Bay Area Playwrights Festival Introduces T. D. Mitchell

Introducing T. D. Mitchell, author of Queens for a Year!

"QUEEN FOR A YEAR" n. def: A derogatory term for a female soldier or Marine serving her overseas tour of duty year.

"Ideally, I want the audience to feel as conflicted and uncomfortable as I did during the process of discovering these women? As I was writing the play, Maria Lauterbach was murdered. By this time, I'd heard so much about the predominance of sexual assault and physical violence against women in the military, I felt as though I was the only person who wasn't shocked by her murder? this play chose me?" -T.D. Mitchell

In T.D. Mitchell's new dramatic play, Queens for a Year, a family of four generations of female Marines welcome home their youngest, on leave from Iraq. As they band together over a long weekend, their memories reveal a long line of powerful experiences from emersion in the traditionally male domination of warfare, set in relief against the ancient myth of one brave woman warrior.

T.D. Mitchell is an award-winning writer based in Brooklyn. A seven time New Dramatists Fellow semi-finalist and a Princess Grace award finalist, T.D. began researching and writing about U.S. military culture in 2003, for her first full-length play, BEYOND THE 17TH PARALLEL(Ojai Playwrights Conference). Her work on the subject led to recruitment for three seasons as a writer and executive story editor on the tv series "Army Wives."

A frequent speechwriter for NGOs, Human Rights and philanthropic causes, T.D. also curates, directs and produces live performance and speaker-based projects internationally.

"As a storyteller it's my job to listen and observe and bear witness to what is going on..."

Click here to find out more about T. D. Mitchell in our latest installment of Interview with a Playwright! Click here for the festival schedule.