Nashville Rep Names 2015-16 New Works Fellow

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to announce its Ingram New Works Playwriting Fellow for the 2015-16 season: Pulitzer Prize nominee Rebecca Gilman.

"There's nothing like the spark of connecting a new play with a new audience, and the Ingram New Works Project is once again bringing electric new work to Nashville," says Nashville Rep's Playwright-in-Residence Nate Eppler. "We have four dynamic new voices to share and can't wait to introduce the brilliant work of our playwriting Fellow Rebecca Gilman to our audiences. There's no doubt about it now: the Ingram New Works Project is the most exciting thing in Nashville theatre."

Each season, Nashville Rep welcomes four emerging playwrights and one established playwright into its Ingram New Works Project. The emerging playwrights make up the Ingram New Works Lab, directed by Nashville Rep's Playwright-in-Residence Nate Eppler. And the established, award-winning playwright serves as Nashville Rep's Fellow for the season. The Fellow joins the Lab playwrights for a Symposium Week in January, helping critique and shape their work, and serving as a mentor for the early career playwrights. Then, all the playwrights, including the Fellow, present their newly written work at Nashville Rep's Ingram New Works Festival in May.

In an article about the 2015 Ingram New Works Festival, American Theatre Magazine said, "Indeed, the Ingram lab and its culminating festival seem to have brewed up something of a special new-play sauce, and the playwrights who've come through it - including not only the lab writers but the fellows - have become its greatest advocates."

Nashville Rep's Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland notes, "When looking for a New Works Fellow, I ask myself questions like: do I admire their work, do I believe they are and will continue to be an important voice in American theatre, will they be a great resource and mentor for our Lab playwrights, and will bringing them to Nashville be exciting for the community. For Rebecca Gilman, the answer to all these questions is a resounding 'Yes!' I'm so thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to support her next play via the New Works Fellowship, and I know her contribution to our new play efforts here will be amazing."

Rebecca Gilman's plays include Luna Gale, A True History of the Johnstown Flood, Dollhouse, Boy Gets Girl (Oliver nominee), Spinning Into Butter (later made into a major motion picture), Blue Surge, The Glory of Living (Pulitzer Prize nominee), The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Crowd You're in With. Ms. Gilman is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Harper Lee Award, The Scott McPherson Award, The Prince Prize for Commissioning New Work, The Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, The Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, The George Devine Award, The Theatre Masters Visionary Award, The Great Plains Playwright Award and an Illinois Arts Council playwriting fellowship. She is a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild of America and a board member of the ACLU of Illinois. She received her MFA in playwriting from the University of Iowa. Ms. Gilman is an artistic associate at Goodman Theatre in Chicago and is an associate professor of playwriting and screenwriting at Northwestern University as part of its MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage program.

Additionally, Nashville Repertory Theatre welcomes Jonathan Alexandratos, Helen Banner, Edith Freni and Kyle John Schmidt as its Lab Playwrights, who will work under the direction of Nashville Rep's Playwright-in-Residence and Lab Director Nate Eppler. Complete bios for the lab playwrights can be found online at NashvilleRep.org.

Each season, the Ingram New Works Project culminates in the Ingram New Works Festival, a celebration of new plays born and fostered in the Project that season. The festival features staged readings, performed by our talented Nashville actors, of each of the new plays created by our Lab Playwrights and Fellow. This season's festival is slated to run May 4-14, 2016.

Nashville Rep's Ingram New Works Project was created with the support of co-founder Martha R. Ingram to provide an opportunity for theatre artists to develop new theatre works while in residency at Nashville Rep. Past Fellowship recipients include David Auburn (Proof, The Columnist), Stephen Dietz (Lonely Planet, Rancho Mirage), Theresa Rebeck (Bad Dates, Fever), Doug Wright (I am My Own Wife, Posterity) and Donald Margulies (Dinner with Friends, The Country House.)

Nashville Rep is a non-profit theatre bringing classic and contemporary theatre to Nashville that inspires empathy and prods intellectual and emotional engagement in audiences.