Huntington Announces Summer Workshop Readings 7/22 & 23
By: A.A. Cristi Jun. 20, 2017
- Cells by Sam Marks, directed by Oliver Butler
Public reading: Saturday, July 22 at 3pm RSVP
- And Moira Spins by Kirsten Greenidge, directed by Jade King Carroll
Public reading: Saturday, July 22 at 6pm RSVP
- The Last Catastrophist by David Valdes Greenwood, directed by Rebecca Remaly
Public reading: Sunday, July 23 at 3pm RSVP
- The Cave by Eleanor Burgess, directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian
Public reading: Sunday, July 23 at 6pm RSVP
**Please note that readings are open to the public, but not to reviewing members of the press. An RSVP is required to attend.
The Huntington's Summer Workshops are now in their sixth year and are a vital part of the Huntington's new play activities. The program allows playwrights to further develop their plays over the course of the two week development retreat, and plays from previous years have gone on to production both by the Huntington and other Boston companies.
"The Huntington Playwriting Fellows continue to amaze me," says Director of New Work Lisa Timmel. "Kirsten, Eleanor, Sam, and David each are in the process of creating engaging and important work while pushing themselves to write formally ambitious plays. Our directing corps this year is comprised of four artists we have admired from a far (and near in the case of Megan Sandberg-Zakian) for a long time, and I am thrilled to welcome them to the Huntington family."
Modeled after the Sundance Theatre Lab, the Summer Workshop is an extension of the Huntington's Playwriting Fellows program and Breaking Ground Festival. Huntington staff members Lisa Timmel (Director of New Work) and Charles Haugland (Artistic Programs & Dramaturgy) support the writers in development. The festival is produced by the Huntington's artistic staff.
ABOUT THE PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS
CELLS
by Sam Marks
Directed by Oliver Butler
Public reading: Saturday, July 22 at 3pm
A young man divides up a decaying collection of his late grandmother's paintings, never shown outside the family. Mothballing the canvasses, he uncovers sharp and sour fragments of his grandmother's past, and discovers a woman more vibrant and complex than his younger self could have known.
Sam Marks is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and the author of The Delling Shore (Humana Festival), The Old Masters (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), and The Joke (Studio Dante, dir. Sam Gold). Other New York City productions include The Old Masters and Craft (The Flea Theatre), Brack's Last Bachelor Party (59E59 Theaters), and Nelson (Partial Comfort Productions). Mr. Marks attended the 2016 Sundance Theater Lab to present his new play White Lighting. His latest play, The Department Party, was part of the Clubbed Thumb/Playwrights Horizons Super Lab in January. He collaborated with Simon McBurney and Theater Complitice on their most recent show, The Kid Stays in the Picture. He is the 2015 recipient of the A.R. Gurney Playwriting Award. His plays have received workshops at Atlantic Theater Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop, New York Stage and Film, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and many others. He completed a pilot for HBO produced by Steve Buscemi and Stanley Tucci, and he developed a series with Phillip Seymour Hoffman for CBS studios. His work is available from Samuel French and Playscripts, Inc. Mr. Marks teaches playwriting at Harvard University.
AND MOIRA SPINS
Directed by Jade King Carroll
Public reading: Saturday, July 22 at 6pm
RSVP
Determined to have a perfect vacation with her sisters, Lavinia has dropped off her kids at camp and rented a summer house. Her siblings, however, bring along their own baggage that threatens to ruin Lavinia's meticulously planned week. And when their long estranged stepmother shows up out of the blue, dormant tensions boil to the surface, forcing the women to face their cherished notions of family and how far they will go to preserve those beliefs.
Kirsten Greenidge is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and the author of Milk Like Sugar and Luck of the Irish (produced at the Huntington in 2016 and 2012 respectively), as well as The View from Here (commission from the Huntington's Education Department). A Village Voice/Obie Award winner and a recent PEN/America Laura Pels Award recipient, she is also the author of Splendor, Bossa Nova, Rust, Sans-Culottes in the Promised Land, 103 Within the Veil, and The Gibson Girl. She has developed her work at Sundance (Utah and Ucross), Magic Theatre, National New Play Network, Page 73 Productions, Bay Area Playwrights, Playwrights Horizons, New Dramatists, ASK, McCarter Theatre Center, and New Georges. She is a recipient of an NEA/TCG residency at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and was playwright-in-residence at Company One Theatre. She has also received Sundance's Time Warner Award for Bossa Nova. Ms. Greenidge attended Wesleyan University and the University of Iowa's Playwrights Workshop. A member of Rhombus and an alumna member of New Dramatists, she is currently working on commissions from Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Big Ten, The Kennedy Center, and Playwrights Horizons.
THE LAST CATASTROPHIST
by David Valdes Greenwood
Directed by Rebecca Remaly
Public reading: Sunday, July 23 at 3pm
RSVP
Marina, one of the last two climatologists on earth, is hiding on the coast of Iceland to escape Eternal Sunshine, a dark ops force terrorizing climate scientists. But when Lucia, her one remaining peer, shows up unannounced, a cat-and-mouse game ensues. Are they allies? Enemies? Whose life is on the brink of extinction?
David Valdes Greenwood is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow, Company One PlayLab Fellow, a Cimientos Fellow, and Brother Thomas Artist Fellow. His plays have been presented in public readings across the United States and UK, most recently with Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, Actor's Theatre of Charlotte, National Showcase of New Plays, Pride Films and Plays, and IATI Theatre. In the 2017-2018 season, his play The Mermaid Hour will receive a rolling world premiere with productions at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte, Milagro Theatre, Borderlands Theater, and Mixed Blood Theatre. He has worked with Fresh Ink, Argos Productions, Stage Left Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and The Theater Offensive, and his plays have appeared at the Humana Festival, New York International Fringe Festival, Portland Stage's Little Festival of the Unexpected, and New York Theatre Workshop's Thursday Studio. His plays have been published and anthologized by Samuel French. He is the author of four books, including the recently released Revengers, and he is a Huffington Post blogger.
THE CAVE
by Eleanor Burgess
Directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian
Public reading: Sunday, July 23 at 6pm
RSVP
As winters get colder and food gets scarce, a makeshift tribe of cavemen struggles to decide whether to remain in the land they call home or head to greener pastures in the south. This play explores the lives that we evolved to lead, our place in the universe, and what relationships mean in a time of survival.
Eleanor Burgess is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and the author of Chill, The Niceties, Start Down, and These Dying Generations. Her work has been produced or developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, ALLIANCE THEATRE, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Portland Stage Company, Centenary Stage Company, The Lark, Kennedy Center/National New Play Network, MFA Playwrights' Workshop, Ryder Farm, and Luna Stage. Ms. Burgess is a current 2050 Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. She has been the recipient of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award, an Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan commission, and a Keen Teens Commission. She grew up in Brookline, studied history at Yale College, and recently completed her MFA in dramatic writing at New York University.
ABOUT THE Huntington Theatre Company'S NEW PLAY INITIATIVES AND PLAYWRITING FELLOWS PROGRAM
The Huntington Theatre Company is a national leader in the development of new plays and has produced over 120 world, American, or New England premieres. The cornerstone of activity is the Huntington Playwriting Fellows (HPF) program, a two-year fellowship for selected local writers. A six-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation adds local playwright MeLinda Lopez to the Huntington's full-time staff as playwright-in-residence. The annual two-week Summer Workshop and Breaking Ground Festival of new plays allows selected HPFs and national writers to develop their plays in two and three dimensions.
The Huntington Playwriting Fellows (HPF) program creates relationships between a local community of writers and a nationally prominent producing theatre, forges those bonds through authentic conversation and artistic collaboration, and encourages dialogue between local artists. Huntington productions of plays by HPFs include Stick Fly and Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond, Ryan Landry's "M" and Psyched by Ryan Landry, Milk Like Sugar and Luck of the Irish by Kirsten Greenidge, Before I Leave You by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, The Atheist, Brendan, and The Second Girl by Ronan Noone, Sonia Flew and Becoming Cuba by MeLinda Lopez, The Cry of the Reed by Sinan Ünel, Shakespeare's Actresses in America by Rebekah Maggor, and next season's A Guide for the Homesick by Ken Urban.
Since 2003, the HPF program has invited writers to participate in two-year residencies, during which playwrights receive a modest honorarium, join in a biweekly writers' collective with artistic staff, attend Huntington productions and events, and are eligible for readings and support through the annual Summer Workshop and Breaking Ground festival of new plays.
The primary focus of the program is creating relationships with writers at all stages of their careers, from emerging talent to established professionals. The program provides a framework for an in-depth, two-year artistic conversation and a long-term professional relationship. The Summer Workshop, which began in 2012, was developed from conversations at convenings with HPFs past and present to solicit ideas about how to improve and expand the program.
Since 2009, the Huntington has instituted an open application process with submissions from any writer primarily based within commuting distance of Boston; applications are currently solicited every 18 months. The theatre selects two to three writers whose terms overlap with adjacent cohorts.
ABOUT THE Huntington Theatre Company
Celebrating its 35th season, the Huntington Theatre Company is Boston's leading professional theatre and one of the region's premier cultural assets since its founding in 1982. Recipient of the 2013 Regional Theatre Tony Award, the Huntington brings together superb local and national talent and produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current to create award-winning productions. The Huntington runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The Huntington has long been an anchor cultural institution of Huntington Avenue, the Avenue of the Arts, and will remain so on a permanent basis with plans to convert our current theatre into a first-rate, modern venue with expanded services to audiences, artists, and the community. Under the direction of Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington cultivates, celebrates, and champions theatre as an art form. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.
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