It’ s two days into the new year and Manuel’ s Tavern, the iconic soul of in-town Atlanta since 1956 has shut down for renovations by a new “outsider” owner. I’ m scared. It won’ t be the same. Then, I remember an interview with author Ray Bradbury who preached that life should be about standing on the edge of a cliff, jumping off, and then making wings on the way down. Okay. Scary can also be exhilarating: a new beginning.
With this in mind, I’ d like to acknowledge the changes happening at Working Title Playwrights as Managing Artistic Director (and DG member) Jill Patrick steps (jumps!) down to focus on her own writing projects. She has been director since 2006, and with the conviction that it is time for new “blood” will officially transfer from staff to board member by February 2016.
A commanding and charismatic presence, Jill has increased both membership and community relations while developing expanded programming such as the Ethel Wilson Lab and the 24-Hour plays. Now Patrick’ s successor, theatre director Amber Bradshaw, is ready to take her own leap and there for the ride is DG member playwright Paul Donnelly who joined the board in 2013. As part of a writers’ community “from the late ‘ 70s until [he] left the DC area in 2009,” Donnelly credits WTP as an important part of his re-engagement into writing and makes assurance that the “Monday Night Critic Sessions…are invaluable and will always be the core of what we do” [springing from] “the impulse to serve writers.” But Donnelly admits that he is most excited about finding ways to “enhance the community of artists participating…expanding the range of voices we serve…whether that’ s generationally or artistically.” He mentions the support that theatres such as the Alliance and Essential have given to WTP and says that increasing that roster of collaborative partners is likely to be part of the new strategy as is further development of financial sponsors and “enhancing [our] public profile.” Personally, he hopes to help with strengthening WTP’ s administrative structure. “The greatest enemy to any of these plans,” says Donnelly, “is being discouraged by the fact that it isn’ t easy.” Amen, Brother. www.WorkingTitlePlaywrights.com.
Another DG member taking the leap was Nedra Pezold Roberts who decided five years ago to trade her extensive teaching and academic writing career in favor of becoming a playwright. “I just couldn’ t juggle creative writing” [along with everything else] so I ‘ retired’ .”The first two years were pretty tough, but “I seem to be finding lots of traction over the past threeyears.” Now Roberts’ name just keeps popping up everywhere, from a recent reading of Wash, Dry, Fold at Essential Theatre, which is now scheduled for production at Chicago Street Theatre in May-June 2016 after winning the AACT 2015 NewPlayFest, to earlier news that Vanishing Point won the AACT 2013 NewPlayFest and the 2013 Southeast Playwrights Competition, to an article “Thoughts on the Playwright’ s Experience” in both The Purple Pros on-line magazine and The Atlanta Writers Club eQuill. There are many more productions, readings, and awards, including Roberts’ note that “the craziest thing was in June 2015 when I had not one but two plays running simultaneously in New York City.” Maybe she knows crazy by way of being a native “New Orleanian”–“I passed my childhood and early adult life falling in love with my city”– who calls it “the touchstone for my soul.” At least one of her plays takes characters “straight out of the New Orleans I know,” though she says that all of her plays begin with “voices in my head, snatches of conversation…that won’ t leave me alone…” Roberts has taken to heart a quote from Lillian Hellman (my paraphrase) that when stage lights come up they come up on trouble, and also one from Athol Fugard that “The playwright’ s job is to figure out what to tell and when to tell it.” In response to the latter, she adds “I think my obligation to an audience is to engage their minds as well as their emotions.” Perhaps the “mind” part comes from learning “early in my teaching career that I needed to pay attention to what my students were hearing when I explained something…to anticipate their confusion and short-circuit it with clarity.” As for the emotion part, take note of an audience who had fallen in love with her “Uncle Slack character” (a Vietnam P.O.W.) in Wash, Dry, Fold and “became very vocal in their objections to his dying at the end of the play (reading, Dayton Playhouse’ s 2014 Future Fest). Afterward, a stagehand who was also a Vietnam veteran came up to Roberts with tears in his eyes and said, “Don’ t listen to them. You did the right thing. You gave Slack the only way to get out of his cage. You set him free.” Making wings. www.nedrapezoldroberts.com
Playwright Nedra Pezold Roberts, photo credit Cati Teague Photography
Skydiving Playwright – Jill Patrick - photo credit Perry Patrick
Jill Patrick headshot – photo credit Perry Patrick
pturner@dramatistsguild.com