PROGRAMS — WOMEN'S WORK PROJECT

WOMEN’S WORK PLAYWRIGHTS LAB

Women’s Work sculpture commissioned for A Week of Women's Work, 2003 and created by Sabrina Stenswold.

The first Women's Work LAB presentation premieres August 18-22, 2008!

ABOUT THE LAB

Since its creation in 1994, NPT and Women’s Work has had the goal of not only helping to develop specific plays, but to support residents’ growth as accomplished and skilled playwrights—to give writers added tools in the practice of their craft and to strengthen their individual voices.  Our focus has always been on bringing scripts to production quality.  And that won’t change. The new WOMEN’S WORK LAB retains all of the supportive features of the residency program—it extends the same nurturing environment to emerging and mid-career women playwrights and continues to provide one-on-one guidance in the development of new works.  But this format allows us to serve more writers each year (6-8 members), and creates a larger collaborative group from which members can draw inspiration and energy. 

The LAB meets monthly (Sundays, 4-7pm), allowing for time in between sessions for writers to continue to develop and revise their work in response to feedback.  Members are expected to bring work to each session—excerpts, scenes, one-acts, etc., but they will also follow a schedule for presenting longer completed works and rough drafts.  In this way, the LAB retains NPT’s desire to develop full length scripts by women writers while still allowing for continuous creativity.

New works are presented in two public festivals.  The first, in August, features short works developed around a specific theme. The second and larger festival takes place in March and showcases pieces developed throughout the year, including full-length plays, one-acts and collaborative endeavors.  Artistic Director Melody Brooks leads the LAB and will be joined by guest directors and dramaturges, who attend on a regular basis as active collaborators with the writers. 

Writers interested in being selected for membership in the WOMEN’S WORK LAB should send a resume, a 10-15 page writing sample, and a paragraph explaining why they wish to be a part of the LAB, including goals for their own development if selected.  (Please note that ALL 3 items are required to be considered.) 

Application Deadline:  January 9. 2009   Apply via email to contact@newperspectivestheatre.org with subject line: Women’s Work Application or by post to New Perspectives Theatre Company, 456 West 37th Street, New York, NY  10018.  A panel of NPT playwrights and directors will review the applications.  Members will be notified on or about February 16, 2009.  The first session of the new LAB will begin March 8, 2009..

NOTE:  NPT has a 16-year history of dedication to the development of writers-of-color and the Women’s Work Project is no exception.  We strongly encourage women from all backgrounds to apply.

MEET OUR 2008-09 LAB MEMBERS!

KATE BELL is a writer, songwriter, director, performer, and teacher.  Her plays have been seen in New York at Baruch College’s Bernie West Theatre and at the Culture Project’s Women Center Stage Festival, produced by Committed Theatre Company and Feed the Herd Theatre Company, respectively.  Ms. Bell developed her play Lions of Babylon during the fall of 2007 at the Primary Stages School of Theater with playwright David Caudle; she is continuing her study of playwriting there through a full scholarship.  Ms. Bell earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The University of Michigan in 2000, and while there received a Farrar Fund Grant for Dramatic Writing as well as two Hopwood Awards, one in fiction and the other in playwriting.  Her play, Estrella, My Refugee, was a runner-up for the 2002 Princess Grace Award.  Ms. Bell managed, wrote music for, and performed throughout New York City with the jazz octet, The Poma-swank, from 2003 through 2007 (http://www.myspace.com/pomaswank).  She is presently working musically in a new rock project called The Slips (http://www.myspace.com/theslipsny).  Ms. Bell teaches playwriting, acting, vocal music, and songwriting in the New York City public schools through the Theater Development Fund, Marquis Studios, and the Henry Street Settlement.

ZETTA ELLIOTT’s poetry has been published in the Cave Canem anthology, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Check the Rhyme: an Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees, and Coloring Book: an Eclectic Anthology of Fiction and Poetry by Multicultural Writers.  Her novella, Plastique, was excerpted in T Dot Griots: an Anthology of Toronto’s Black Storytellers, and her essays have appeared in The Black Arts Quarterly, thirdspace, WarpLand and Rain and Thunder.  She won the 2005 Honor Award in Lee & Low Books’ New Voices Contest, and her picture book story, “Bird” will be published in 2008.  Her first play, Nothing but a Woman, was a finalist in the Chicago Dramatists’ Many Voices Project (2006).  Her fourth full-length play, Connor’s Boy, was staged in January 2008 as part of two new play festivals: in Cleveland, OH as part of Karamu House’s R. Joyce Whitley Festival of New Plays ARENAFEST, and in New York City as part of Maieutic Theatre Works’ Newborn Festival.  She is currently a visiting professor in the African American and African Studies Program at Mt. Holyoke College. 

CHRISTINE TOY JOHNSON is a playwright, actor and filmmaker.Her first play, The New Deal, was also the first play to be developed in the "Different Voices" program at the Roundabout Theatre Company. Other plays: Paper Son, The Faux Designer Handbag Caper and The Perfect Wife. Screenplays: A Way From Home (with Charles Randolph-Wright), Jumping The Third Rail, Dully For President and Old, Fat And Ugly. Her short film about inadvertent discrimination, ALL AMERICAN EYES, (which she also starred in and produced) was the winner of the Audience Award at the Waves International Film Festival, and also played the Hearts and Minds and New York International Film and Video Film Festivals. Recently awarded a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, she is working on a documentary film with her husband, filmmaker Bruce Johnson, about the first Asian American pro-basketball player, Wat Misaka, of the 1947 Knicks.  As a performer, she has appeared extensively on Broadway, off-Broadway, in regional theatres across the country, in film, television, and concerts worldwide for over 25 years.She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Certificate of Screenwriting Program at NYU.

ANDREA LEPCIO’s plays have been presented at Chashama, HERE, The Lady Cavaliers, Manhattan Theatre Source, New Shoe, Raw Impressions, Shalimar Productions, Three Chicks, Titans Theatre, Vital Theatre, Williamsburg Art Nexus, and Women's Project in NY, and at Bloody Unicorn, Hangar Theatre, Provincetown Theatre Company and Trustus Theatre, regionally. Her screenplay, A September Spring, won the Sloan Foundation Dramatic Writing Award. Hook & Eye won the Trustus Playwrights Festival where it was produced. She is a member of America-in-Play, BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Librettist Workshop and the Lark’s Playwrights’ Workshop. A Dramatists Guild Fellow, she currently serves as Program Director. A two-time finalist for the Heideman Award, her short plays and monologues have been published in Plays and Playwrights 2003, Estrogenius, lichen and by Smith & Kraus. She is a founder of the Mint Theatre Company where she produced the World Premiere of Austin Pendleton’s Uncle Bob. In addition to the Dramatists Guild Fellows program, she also works as a teaching artist and economic consultant. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild, New Shoe, and New York Theatre Experience Advisory Committee. M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing, Carnegie Mellon University. M.B.A. UC Berkeley. B.A. Human Ecology, College of the Atlantic.

CHECK OUT ANDREA'S OTHER NEW PLAY OPENING THIS MONTH! www.threechickstheatre.org

By ANDREA LEPCIO
Directed by TYE BLUE

featuring
JON EISWERTH, JOEL HABERLI, CHANTÉ LEWIS, OLIVIA NEGRON TOKS OLAGUNDOYE, CHRYSTAL STONE

A rare treat: a traditional tragedy told in a way that will reach a modern audience." - STAGE BUZZ

"You go to war with the army you have. You leave the mess you make." So says Quinta, law clerk for Supreme Court hopeful Arlene Stanton in this fast-paced, thoughtful and funny play which weaves a complex story of identity, ethics and power in the quickly changing landscape of America at war. ONE NATION UNDER explores the tension between those who make the law and those it fails.

BRIAN HOWARD - SET DESIGN JEREMY ROLLA - LIGHTING DESIGN IEN DeNIO - SOUND DESIGN
SARA KENDRICK - WARDROBE KATE AUGUST - STAGE MANAGEMENT

ALL PERFORMANCES AT 7:30
THEATRE 54, SHETLER STUDIOS, 244 West 54th Street, NYC.
August 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, September 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13

KIM MERRILL’S plays have been produced by Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Theater for the New City, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Oakland Public Theatre, Rochester Repertory, Redbud Productions, Manhattan Theatre Source , the Culture Project, and other off-off-broadway places.  Workshops and readings of her plays have been presented by PlayLabs 2005 at the Playwrights Center, Cleveland Playhouse, Geva Theatre, Cherry Lane, Women’s Project, LaMama Experiments series, NJ Rep and Miami’s City Theatre.  Her work has received a Playwrights First Award, Kernodle-One Act award, and a Pilgrim Project grant.  Kim’s play Finding Claire was published last winter by Dramatists Play Service, and her play Exposure Time received a 2007 commission from EST/Sloan Project.   She is a graduate of the MFA playwriting program at Columbia University, and lives in New York.

MICHELE MILLER has lived in many ‘hot’ (in climate and politics) locales as an archaeologist but currently resides in North Westchester with her young family.  Both the exotic and the mundane inhabit her work.  She has also worked in theatre administration and as a writer and editor.  Her full-length play, Real Estate, was a semi-finalist in the 2002 American Theatre Coop Playwriting Contest and received readings at Women's Project & Productions, Word of Mouth and Vital Theatre workshops.  Products of Conception, a play featuring one couple’s journey through infertility and loss, was produced as part of the Estrogenius Festival at Manhattan Theatre Source in October, 2003, and as part of the Strawberry Festival in the summer of 2004, where it was reprised as a “Producer’s Choice”. Her play, Bedtime Stories was produced as part of the Development Series at Manhattan Theatre Source in May, 2004.  Her one-act plays have been seen as part of ‘New Acts’ at Boston Playwrights' Theatre, the Tandem Acts Festival of the Women’s Project Theatre, and Blueberry Pond Theatre’s 2006 Spring Sampler.  She is an artistic member of the ensemble theatre company, Blueberry Pond Theatre in Ossining, NY.

CAROLYN NÚR WISTRAND’s plays have been staged at the Nat Horne Theatre, Harold Clurman Theatre, Arthur Seelen Theatre, and Open Eye: New Stagings in New York City, The Bilingual Foundation for the Arts, Los Angeles, California, Around the Coyote, Chicago, Illinois, The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, Michigan, The Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia, and The Phoenix Civic Plaza, Phoenix, Arizona. Published plays include: Beauty in Black Performance: Plays for African American Youth (Africa World Press) Ida B. ‘n The Lynching Tree: A Record of Race History & Mean Molly: An African Folktale of the Deep South, (One Act Play Depot, Canada); Before the Spanish Came, (Contemporary Drama Service), and Táhirih, (Carmel Publishers, Chandigarh, India). In 2006 she collaborated with South African poet and activist, Dennis Brutus (imprisoned with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island) on an original staging of his poem, Sirens, Knuckles, and Boots, and in 2007 she adapted Egyptian feminist, Nawaal El Saadawi’s novel, Woman at Point Zero, for the stage. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, ICWP, and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture & a faculty member in the Dept. of Africana Studies, University of Michigan-Flint.

GUEST DIRECTORS/DRAMATURGES

ELENA ARAOZ is an opera and theatre director and an actress. This season, Elena directed the Off-Broadway production and American premier of Carl Djerassi's Three on a Couch at the Soho Playhouse, Arthur Miller's The Price at Northern Stage in Vermont (LORT) and the premier production of Monika Bustamonte's rock musical Io: A Myth About You in Austin, Texas, which has received four nominations for the 2008 Austin Critics' Awards, including Best Production of a Musical. Recently, Elena directed the Off-Broadway production of Djerassi's Phallacy starring Lisa Harrow and Simon Jones; the new play The Power by Li Tong Chen in Beijing, China, the first English language play commercially produced in Beijing; Titus Androniucus for Austin Shakespeare Festival which won a B. Iden Payne Award; the semi-staged concerts of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte and Verdi's Falstaff, starring Sir Thomas Allen with Maestro Robert Spano, both for the Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM. Her adaptation and direction of Christopher Logue's poetic retelling of The Iliad, titled War Music has played for the 2005 First Works Providence Festival, the NY Institute for the Humanities, the Chicago Humanities Festival, as well as toured through New England. She has also been commissioned to write and direct adaptations of Goethe's Faust for the First Works Providence Festival and stories by Jorge Luis Borges titled Labyrinths/Laberintos for the Chekhov Theater Ensemble. She has staged readings for numerous companies such as the Pearl Theatre and, most recently, Don DeLillo's play The Word for Snow with Kathleen Chalfont for the NY Institute for the Humanities and CUNY. Elena serves as a regular Associate and Assistant Director to Sir Jonathan Miller, having worked on his Broadway production of King Lear starring Christopher Plummer and his operas at Seattle Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center and, upcoming, Portland Opera. She also just served on a panel titled "Tempest Tossed", discussing The Tempest along with playwright John Guare. Elena holds her MFA in Acting from the University of Texas at Austin and has perfomed for such companies as the Pearl Theatre, American Globe Theatre and New York Classical Theatre. www.elenaaraoz.com

ELYSA MARDEN directs in New York City, regionally, and internationally. Off-Broadway, she directed the world premieres Esoterica, written and performed by Eric Walton (DR2), and I Hear (Oigo). Other NYC credits include The Sugar Mile (92nd Street Y), The Forever Waltz, June Moon, Rattlesnake, Iphigenia, No Exit, Christopher Logue's The Husbands, Goethe's Persephone with A Phoenix Too Frequent, and The Cocktail Party. She has developed new plays with Liz Amberly, P. Seth Bauer, Mariana Carreno, Steven Fechter, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Henry Guzmán, Arlene Hutton, and Glyn Maxwell at such venues as New Dramatists, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, Verse Theatre Manhattan, Mabou Mines, Women’s Project, York Theatre Co, and the A-Train Plays. She was a member of the Women’s Project Directors Forum (2001-2003) and the coordinator for the Ford Foundation funded Women’s Project Artistic Leadership Program. Her undergraduate studies at Brown University focused on Anthropology, and she also holds a Certificate in Film from NYU/SCPS. She participated in the LaMaMa Third International Symposium for Directors, and served as Co-Artistic Director of the WorkShop Theater Company 2003-2006. Member, WorkShop and New Shoe Theater Companies. SSDC.

MELISSA MAXWELL's directing credits: productions at NYC’s landmark National Black Theatre, Theatre at the Riverside Church, New Perspectives Theatre Company, Sounding Theatre Company and the NY International Fringe Festival. She staged a presentation of The Octoroon for The Pearl Theatre Company, as well as several events for The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, including a presentation at the International Emmy Awards. A member of the Dramatist Guild, Melissa is an award-winning playwright whose scripts include: Salt In A Wound (Julie Harris Playwright Competition finalist), produced by Chicago’s eta Creative Arts Foundation (5 Black Theater Alliance Award nominations, including Best Play and Best Writer, “Production of the Year” nomination: African American Arts Alliance of Chicago); Unrequited Love, produced by New Perspectives Theatre Company (Audelco Award nomination, New Professional Theatre’s Our Words Award for excellence in playwriting); and the one-act, Fetus Envy (NYC Fringe Festival and Manhattan Theatre Source’s EstroGenius Festival.)  A graduate of Boston University (BFA, Theatre Performance), Melissa’s acting credits include: The Thomas Crown Affair, Never Again, Law & Order, The Sopranos, Third Watch, Oz, Special Victims Unit, As The World Turns, All My Children, numerous regional performances and countless TV commercials.

For more information contact New Perspectives Theatre Company at 212-630-9945; contact@newperspectivestheatre.org