Laura Jacqmin Set for DGF's 'Traveling Masters' Program in Ashland

Dramatists Guild Fund President Andrew Lippa and Executive Director Rachel Routh announce an upcoming Traveling Masters Program in Ashland, Oregon, with playwright Laura Jacqmin. This FREE event will take place March 26 at 10:00 a.m at Headwaters Building, 84 4th Street, Ashland, as part of the ANPF Women's Invitational Ashland New Plays Festival. To reserve your free space, email gray@ashlandnewplays.org.

The Traveling Masters Program is a national outreach program that sends prominent dramatists into communities across the country for writing workshops, master classes, talkbacks, and other public events. In partnership with leading regional theaters and universities, the Dramatists Guild Fund creates local programming that gives students, theater professionals, and the public first-hand experience with renowned artists.

Laura Jacqmin is a Chicago-based playwright, TV writer, and video game writer, originally from Cleveland. Her play Dental Society Midwinter Meeting was named one of New City Stage's Top Five Plays of 2010, as well as TimeOut Chicago's Honorable Mentions: Best Theater of 2010. Look, We Are Breathing was nominated for a 2015 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work. Residence will premiere in Actors Theatre of Louisville's 40th Humana Festival of New Plays, dir. Hal Brooks. Awards: winner of the Wasserstein Prize, two NEA Art Works Grants, Kennedy Center David Mark Cohen Award, two MacDowell Fellowships, Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Grant; finalist for Heideman Award, Laurents/Hatcher Prize, BBC International Playwriting Competition, and the Princess Grace Award.

Television: "Grace and Frankie" (Netflix), "Lucky 7" (ABC). Video games: "Minecraft: Story Mode" (Telltale Games). Plays: Look, We Are Breathing (Sundance Theater Lab, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble), Ghost Bike (Buzz22 Chicago), Do-Gooder (16th Street Theater), January Joiner (Long Wharf Theatre),Ski Dubai (Steppenwolf Theatre), Two Lakes, Two Rivers (O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Royal Court Theatre's International Residency), and Dental Society Midwinter Meeting (Chicago Dramatists/At Play, remounted 16th Street Theater and Theater on the Lake).

Her work has been produced and developed by Atlantic Theater Company, Old Vic New Voices, Roundabout Underground, Vineyard Theatre, LCT3, Ars Nova, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Second Stage Theatre, Contemporary American Theater Festival, The 24 Hour Plays Off-Broadway, and the inaugural NNPN University Playwrights Workshop at Stanford University, among others.

From 2007 to 2008, she was a contributing writer for The Onion A.V. Club and A.V. Club Chicago. Jacqmin was a member of the inaugural 2010-2011 Playwrights Unit at the Goodman Theatre. She's taught playwriting at Ohio University, Carthage College, and was the 2012 Faith Broome playwright-in-residence at University of Oklahoma. Commissions: South Coast Rep, Goodman Theatre, Arden Theater Company, InterAct Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater/NNPN, and Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project. Her plays are published by Playscripts, Inc. and Smith & Kraus. She received her BA from Yale University, and earned an MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University.

The Dramatists Guild Fund is the public charity arm of the Dramatists Guild of America. Its mission is to aid and nurture writers for the theater; to fund non-profit theaters producing contemporary American works; and to heighten awareness, appreciation, and support of theater across the country. Each year, DGF awards grants to non-profit theatrical organizations across the country that produce works by American writers, provides emergency aid to writers facing illness or other unforeseen circumstances, and supports numerous educational programs and writing development opportunities for dramatists. For more information, visit www.dgfund.org.