@dramatistsguild @HartPlaywright

Playwrights in this region gathered last fall to learn from Chicago-based playwright and Dramatists Guild member Jim Henry. As part of the Show-Me Writers Masterclass in Columbia, Jim provided support, education and encouragement by facilitating a reading workshop, leading tutorials on playwriting and story structure, and sharing what he’s learned about the business side of writing for the stage and screen. Playwrights who are in the Mid-Missouri region have an opportunity to attend similar hands-on, practical collaboration through a scriptwriting seminar occurring next month. There will also be more opportunities provided at the Masterclass event later this year.

Dramatists Guild members in Kansas City were recently seen “Crowding the Crossroads” with local playwright Ron Simonian. This event, highlighting Simonian’s newest play entitled Trigger Happy, was the first of many providing our Guild members the opportunity to have a conversation with and attend the play of one of our members being produced in Kansas City’s Crossroads Art District. With this mention of conversations with special guests, you need to know we are only a few weeks away from a major event planned to highlight Kansas City’s first ever production of Assassins. Those responsible for this event were still plotting and conspiring the details when this issue of The Dramatist went to print. Continue reading to discover how you can find out more about the scheming and become part of the hit.

The recently adopted DG’s Best Practices: Contests and Festivals [available soon] will serve this region well. Certainly, this will support Guild members desiring to use standard DG definitions in relation to productions of their work in the Kansas City and St Louis Fringe Festivals. I have made certain the Best Practices statement has been given to the artistic directors of our state festivals, but feel this information will also help to educate and communicate with specific organizations who currently operate in less than acceptable practices when soliciting new work for future performance seasons. Let’s work together in identifying such challenges, and please let me know if you have any concerns or problems along the way.  

There is a pressing need to give attention to those who are unable to attend events due to the distance of their location in relation to Kansas City or St. Louis. Three events this summer have been planned with consideration for dramatists living in the theatre-driven settings centrally located and close to Missouri’s borders. In July, we’ll host a Town Hall meeting in Ozark, Missouri. The meeting will conclude with a staged reading of 5^th of July by Missouri born playwright Lanford Wilson. This will offer an opportunity for Dramatists Guild members in the greater Branson area, as well as several new DG members living in Northern Arkansas, to meet and support fellow artists who are part of our community. Later in the month, we’ll have a playwright’s picnic in mid-Missouri, and host an online meet and greet for dramatists in the north and northeastern portions of this region.

One of the best things I can report about is the new website of our Dramatists Guild. If you haven’t visited our online presence in a while, you ought to take some time to see for yourself how drama friendly and vitally resourceful it has become. I invite you to update your member profile, review the many ways we advocate for you, and discover the opportunities within our community. If you would like to find out more information about the events I’ve described here, and keep connected to our regional news events and updates, and other members of our region through social media, simply access the social network links provided within our regional page and my member profile on www.dramatistsguild.com. I hope to hear from all of you and see you soon in our newest online community page.

hwright@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild

“O gentlemen, the time of life is short!” (Henry IV, Part 2) William Shakespeare died at the age of 52, but the lifetime of his work is now 400 years and counting. We celebrated that anniversary not a fortnight ago in St Louis during the city’s Shake 38 Festival. It seemed poignant to discuss this year’s programming plans and member initiatives for St Louis Guild members during the annual marathon celebration of Shakespeare’s 38 plays.

This year’s regional programming for Kansas City also kicked off last month and included a thrilling workshop and master class event featuring the highly awarded, wonderfully talented and charming playwright Lauren Yee. I was proud of our Kansas City Dramatists Guild members’ enthusiasm and support for this outstanding female playwright—the first Dramatists Guild Fund’s Traveling Master sent to this region.

Our regional programming this year will focus on creating more opportunities for play development, learning more about the development process and expanding the awareness of new work throughout the state of Missouri. Guild members will be able to participate in a roving reader series providing the opportunity for playwrights in one city to have their work read in another city at a venue open to welcoming new work. Seminars addressing business affairs and self-production will be offered in Kansas City and St Louis. Panel discussions with artistic directors from theatres in north, south and central Missouri will be offered to educate us on their process for selecting productions.

This summer, many Dramatists Guild members in this region will showcase their new work in the fringe festivals of Kansas City and St. Louis. We also have playwrights celebrating summer and fall productions in New York City, Washington, San Francisco and Chicago. This fall, mid-Missouri playwrights can take advantage of a new play festival presented by Talking Horse Productions in Columbia. The company, which has been taking on new work for production since 2013, created its Starting Gate New Play Festival to focus on developing the writer. The festival will function more as a workshop process, ultimately producing fully staged plays rather than concert readings. Talking Horse’s inaugural competition took place last November and featured two ten-minute plays each from three commissioned playwrights. Two of the three playwrights were DG members, including Milbre Burch of Columbia.

The imminent death of our art form has been proclaimed time and time again. Yet, audiences in this region love to experience the incomparable thrill of live performance, and seem to genuinely appreciate new work. This means theatre is thriving in this region like never before and the majority of our Guild members are continually producing fresh material for the stage. A large portion of this new material is coming from female voices, and some of our best material is coming from writers of color. Perhaps when you read about The Count in last year’s November/December issue of The Dramatist you were surprised to discover Kansas City was among the top three locations leading the nation in productions of plays by female writers (30 percent); among the top five in productions of plays by writers of color (15.6 percent). Certainly, our playwrights, composers, lyricists and librettists are extremely talented. Such talent gets presented because we have a fair amount of venues committed to not simply producing new work, but paying attention to its voice and diversity. While we can be pleased our region is at the top of the pack, we can’t deny how disappointing these percentages are overall. We are first and foremost a community of artists, and as artists we owe it to one another to help us all succeed. Together we can develop programming and partnerships capable of moving us toward the goal of hearing the entire chorus.

The time of life may be short, but as writers of the stage we have much life to give. Please let me know what I can do to help.

hwright@dramatistsguild.com

Playwright Lauren Yee – photo courtesy DGF Traveling Masters Program

@dramatistsguild @hartplaywright

It is amazing how well our regional Guild members shone in the fringe of summer. It might not seem too noteworthy, considering more than twenty fringe festivals take place in seventeen states in America every year. What seems remarkable, however—after realizing Missouri is one of only three states producing multiple fringes—is taking note of how much national success has resulted for many of our local dramatists. With fringe festivals held in both St. Louis (StLou Fringe, in June) and Kansas City (KC Fringe, in July), and each venue welcoming acclaimed writers from both coasts, I believe our Guild’s local talent of playwrights and composers seem to garner more than a measurable amount of praise.

Established playwright Vicki Vodrey must love the KC Fringe Festival and the success this festival has birthed in her career. Her dark comedy, Hanky Panky, one of the top-rated and most popular plays here in 2010, was later performed at the Midtown International Theatre Festival (MITF), receiving nominations for three MITF awards in the process. Vodrey’s Thank You Notes: Headed to Heaven with Flat Jimmy Fallon became a KC Fringe standout in 2012, encored at the 2012 MITF, and was a finalist for inclusion in this year’s MITF lineup. This year Vodrey, one of five inaugural playwrights at the new Midwest Dramatists Center, debuted her newest play entitled, A Hard Day’s Night. It just might be her next ticket to ride.

Girl on Girl was a creative and zesty performance at this year’s KC Fringe, a trio of plays that included the newest work by playwright Michelle T. Johnson. During the 2012 Fringe campaign, her one act play, As the Guiding Light Turns, was a noteworthy, standout. In 2013, another one act play, Wiccans in the ‘Hood was not only popular at the KC Fringe, but performed also at New York’s Midwinter Madness Short Play Festival. Earlier this year Philadelphia’s BrainSpunk Theater produced an evening of Johnson’s work, presenting the playful and uplifting Wiccans with her much more existential and dreamlike one-act, Trading Races: From Rodney King to Paula Deen—a play nominated for three separate New York’s Connections Theatre Festivity Awards. Johnson, who is also an inaugural playwright of the Midwest Dramatists Center, is bound to become a KC Fringe favorite. My guess is Ms. Johnson is simply pleased they love her in Philly: she’s just been named BrainSpunk’s new Playwright in Residence, with includes their commitment to produce a new play by Johnson in its upcoming 2015 season.

This year’s KC Fringe also featured the new work of five additional regional Guild members who are becoming established as playwrights in their own right. The proficient and talented Bill Rogers—whose work has been featured at the Guild’s Friday Night Footlights—had his newest work, a musical entitled, Dangerous to Dance With, presented. Rogers, a playwright, lyricist and librettist, has had much of his work produced in this region, including four previous plays that debuted in the KC Fringes of 2009, 2010, and 2011. Catherine Browder, Glendora Davis, Lezlie Revelle and Nancy Parks had their own group of short plays produced in Turning Points, a striking consideration of how people face life-altering situations. These women have also collaborated for KC Potluck Productions. Potluck showcases scripts by emerging women playwrights from all over the United States through professional readings and staged productions.

The St Lou Fringe was privileged this year to feature the work of St. Louis Guild member Christopher Limber. Riffs in a set of 10 was a stylish and spicy fusion of jazz and poetic interludes. Joined by an ensemble of musicians and St. Louis club performers, Limber arranged a wonderful cabaret tribute reflecting and celebrating 1940’s jazz greats. This overwhelmingly talented playwright and composer is the Education Director for Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, where his contributions as a playwright earned local awards for Outstanding Productions in 2010 and 2011.

hwright@dramatistsguild.com