Weston Playhouse Hosts Artist Retreat

The award-winning Weston Playhouse Theatre (WPTC) will host its third annual Artists Retreat from April 25 to May 2, bringing a diverse and noteworthy group of theatre artists to its home in Vermont to work on their latest projects. The 2010 participants include playwrights Sharon Bridgforth, Sarah Hammond and Susan Mosakowski, and musical teams Randy Blair and Timothy Michael Drucker, and Zach Redler and Sara Cooper.

Bridgforth, a Lambda Literary Award winner, is a recipient of the Alpert/Hedgebrook Residency Prize at New Dramatists. Hammond is also a New Dramatists resident playwright; her work has been produced across the United States and in Germany. Susan Mosakowski is a playwright, director, and Co-Artistic Director of Creation Production Company, an interdisciplinary theatre company in New York City. Blair and Drucker are aiming their new musical, Fat Camp, at Broadway while developing a two-hander in New Orleans and Boston. Redler and Cooper are recent graduates of NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program; their musical, The Memory Show, will premiere at Barrington Stage this summer.

"Vermont has a rich history as an artists' retreat," commented Weston Producing Director Steve Stettler. "From Robert Frost to David Mamet, from Martha Graham to Jamaica Kinkaid, from Rudolf Serkin to Jaime Laredo, artists have come to the Green Mountains to do some of their finest work. We are proud to carry on that tradition by providing a home for today's most promising theatre artists." Funding for the Weston Artists Retreat comes from members of the WPTC Producers Circle including Sam and Barbara Lloyd, Marguerite and Peter Mason, and Luis Ubinas and Deborah Tolman.

Past retreat participants have already received national awards and garnered productions on and off Broadway and in major regional theatres, generously acknowledging the Weston Playhouse for its valued contribution to their work. For more information about the non-profit WPTC, its 2010 season and its New Works programs, visit www.westonplayhouse.org.

In the photo: Susan Bridgeforth