@dramatistsguild 

I had the pleasure of meeting, getting to know and interviewing Ted Swindley (Always…Patsy Cline, Honkey Tonk Angels), the guest of honor at the Texas Playwrights Festival at Stages Repertory Theatre last summer, and the founder of Stages as well as the original Texas Playwrights Festival. I learned from Ted how culturally and theatrically influential Stages has been in the Houston region since its first season in 1978. It was the first theatre to mount Houston, regional or world premieres of a variety of ground-breaking works, both plays and musicals. Here are just nine from its first five seasons: Bent (Martin Sherman, 1982), Buried Child (Sam Shepard, 1979), The Diviners (Jim Leonard, 1981), Getting Out (Marsha Norman, 1980), The Gin Game (D.L. Coburn, 1982), No Exit (Jean-Paul Sartre, adapted by Paul Bowles, 1981), Red Rover, Red Rover (Oliver Hailey, 1978), Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You (Christopher Durang, 1982), and both male and female versions of Whose Life Is It Anyway? (Brian Clark, 1981). I had to debate with myself over which of the premieres to include given that, during these years, Stages mounted 51 full-length productions, not including its touring productions or the shorts it produced during the first playwrights fest in 1982.

           Will Duell: How did you do it? Some seasons you were producing sixteen to nineteen full-lengths!

           Ted Swindley: We were crazy! (laughs) Well, we were crazy, young, ambitious and in love with good theatre. When I started Stages, I looked at the landscape: There was the Alley and not much else. I was shocked that a city this size didn’t have anything like Off Broadway or cutting edge theatre or a theatre promoting new works. I decided we should and I will. I wanted Stages to stimulate thought regarding racism, ethnicity, sexual evolution, international politics, and I wanted not just the Texas Playwrights Festival but some of our regular season to focus on Texas writers, so that we lived up to the name of a regional theatre.

           But we were crazy! When we started out, in an old brewery near downtown, we would sometimes perform nearly to midnight, have excited people in the audience stay till 1:30 AM or later, then get up the next morning and do it all over again. A receptionist used to answer the phone for us, “Hello, this is Stages, your 24-hour theatre!” And we really were!

           We knew what we were doing, but we wanted to do it all. I wanted to direct Paul Bowles’ version of No Exit. This was during an economic downturn. I told our managing director I wanted to close the season with it. He said, “Ted, you’re going to close the theatre with it.” But I did direct it, it was a hit and we ended up extending it.

           Still it was the support from the theatre and playwriting community that gave me the confidence to try anything. Marsha Norman was a mentor and an inspiration who, by the way, dedicated Stages when we took over the new two-theatre facility in Houston’s historic, renovated Star Engraving Building on Allen Parkway. After seeing a performance of Getting Out that I directed, when I was lacking confidence about keeping the theatre afloat, she told me, “Ted, if you know the what, the how will take care of itself. And you know what theatre is.” This helped me a lot; it’s stayed with me ever since. These are words to live by. I’m very pleased with all we did, very content with everything that happened and that I’ve spent my life in the theatre.

           WD: Any words of wisdom you’d like to offer playwrights to live by?

           TS: Three words: Tell great stories.    

wduell@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild  @robflorence_rob

For The Dramatist, I generally interview playwrights and write about theatre companies, but ArtSpot Productions is such an outside-the-box spiderweb of ambitious vision that I couldn’t begin to describe their work without writing a book. So let’s go straight to the horse’s mouth: Founding Artistic Director Kathy Randels.

           Q: How would you describe ArtSpot?

           A: Since our founding in 1995, we’ve been producing original works of performance and theater by professional, emerging, student and incarcerated artists, focused on the creation and touring of original multidisciplinary performances and the use of performance techniques and training to foster healing in all the communities we encounter. We use theater as a tool for self-empowerment, strengthening individuals, building communities and undoing racism, sexism and other oppressions by helping participants create and perform work that examines their own lives. In 1996, we founded a weekly dance and theatre workshop dedicated to the mental, emotional and spiritual rejuvenation of the inmates at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel, Louisiana. And for over fifteen years, we worked with Students at the Center — a writing program based in the New Orleans public schools — to help students create monologues, performances, videos and more, based on stories from their own lives and on research into the history of Louisiana’s civil rights movements. We believe that all stories and voices within a community need to be expressed, and that performance is an essential element of collective healing for all communities, especially those whose voices are not often heard. Our primary goal is serving the artists and audiences of the city of New Orleans and southeastern Louisiana, but our work has also been presented in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, Romania, Scotland, Serbia, Slovenia, Wales, and the following U.S. states: AK, AZ, CA, CT, DC, FL, GA, HA, IL, IO, KY, MA, MD, MN, MS, NC, NH, NY, OK, OR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA, and WY.

           Q: Describe your process.

           A: We use at least a year-long process to create each of our original works. We begin with an idea, usually brought forth by what we refer to as “the instigator.” The instigator begins to assemble the team. We first work with our ensemble members and then reach out to other artists to join the project.  It is a big commitment because the research and creation period takes so long.  Indeed, because we do not begin with a play that is already written, we need more time because we have to create “the play” (i.e. the book, text or even dramaturgy) of the piece as we go along.  Many of our works have been created with a consensus process and as you can imagine, that takes even longer.  Imagine how long it would take to write a piece with five-thirteen other people all fighting for their brilliant idea of where and how the piece should go! I have most often been the instigator, on the following projects: Rage Within/Without; How to be a Man in the 21st Century; Lower 9 Stories; The End and Back Again, My Friend; Rumours of War; To Flee, Flee This Sad Hotel; New Orleans Suite; Beneath the Strata/Disappearing; Spaces in Between; Go Ye Therefore… Other instigators and projects have included: J. Hammons: Chekhov’s Wild Ride; J. Hammons and me: Venus Vulcan Mars & The Dancing Dwarf; Anne-Liese Juge-Fox: The Maid of Orléans; Lisa D'Amour: Nita & Zita; Jan Gilbert: Lakeviews: A Sunset Bus Tour; Jeff Becker: Flight; Ashley Sparks: Kiss Kiss Julie; Nick Slie, Moose Jackson and me: Loup Garou; and Nick Slie: Cry You One. Our next big project, The Sea of Common Catastrophe, is being led by designer/director Jeff Becker.

           Q: What about your collaboration with DG member Lisa D’Amour?

           A: If we’ve had a resident playwright/muse it has been Lisa D'Amour. The first piece she wrote and directed with us was Nita & Zita (in development and on tour from 2000-2005.)  This has been our only OBIE Award-winning piece. She wrote this and we learned it, like a “normal play!” Although she did draw heavily on my fellow performer Katie Pearl and my actual personalities for the writing of this piece, she also wrote as a collaborator on two of our other pieces: Flight and Kiss Kiss Julie. Lisa is in an ensemble herself (PearlD'Amour) and grew up, like me, in a time when devised ensemble theatre was catching fire, so she felt pretty at home in our rehearsal rooms and is an amazing collaborator.

           [photo caption: Cry You One]

           [photo caption:  Kiss Kiss Julie]

           [photo caption:  Loup Garou]

           [photo caption:  Rumours of War]

rflorence@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild @cheryl_coons

            We surprised you, didn’t we? Perhaps when you read about The Count in the November/December issue of The Dramatist you were astonished to see Chicago leading the nation, both in productions of plays by female writers (36%) and productions of plays by writers of color (28.4%).

           Frankly, we surprised ourselves. We were surprised- or perhaps ‘chagrined’ is a better choice of words- that our percentages were not higher. We were especially shocked by that second statistic. We have a diverse and vibrant community of theatre artists, and we were saddened by the fact that only 28.4% of plays produced during the survey period, 2011 to 2014, were written by playwrights of color. (We’ll address that issue in a future report.)

           The Count surveyed the seasons of the following Chicago area theatres: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Court Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Marriott Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre and Victory Gardens Theatre. Many of these companies take their institutional citizenship seriously, and make extraordinary efforts in both outreach and inclusivity, but the Goodman Theatre deserves special recognition for its support of female writers.

           This year the Goodman announced that its Playwrights Unit, a special program designed to support and develop new work by Chicago playwrights, would have an entirely female slate of writers. (Kristiana Rae Colón, Sandra Delgado, Jenni Lamb, and Calamity West.)

Since its inception in 2010, the Playwrights Unit has tried to maintain gender parity, but Goodman Theatre Director of New Play Development Tanya Palmer said the choice of writers was based on genuine enthusiasm for their work and the particular projects they proposed, rather than the intention to select an entirely female cohort. “This year we had twice as many applicants as in the previous year,” said Palmer. “We narrowed the field to a group of 20 proposals for consideration, most of which happened to be written by women. We thought, it’s great that we have so many strong writers to consider, and it’s also great because they’re women.”

           Why is our community ahead of the national curve in producing the work of female playwrights? Palmer points out that a number of leaders of prominent Chicago theatres are female, and many highly visible directors coming out of Chicago are also female, including Anna D. Shapiro, who succeeded Martha Lavey as the Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre this summer.

           Tara Mallen, Artistic Director of Rivendell Theatre, Chicago’s only professional theatre company dedicated to the work of women theatre artists, believes that key leaders in the Chicago theatre community go out of their way to provide opportunities for women. “Rivendell is here on the shoulders of many female artists: Martha Lavey from Steppenwolf, Sandy Shinner, formerly at Victory Gardens and now at Shattered Globe, Tanya Palmer at the Goodman.” Mallen values the mentorship Steppenwolf Theatre offered to Rivendell when they produced shows in Steppenwolf’s Garage Series. “We didn’t just have the use of the space- we were mentored by the Steppenwolf staff in all areas of production, box office, management. Our company grew exponentially every time we did a Garage show.”

           Rivendell now has its own space, and Mallen is dedicated to forming a network of Chicago theatres that produce new works by women. “It took me ten years to put the word ‘woman’ into our mission statement. Really, we look at universal challenges from a female perspective. Yes, there are a lot of Boys’ Clubs in Chicago, but even among them there is a realization that we are a community of artists first.”

           Perhaps this kind of “community first” thinking, as well as the Guild’s ongoing commitment to measure our progress with The Count, will move us toward the goal that Marsha Norman so beautifully articulated, “We want life in the arts to represent life as it is lived in the world. We want to hear the whole human chorus, not just the tenors, basses and baritones.”      

ccoons@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild @mkconroy 

            Happy New Year! Feliz Ano Novo! Sehe Bokmanee Bateuse! Gelukkig nieuwjaar! Language is beautiful, donchya think? For those of you (like me) without the capacity for multi-languages, in their respective order, all of the above wish you a Happy New Year in English, Portuguese, Korean, and German.

           This New Year offers an eclectic mix of theatre in and around Boston. At the Shubert Theatre, Love Letters by A.R. Gurney will be performed with Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal; at the Huntington, Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning play; and at the Stoneham Theatre, the New England premiere of Sorry by Richard Nelson.

           If you are looking for something different and fun, put on your radar the New Works Festival at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, MA. The New Works Festival is an enjoyable festival consisting of two full-length plays and fourteen ten-minute short plays. The performances will occur on January 21 & 22 and January 29 & 30. For more information go to: www.firehouse.org

           And finally, February 4-28, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre presents Back the Night by Melinda Lopez, directed by Daniela Varon.

           Back the Night - With violence on campus rising to epidemic proportions, Em will have none of it. But when her best friend Cassie gets assaulted, Em makes some unexpected discoveries. Sometimes you do the wrong thing for the right reason.

           If you haven’t heard of Melinda Lopez, let me introduce you. Melinda is a prolific writer, actor and educator. She is also a generous mentor. I had the pleasure of asking Melinda a few questions about her journey in writing Back the Night.  

           MC: What was your process for writing Back the Night?  

           ML: Totally different that my usual process, which is obsess, research, sweat, dream, panic, write a few good scenes and then agonize. And repeat. Back the Night came all at once in a fury. I had been revisiting an experience from my past for several years now, and then one day, walking the dog, the play just arrived with a bang. I talked into my phone recorder so I wouldn’t forget and then I ran home and put it all down on flashcards. “This happens, then this happens– ” I wrote the actual text of the play over that week. Never has happened before– but it was pretty awesome.

           MC: Where did this story originate (a thought, a vision, a question)?

           ML: A memory. A question. An unanswered annoying question.

           I knew the play was really fast, really really intense, without rest or reflective moments. I knew it felt like a fist to the gut.

           MC: What have you learned from writing this play or any play in particular?

           ML: This play scares me. So did the last one. So did the one before that.

           MC: As an educator, what is the biggest lesson a student of the craft can learn?

           ML: The play reveals the form. Not the other way around. Every play is different and you have to listen and learn every single freaking time. All you can do as a student is practice feeling unprepared for the experience. That’s it. It never goes away. Although you do get used to it. A little bit. (a pause) I guess you can also see a lot of plays, read a lot of plays and talk to a lot of playwrights. That’s more proactive, right? And you build up a reserve of knowledge that can help you maintain your faith– that your voice matters. And that no one has ever written the play that you are working on right now.

           Melinda Lopez is a playwright, actress, and educator. She is the inaugural playwright-in-residence at the Huntington Theatre Company and a past Huntington Playwriting Fellow. She is among the first cohort to receive three-year-playwright-in-residency grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and was the first recipient of the Charlotte Woolard Award, given by the Kennedy Center to a “promising new voice in American Theatre.”

           Please feel free to contact me at mconroy@dramatistsguild.com or join the Dramatists Guild – Massachusetts page on Facebook where you can post up-to-date information about your work and/or organizations benefitting the playwriting community of New England.      

mconroy@dramatistsguild.com

The Language Issue of #TheDramatist is shipping now! @dramatistsguild members can preview it online at http://www.dramatistsguild.com/dramatistmagazine/

Win your DVD/Blu-ray copy of Les Misérables from @dramatistsguild today!

In the November/December 2012 Centennial Issue of The Dramatist, a composer/lyricist mentions acting out Eponine’s “Little Fall of Rain” at parties with her closeted boyfriend. Who is the dramatist and on which page is Les Misérables mentioned? The first ten people to email the correct answer to publications@dramatistsguild.com will win a copy of the DVD/Blu-ray of Les Misérables!

Must be eighteen years of age or older to win. Dramatists Guild staff members are not eligible. Only one winner per household. Participants will be required to provide their shipping address for delivery. Contest ends July 1, 2013.

Video: @AIMenken, Craig Carnelia & More Combat Sheet Music Piracy With "Someone Wrote That Song" 

(Source: youtube.com)

Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director) is proud to announce that Tony Award^® nominated director Pam MacKinnon (Clybourne Park, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) will direct actress Mickey Sumner(film Frances Ha, Showtime’s “The Borgias”) in the world premiere of Dramatists Guild member, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award^® nominee Craig Lucas’s new comedy The Lying Lesson, joining previously announced star Academy Award^® nominee and Emmy Award^® winner Carol Kane (Wicked, “Taxi”).

The Lying Lessonwill begin previews Wednesday, February 20, officially open Wednesday, March 13, and play a limited engagement through Sunday, March 31off-Broadway at Atlantic’s main stage Linda Gross Theater (336 West 20^th Street).

In a remote seaside village in Maine, a legendary film star (Carol Kane) shows up to buy the home of an elderly couple. When she encounters a young local woman (Mickey Sumner) who appears never to have heard of her, “Ruth” stakes a claim on her distant past, and plays a relentless game of cat and mouse with her new “assistant.” In this hilarious and unsettling comic thriller, Craig Lucas, celebrated author of Prelude to a Kiss, Reckless and The Light in the Piazza and twist and turn the audience around essential questions about memory, identity and truth-telling in The Lying Lesson.

Craig Lucas was nominated for a Tony Award® for Best Book of a Musical for The Light in the Piazza as well as his celebrated Broadway play Prelude to a Kiss, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist before being adapted into the hit film comedy starring Meg Ryan and Alec Baldwin. His plays include Missing Persons, Reckless, Blue Window, God’s Heart, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, Small Tragedy, Prayer for My Enemy and The Singing Forest.

Atlantic Theater Company’s New York premiere of Rolin Jones’ play The Jammer, featuring Patch Darragh, Dan Domingues, Christopher Jackson, Billy Eugene Jones, Keira Naughton, Kate Rigg, Jeanine Serralles, Greg Stuhr and Todd Weeks directed by Jackson Gay, is now playing at Atlantic Stage 2 (330 16^th Street).

Signature Theatre (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director) is pleased to announce that Martha Clarke and Guild member BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS have joined the Residency Five program, which provides five-year residencies for multiple playwrights, guaranteeing three full productions of new work over the course of each playwright’s residency. Other artists currently in the Residency Five program include Guild members ANNIE BAKER, WILL ENO, KATORI HALL, and REGINA TAYLOR.

BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS is a Brooklyn-based playwright and dramaturg. His newest play, Appropriate, premieres at the Humana Festival in March 2013, and his play Neighbors will receive its UK Premiere at the Hightide Festival in May 2013. His work has been seen at The Public Theater, PS122, Soho Rep, The Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles, Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, CompanyOne in Boston, Theater Bielefeld in Bielefeld, Germany and the National Theatre in London. He is a Usual Suspect and a former New York Theatre Workshop Playwriting fellow, an alum of the Soho Rep Writers/Directors Lab, the Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, and Ars Nova Playgroup. His honors include a Princess Grace Award, the Dorothy Strelsin Playwriting Fellowship, the Paula Vogel Award, two residencies with the Sundance Theatre Lab, and a fellowship in playwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU and is working on commissions from Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3 and Yale Repertory Theater.

Residency Five is the first program of its kind in the American theatre; going far beyond the traditional commissioning or workshop models, the program enables a diverse community of playwrights to build bodies of work. Residency Five playwrights receive a significant cash award, full health benefits, a stipend to attend theatre, access to Signature’s resources and staff, and like all of our playwrights, a place at the center of the artistic process.

Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director) will present a one-time-only marathon of all three plays in Dramatists Guild Council member Quiara Alegría Hudes’ acclaimed “Elliot Trilogy,” including the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner Water By The Spoonful,on Sunday, January 27 at Second Stage Theatre (305 W 43^rd St).

The all day marathon will begin with an 11:30am reading of Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue directed by Davis McCallum, followed by the 3:00pm matinee performance of Water By The Spoonful, and concluding with a 7:30pm reading of The Happiest Song Plays Last, directed by Eddie Torres.

Armando Riesco and Zabryna Guevara will appear in the complete trilogy and Water by the Spoonful cast members Frankie Faison and Ryan Shams will perform roles in The Happiest Song Plays Last. Elliot, A Solider’s Fugue will include a full cast reunion from the 2006 Page 73 production with Triney Sandoval and Mateo Gomez in addition to Mr. Riesco and Ms. Guevara. Additional casting will be announced shortly. All three plays will be performed at Second Stage Theatre’s Tony Kiser Theatre (305 West 43^rd street). Tickets for the 3pm matinee of Water by the Spoonfulon Sunday, January 27 can be purchased by calling the box office at (212) 246-4422. Admission to the readings is by invitation only.

ABOUT THE ELLIOT TRILOGY

Originally produced by Page 73 in 2006, the 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, is about a young marine coming to terms with his time in Iraq and his father’s and grandfather’s service in Vietnam and Korea.

In Water By The Spoonful,Elliot returns home to Philadelphia to reconnect with his Puerto Rican family after his time spent serving in Iraq. Upon arriving, he finds his family in flux and his career prospects limited. When an online support group begins to overshadow his aspirations for the future, the real and online worlds – one forged by blood, another by survival – collide in this funny, urgent and timely play.

The Happiest Song Plays Last, premiering this April at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, follows Elliot’s struggles to overcome the traumas of combat by taking on an entirely new and unexpected career, while his cousin Yaz settles into her heroic new role as the heart and soul of her crumbling community. The play chronicles a year in the life of these two kindred souls as they search for love, meaning and a sense of hope in a quickly changing world.

For more information, please visit www.2ST.com