. I worked at Victory Gardens on a national new play contest that used to be funded by the Dramatists Guild Foundation and CBS. After we chose the winner of that competition, I asked to stay on as co-dramaturg (with Sandy Shinner).

dc: Can you tell me a little bit about your work at the Sundance Theatre Lab?

MH: I work on the reading and selection of the projects for the summer lab; I work as a dramaturg on two projects at the summer lab; I help choose writers for our residency work at Ucross, Wyoming; I work with the playwrights at Ucross for about a week in the middle of their residencies, just in case they want someone to respond to their work. I’m a brainstorming partner there.

dc: As well as encouraging the work of women playwrights, what do you think is the importance of supporting original new works in our theatres?

MH: New work speaks to us now, about the world we inhabit now. I hear y’all saying that Shakespeare speaks to us now, or Chekhov or Pirandello, and they do. But I think we experience bigger changes and more frequently. Hiroshima, 9/11, Chernobyl, the civil rights movement – these events changed the way we experience ourselves in this world.
We learned how to destroy ourselves on a worldwide scale, on purpose and/or by accident. Such things must bring about a small but significant paradigm shift in how we process information and emotion.

dc: Less than 20% of the theatre produced in our country includes plays written by women. What do you think is the main cause of this?

MH: Mostly ignorance, but also a bit of fear. Short-sightedness about what’s important and what can be important.

dc: What is the greatest challenge female playwrights must overcome? What advice do you have for us dramachicks?

MH: Well, first: don’t use the language of the oppressor to describe yourselves. Chicks are small birds.* The greatest challenge is… hmmm. There are too many challenges to list. Sexism is a big one, but there are a thousand others. I usually advise writers to find their tribe. Don’t wait for the big regional behemoths to ‘discover’ you. They are too busy arranging deckchairs. Find your tribe, both artistically and in terms of audience. Produce the work with and for your tribe. One day at a time. One play at a time.  As Julie Hebert says: Show up. Tell the truth. Do the work. And don’t be attached to the results.

dc: What playwriting pieces speak to you most personally and why?

MH: All the plays I’ve worked on have taught me great things. They all speak to me about what is possible if you are curious enough. Etta Jenks spoke to me of the existence of the spirit as distinct from the body. Kingfish taught me about perception. Each Day Dies With Sleep taught me that love can change reality. The Model Apartment taught me that trauma can be inherited. The Virgin Molly taught me that miracles can happen in the strangest places. A Huey P. Newton Story taught me about heroism. They become part of me. I carry all of them with me all the time.

dc: Who are some of your favorite female playwrights?

MH: Marlane Meyer, Caryl Churchill, Lynn Nottage, Tanya Barfield, Claire Chafee, Migdalia Cruz. There are hundreds, really, I just can’t think of all the names at the moment. Marsha Norman. Lucinda Coxon, Lisa Kron, I’m afraid to stop adding because I’ll hurt someone’s feelings and I love them all. Julie Hebert. Ellen McLaughlin. Theresa Rebeck.

dc: What is one play (written by anyone) you think every person should read or see at least once?

MH: Wow. This is very difficult. I think I would have to say Churchill’s Cloud Nine.  Or maybe  Tartuffe. Mother Courage. Blue Window. Marisol. No no no: Angels in America. Into the Woods.  House of Blue Leaves. Swimming to Cambodia. Well, I’ll never stop this list either…

dc: Is there anything else you’d like to say?  🙂

MH: Dorie (in Finding Nemo): Just keep swimming.

***

About Mame Hunt…

Education: BA Dramatic Arts/Directing, University of California, Santa Barbara.  MFA Dramatic Arts/Directing, University of California, Davis.

Career: Switched from directing to dramaturgy at Goodman and Victory Gardens Theaters; Lit Mgr and later Dir. Of New Play Development, Los Angeles Theatre Center.; Lit. Mgr., Berkeley Rep; Artistic Director, Bay Area Playwrights Festival; Artistic Director, Magic Theatre; Associate Artistic Director, A.C.T.Seattle; Dramaturg, Intiman Theatre; Dramaturg/Artistic Associate, Sundance Theatre Lab (current). Also: have taught/am teaching playwriting, text analysis, comedy, dramaturgy at University of California, Davis, Cornish College of the Arts, Georgetown University.

Notable: Championed the early work of Darrah Cloud, Jose Rivera, Marlane Meyer, Nilo Cruz, Claire Chafee, Donald Margulies, Paula Vogel, Heather McDonald, Roger Guenveur-Smith, Ken Greller. Many, many others…worked with Joseph Chaikin.

Current or Upcoming Projects: Currently teaching Comedy at Georgetown; getting ready for another July with the Sundance Theatre Lab (since 1999).

***

*Sidebar from the author of this blog: I was wondering if any of my other readers have similar feelings about the name “dramachicks” (that is using “the language of the oppressor,” for example)? Does it come across as sexist or anti-feminist?  What’s your take on it?  I’ve never had anyone “oppress” me by calling me a “chick;” on the contrary, an affection nickname from my loving husband is “chicky.”  I also have to admit I’ve always found myself empowered by being a “chick;” I’ve never found the concept offensive or derogatory in any way.  But that’s just MY personal experience. What do all of YOU think?

I’ll admit, I thought I was being clever (ha ha) by using “dramachicks” to play off the word “dramatists.” Both male and female peers in my grad class approved the name. But I don’t want to be alienating people with this terminology. Chime in, readers!  “Dramachicks;” keep the name or kill it?

Newsday Tuesday: Workshop It!

In a previous post I spoke about the importance of playwrights having a table reading for their works in progress…but what if you have nothing in progress?  What if all you have is an idea or a few pages of dialogue or…nothing?  Playwriting workshops can be fantastic tools for getting you started or even for helping you work through the snippets you already have. So here are a few workshop opportunities you can sign up and/or apply for!

MIND THE GAP: A Playwright’s Connection to the Empty Space – this workshop is being lead by my friend and mentor Juanita Rockwell at the 21st Annual Kō Festival in Amherst, Mass., July 23-28.

“Creating a text for performance is about forging a connection to presence. Habits of mind send us in the same circles again and again, cutting us off from new creative paths and an experience of Now, including the Theatrical Now. In this workshop, we will learn to short-circuit our habits of writing and thinking. In that gap, we can reconnect with the stillness, silence and spaciousness that is the natural home of creativity.”

Click here for more information on this and other workshops at this year’s Kō Festival.

WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory – Generous Company in partnership with CENTERSTAGE of Baltimore, Maryland, offers an exclusive workshop opportunity for playwrights with promising works-in-progress, even very, very basic ones.  Applicants should supply a letter of recommendation from a theatre professional. This year’s 2012 participants are already chosen for the June 9-23 workshop, but keep WordBRIDGE in mind for that piece you’re just starting.

“WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory seeks to empower pre-professional playwrights to achieve the next level of craftsmanship through collaboration with seasoned professionals from around the world.”

For more information on WordBRIDGE, click here!

PlayLabs at The Playwrights’ Center – One of my most enlightening experiences in the past year was working as an intern for The Playwrights’ Center PlayLabs festival this past October in Minneapolis, Minn. (Check out my “Adventures with Chicky!” posts for more on THAT experience!) PlayLabs brings four playwrights to the Center to spend a week workshopping their plays through a series of table readings and nightly revisions. The entire experience culminates in several nights of public staged readings with equity actors, helmed by a professional team including director, stage manager, and a dramaturg or a designer. During the same week, selections from plays by the Center’s Jerome and McKnight Fellows have a public showcase. It’s an intense week, but a fantastic opportunity worth applying for!

“PlayLabs combines the Playwrights’ Center’s most intensive play development resources with free staged readings, a panel discussion, a showcase of the Center’s fellows, and more.”

For more information on PlayLabs and fellowships at The Playwrights’ Center click here. And while you’re there, check out the Ruth Easton Lab, also at the Center.

And finally, maybe you know some young people in your life who are interested in playwriting and/or theatrical opportunities. I’ll be offering two *FREE* playwriting workshops at the Abington Community Library in Clarks Summit, Pa., for students entering grades 7th through 12th (and recent High School graduates).

The first is a Tuesday evening, Introduction to Playwriting workshop from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The second is an Intermediate Playwriting workshop for 9th through 12th grade students and recent graduates only (prerequisite: Introduction to Playwriting or equivalent), Saturday mornings, 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Workshops start Saturday, June 23rd, and Tuesday, June 26th.

If you live in or around Northeast Pennsylvania, be sure to visit the Abington Community Library for more information.

AND GET WRITING!

(Poet) Playwright Spotlight: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

It’s National Poetry Month, so I thought I’d highlight poet AND playwright, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

Playwright Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

I first discovered Dhomhnaill as a graduate student when I read her poem “An Bhábóg Bhriste” (“The Broken Doll”) as part of my Ophelia obsession. Dhomhnaill was born to Irish parents in an Irish mining community in England. She went to live with an aunt in Ireland at the age of five and grew up speaking the Irish Gaelic language.

Dhomhnaill is known as one of the most famous of Ireland’s Innti poets – poets dedicated to writing in the Irish language – and was among the University College Cork students who published Innti Magazine in the 70s. She even wrote a poem explaining her reasons for not writing in the English language; “Ceist na Teangan” translated (in English – irony?) as “The Language Issue.” The poem uses the Biblical image of Moses being sent down the Nile River in a basket to Pharaoh’s daughter to evoke the idea of survival. Dhomhnaill’s dedication to her native tongue is built upon the idea that if she casts forth her work in what is considered to be a dying language (one I’ve studied super briefly and hope to return to), that others will receive it in the same way Pharaoh’s daughter received the Hebrew child as her own. She hopes that we will not settle with English translations, but embrace the language in which her work is meant to be read.

Which would explain why her plays are also in Irish…and why I have, unfortunately, not read or seen any of them.

But I hope to someday. As I said, I briefly dabbled in the Irish language (we had free access to Rosetta Stone for a brief period; time ran out before we even finished the first course) and knowing that such a revered poet-playwright has written in this language really makes me itch to start learning it again. According to the Poetry Foundation, her plays include an adaptation for children, Jimin, as well as An Ollphiast Ghranna (produced by Deilt Productions) and Destination Damien (performed in Paris in 1993). Now, I could give you the title translation for Jimin and An Ollphiast Ghranna – but where would be the fun in that? This poetry month, let’s consider the plays and poems we’re missing because they’re written in a language we don’t understand; plays and poems (and books! and movies!) that we can never truly and fully appreciate without understanding the language in which they were written. Don’t get all depressed by it or anything; but maybe think of it as a challenge. What wider world of art and beauty lies before us if we open our minds beyond the language we know best?

I think Dhomhnaill is just one poet/playwright who gives us good reason to try.

Plays for the Easter Weekend

There’s a project I’ve been working on for a while called Three Days that is about (as some of you may have guessed) the three days from Christ’s death to his resurrection. We hear a lot about Day One – his crucifixion – and Day Three – his triumph over death. But what about that second day?  The day that everyone who believed in him thought he was, well, dead. REALLY dead. And he was. Dead. For an entire day. DEAD.

Talk about the darkest day in Christianity.

Despite it’s subject matter, I’ve never really thought of Three Days as an “Easter play” (or “Easter musical” more technically, since I am working with a composer).  It’s always been a play/musical about faith, doubt, despair, love, hope, and – yes – Jesus Christ.  But I do hope it transcends personal belief and that, in some way, might communicate to people who have in their own life suffered loss and asked God, “What are you doing and WHY?” And yet, technically…it does have a good bit to do with Easter.  🙂

With that in mind, and today being Good Friday, I thought I’d offer up a few plays for Easter weekend (and as always, written by female playwrights).

Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl

Maria and Ascension by Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim

The Barking plays by Lady Katherine of Sutton

After Easter by Anne Devlin

I know this is a really short list. Trust me; this is harder than it looks! Remember those people who ask “where are the women playwrights?” Well, the answer is that they’re THERE but if they aren’t being read/produced/published, then they are difficult, if not impossible, to find. So help me out; if you have any other suggestions for plays written by women that are particularly appropriate for this Easter weekend, please comment and send them my way. As always, thanks for celebrating female playwrights with me!