Photo Flash: Meet Nord Family Foundation's 2015-16 Playwright Fellows

Cleveland Public Theatre's Executive Artistic Director Raymond Bobgan has announced the Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellowship Reading Series, a presentation of three new plays by emerging Northeast Ohio playwrights. The 2015-2016 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellows are Stuart Hoffman, Gail Nyoka and Greg Vovos. Scroll down to meet them!

Now in its third year, the Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellowship is funded by a three year grant from the Nord Family Foundation. The fellowship is a year-long program for Northeast Ohio playwrights of extraordinary potential, offering opportunities to develop work through readings, staged readings, and workshop productions.

The Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellowship Reading Series is a one-weekend-only series featuring full-length plays-in-process written by the Fellows and featuring local directors and performers.

Performances take place from Wednesday, January 6 through Sunday, January 10 at Cleveland Public Theatre, located at 6415 Detroit Avenue, in Cleveland's Gordon Square Arts District neighborhood. Tickets are $10 (General Admission). Students/Seniors receive $3 off. Purchase tickets online at www.cptonline.org or by calling 216-631-2727 x501. Show times vary, see details.

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THE WATERS - January 6 (Wednesday) and January 9 (Saturday) @ 7:00pm

Written by Gail Nyoka, 15/16 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellow :: Directed by Melissa Crum

New visitors to a lakeside retreat-where the lines between dream, imagination and reality blur-find their stay to be quite out of the ordinary. Some visitors cling to the world as they know it, while others wade into unknown territory...

CANON FODDER - January 7 (Thursday) @ 7:00pm and January 9 (Saturday) @ 3:00pm

Written by Stuart Hoffman, 15/16 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellow :: Directed by Caitlin Lewins

A tale of literary arousal, depicting an emotionally driven, but socially awkward, bibliophile recounting her literary love affair with her favorite author.

WELL BEINGS - January 8 (Friday) and January 10 (Sunday) @ 7:00pm

Written by Greg Vovos, 15/16 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellow :: Directed by Dale Heinen

Well Beings traces the journey of three heroin addicts at various stages of recovery as they try to break free from the grip of this harmful narcotic. Blending moments of expressionism with moments that are sometimes all too real, Well Beings is a modern-day Our Town... but with heroin.

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About the 2015-16 Fellows:

Stuart Hoffman is a Cleveland-born actor and playwright. He has worked with many local theaters including convergence-continuum, Cleveland Public Theatre, Ensemble Theater, Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, Ohio Shakespeare Festival, Actor's Summit, Mamai, Ohio City Theatre Project, Theater Ninjas, and The Beck Center for the Arts. As a playwright, his work has been produced at Ensemble Theater (Cocopelli: a fairy tale), Cleveland Public Theatre (Edison and Ford [co-written by Caitlin Lewins and Cathleen O'Malley]), and Dobama (Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, The Bronte Solution).His play A Flock of Seagulls has received productions at both World Without Windows and Lorain County Community College. Stuart is an eight-year judge of Dobama Theater's Marilyn Bianchi Children's Playwriting Festival, where he is also a member of their playwriting unit: The Playwright's GYM.

Gail Nyoka is a playwright, storyteller, novelist and recipient of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award: Theatre for Young Audiences with her stage play Mella Mella. It has been produced by Black Theatre Workshop in Montreal, Young Peoples Theatre in Toronto and toured in Ontario with Carousel Players. Recently, she attended the Women Playwrights International Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, for a reading of her play, My Bones Shall Rise Again.

Greg Vovos is a playwright, director, screenwriter, teacher and dramaturg, whose plays have been produced around the world. A 2014 recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Greg often focuses his writing on challenges facing society today. This began with his work as the resident playwright for the Willoughby Fine Arts' Theatre for Healthy Living program. His work has been published by Dramatic Publishing, PPT Press and others. Beyond playwriting, he writes monologues for the Downtown Cleveland Take-a-Hike Tours and is a Senior Writer at American Greetings. He has taught drama at theaters and colleges across the country (University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Baldwin Wallace University; Tri-C) and has worked for nearly every theatre in Northeast Ohio. He has an MFA in Playwriting from UNLV and a B.A. in English from The Ohio State University.

CPT develops new, adventurous work; and nurtures Northeastern Ohio artists-particularly those whose work is inventive, intelligent and socially conscious.

Photo Credit: Steve Wagner Photography