@dramatistsguild @bystephenkaplan

Fall’s here and students everywhere are going back to school. Since this is the Master Class issue, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some of the things I’ve learned over the past few months from our New Jersey events:

1. New Jersey Guild Members are also incredible artistic directors – all of our most recent events featured members that also run their own companies: Emily Mann (McCarter Theatre Center), Laura Ekstrand (Dreamcatcher Rep), John Wooten (Premiere Stages), John Pietrowski (Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey), and Joseph M. Paprzycki (South Camden Theatre Company).

1a. (Because what’s a list without subsets?) Not only do these members create great theatre, but they are also not in their positions simply to create opportunities for themselves (though who could fault them if they did as each is an unbelievable writer as well). Instead, each is a passionate advocate for other writers, producing tons of new work.

1b. Not only do they do new work, but they also showcase writers specifically from our region (check out Premiere Stage’s Liberty Live and their Play Festival which starts accepting submissions in October – or South Camden Theatre Company’s Shadows of War One-Act Festival whose submissions were open only to DG members in the region).

2. At our Artistic Director panel event, I learned from John Pietrowski about a conversation he once had with Rush Holt, the former New Jersey Assemblyman from the 12^th Congressional District (and a bona fide Rocket Scientist), where Holt talked about New Jersey’s long history of being the Research and Development State: Edison, Roebling, the work at the RCA Sarnoff Center, Bell Labs, Fusion energy, The Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton… John pointed out that while Holt focused on science and technology, this innovation and experimentation is also true in the arts – Whitman, Williams, Ginsberg, innumerable playwrights and prose writers – and we need to celebrate the role that artists play in this narrative when we talk about New Jersey and our ethos of risk-taking and development.

3. At our meet and greet before McCarter’s premiere of Ken Ludwig’s hilarious Baskerville, I learned from literary manager Emilia LaPenta that not only does McCarter support plays from established playwrights like Ken, but nurtures new writers like Rachel Bonds with her moving Five Mile Lake (I also learned that some of the best ice cream ever is at The Bent Spoon which is right around the corner from the theatre).

4. At our panel at South Camden Theatre Company that included Joseph M. Paprzycki and Seth Rozin from Philadelphia’s Interact Theatre, I learned about the importance of history and neighborhood as Joseph took me on a tour of his gorgeous theatre (how many 96-seat theatres do you know of with fly space?). The theatre stands on the site of a bar that Joseph’s grandfather ran from the time of Prohibition through 1967 and is part of the Heart of Camden’s efforts to revitalize the Waterfront South neighborhood of Camden. The love of and pride in the history of the community are clearly evident in every aspect of this Camden theatre.

5. Finally, at our National Conference this July, I learned something from every single one of the over 300 members who attended – the craft of writing musicals with experts like Marsha Norman, Stephen Schwartz and Bobby and Kristen Lopez…the art of comedy from geniuses like Lisa Kron and Mark Krause (all of these workshops and more are available for download through http://howlround.com/ and http://www.dramatistsguild.com/nationalconference.aspx)…but most important, I learned even more about our amazingly diverse membership and how vital it is to work together and support each other as we follow our passions for writing for the theatre.

I’m excited to continue my education over the next year and hope you’ll learn something too at our upcoming events and programs.

skaplan@dramatistsguild.com

Benjamin V. Marshall and Noemi de la Puente at New Jersey member event; photographer Brandon Votipka