McCarter Announces Roster For 2019 Sallie B. Goodman Artists' Retreat

McCarter will welcome a group of esteemed and emerging playwrights and theater artists to Princeton for the Sallie B. Goodman Artists' Retreat. The annual retreat in June is a centerpiece of McCarter's LAB, a platform and creative incubator devoted to ongoing theatrical development and artist cultivation. The 2019 Retreat will take place from June 12 - June 19.

Each summer, McCarter invites a select group of artists-playwrights, composers, directors-to Princeton for uninterrupted time to work, research, and renew at the Palmer House, Princeton University's historic guesthouse. The retreat provides artists with the opportunity to enjoy space and time to focus on any creative exploration of their choosing, with no mandate.

The fluid and relaxed nature of the retreat fosters a restorative, supportive, and meaningful environment for busy writers juggling production commitments, deadlines, and freelance schedules. Resources are available for collaborating colleagues to participate in project development (including readings and workshops). There are no requirements for artists to showcase or share their work. Retreat artists have access to Princeton University's library and McCarter's artistic staff provides dramaturgical and casting support as needed. Connecting with colleagues over intimate dinners and outdoor activities-along with personal writing time in a spectacular setting-has proven to be creatively inspiring and rejuvenating.

Past retreat artists and works developed in residence include: Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brother/Sister Plays; Sarah Ruhl's Clean House; Danai Gurira's The Convert; Christopher Durang's Miss Witherspoon; Will Power's Fetch Clay, Make Man; Beth Henley's Ridiculous Fraud; Lydia Diamond's Stick Fly; and Take Flight by John Weidman, David Shire, and Richard Maltby, Jr.

About the retreat, McCarter's Artistic Director and Resident Playwright Emily Mann said, "The future of the American Theater depends wholly on supporting artists engaged in the creation of new work. Championing the next generation of playwrights has been a significant touchstone during my time at McCarter, one of which I am extremely proud. McCarter has maintained an impressive track record in commissioning and producing new plays that make a lasting contribution to the theatrical canon, and the Sallie B. Goodman Artists' Retreat is central to our success."

The LAB is a year-round creative incubator that provides key support to writers at all stages of their careers, cultivating meaningful artistic relationships and original works for McCarter's main stages. Fostering the development of new plays, adaptations, musicals, and investigations into the classics, the LAB consists of readings, workshops, the Sallie B. Goodman Artists' Retreat, commissions, and the annual Spotlight Production. Original work developed at McCarter has included pieces by such renowned playwrights as Christopher Durang, Danai Gurira, Nilo Cruz, Nathan Alan Davis, and more. For more information: www.mccarter.org/lab.

The Artists' Retreat is named for Sallie Brophy Goodman, a friend and supporter of McCarter Theatre Center for 40 years before her death in 2007. Goodman graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in 1950, and her arrival in New York coincided with the ''golden age'' of American television. She worked with actors ranging from Jack Lemmon to Cliff Robertson, and directors from Sidney Lumet to Arthur Penn. On Broadway, she appeared in The Second Threshold and played Wendy, grown-up, in the 1954 Broadway musical Peter Pan with Mary Martin. In 1958 she starred in her own series, Buckskin, a Western. She had a featured role in the 1961 film The Children's Hour with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, which won 5 Academy Awards. She also appeared in the film Storm Center with Bette Davis. She married Jerry Goodman in 1961, and when the couple moved to Princeton in 1965, she directed student productions at Theatre Intime on the Princeton campus. She taught theater and acting for 20 years at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ. The Sallie B. Goodman Artists' Retreat honors her legacy by supporting theater artists who choose to practice their craft in a not-for-profit environment.

César Alvarez is a New York-based composer, lyricist, playwright, and performance maker. César has written five full-length musicals: FUTURITY (Soho Rep/Ars Nova, A.R.T, Walker Art Center, Mass MoCA); The Elementary Spacetime Show (Polyphone, FringeArts/UArts, NYU/Playwrights Horizons Theater School); The Universe is a Small Hat, a multi-player participatory musical (Berkeley Rep Ground Floor, The Civilians R&D Group, Babycastles, Sarah Lawrence College. Upcoming: Princeton University); NOISE (a commission of The Public Theater and NYU/Playwrights Horizons Theater School); and The Potluck. César's musical FUTURITY received the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Musical and four other Lortel Nominations. César also composed the music for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon (Soho Rep, TFANA. Drama Desk Nomination) and The Foundry Theater's Good Person of Szechwan (LaMaMa, The Public Theater. Drama Desk Nomination). César is a 2018-20 Princeton Arts Fellow and a recipient of The Jonathan Larson Award. www.musicisfreenow.org

John Augustine's plays have been produced in NYC at The Zipper, HERE, Naked Angels, Expanded Arts, Miranda Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and 59E59 Theaters. His anthology of 20 short plays, Augustine's Confessions, is published by Playscripts.com. He is also published in the short play anthologies Take Ten and Best American Short Plays. His play PeopleSpeak is published in Shorter, Faster, Funnier. For television, Augustine wrote for the Fox TV show Titus and for Encore! Encore! with Nathan Lane and Joan Plowright. He is half of "Dawne" in the satiric nightclub act Chris Durang and Dawne, which has played at the Criterion Center, Caroline's Comedy Club, Williamstown Summer Cabaret, and the Triad, winning a 1996 Bistro Award. For the Bucks County Playhouse, he was in Sondheim's Company directed by Hunter Foster and starring Justin Guarini. And recently he performed a story about his DNA at ArtYard's "crankie" Event (a Crankie is an old 19th c. storytelling art form). Ask him about it. Or Mr. Google. www.JohnAugustine.net

Rachel Bonds' plays have been developed or produced by Ars Nova, WP Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, McCarter Theatre Center, Roundabout Underground, Atlantic Theater Company, South Coast Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Studio Theatre, EST, Actors Theatre of Louisville, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and New York Stage & Film, among others. Her plays include: Goodnight Nobody (Upcoming McCarter); Curve of Departure (SCR, Studio, Northlight); Sundown, Yellow Moon, with music by The Bengsons (Ars Nova/WP, Raven Theatre); Five Mile Lake (SCR, McCarter, Shattered Globe, Weissberger Award); At the Old Place (La Jolla); Swimmers (Marin Theatre Co., Sky Cooper Prize); The Wolfe Twins (Studio); Alma (Atlantic Theatre Company commission); Firecracker; Michael & Edie (NY Times Critic's Pick, 2010); Winter Games (ATL, Heideman Award); and Anniversary (EST, Sam French OOB Festival Winner). She is an Alumna of the EST/Youngblood, Ars Nova's Play Group and SPACE on Ryder Farm's Working Farm Writers' Group. She was also the Tow Foundation Playwright in Residence at Ars Nova. Commissions in-progress include The Geffen, with composer Zoe Sarnak, and Wordsmith Duo with David Auburn for "Playing on Air." Bonds is a graduate of Brown University.

Donnetta Lavinia Grays-raised in Columbia, South Carolina-is a Brooklyn-based playwright and actor. Plays include Where We Stand (Upcoming World Premiere Co-production - WP Theater and Baltimore Center Stage. O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist.), Last Night and the Night Before (World Premiere - Denver Center for the Performing Arts; Kilroys List; Colorado New Play Summit; NNPN Showcase; Todd McNerney National Playwriting Award; O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist), Laid To Rest (Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow Finalist; O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference Finalist; Kilroys List Honorable Mention; Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep; SPACE on Ryder Farm Creative Residency), and The Review (WP Pipeline Festival; O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference Finalist). Alumna of SPACE on Ryder Farm Working Farm Residency, Time Warner Foundation WP Playwrights Lab, Civilians R&D Group, Actors Studio Playwright/Directors Unit, and terraNova Collective's Groundbreakers Playwright group. Inaugural recipient of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. Development with New Harmony Project, Berkeley Rep, Labyrinth Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Portland Stage Company, Pure Theatre, Naked Angels, and Classical Theater of Harlem. Commissions with Theaterworks USA, The Public Theater's Mobile Unit, Denver Center, and WP Theater. Staff Writer for TV's Manhunt: Lone Wolf. www.gaptoothedgriot.com

Denis O'Hare is an actor and writer who hails from Kansas City, MO and the Detroit area. Denis was a poetry and theatre major at Northwestern University and earned a BS degree in Speech. He has appeared in numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway productions and has won numerous awards including a Tony award for Take Me Out, a Drama Desk for Sweet Charity, and a Lucille Lortel and an Obie for An Iliad. He has appeared in many films, including Dallas Buyer's Club, The Normal Heart, Charlie Wilson's War, Milk, Michael Clayton, Garden State, Late Night, and the upcoming The Goldfinch. His T.V. work includes many Law and Order episodes, two seasons on True Blood, five seasons on American Horror Story, two seasons on This Is Us, and he can currently be seen in HBO's Big Little Lies. He can be heard on John Cameron Mitchell's hit podcast Homunculus. As a writer, Denis is co-author along with Lisa Peterson of An Iliad and The Good Book (recently seen at Berkeley Rep). The Song of Rome marks their third collaboration. Mr. O'Hare's first movie, The Parting Glass, will be available on iTunes and VOD in September 2019. Denis, his husband Hugo Redwood and their son Declan live happily in Paris, France.

Lisa Peterson is a two-time Obie Award-winning writer and director. With Denis O'Hare, she wrote An Iliad, based on Homer's epic, which won Obie and Lortel Awards for Best Solo Performance and played at the McCarter and New York Theatre Workshop, as well as theaters around the country; in fact, Lisa and Denis still tour An Iliad around the world. Recent new work includes The Good Book (also written with Denis O'Hare) at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The Waves (adapted from Virginia Woolf by Peterson and composers David Bucknam/Adam Gwon at New York Stage & Film). At McCarter, Peterson directed Shaw's Candida, Beth Henley's Ridiculous Fraud, and Polly Pen's Night Governess. She has directed world premieres by major American writers including Tony Kushner, Beth Henley, Donald Margulies, Naomi Wallace, José Rivera, David Henry Hwang, Luis Alfaro, Marlane Meyer, Basil Kreimendahl, Chay Yew, and many others. She regularly works at the Guthrie Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Mark Taper Forum (Resident Director 1995-2005), La Jolla Playhouse (Associate Director 1992-1995), Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, and New York Theater Workshop. Lisa is also writing a new music-theatre piece with Todd Almond called The Idea of Order, co-commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, and Seattle Rep.

Jiehae Park's plays include peerless (Yale Rep premiere, upcoming in NY at Primary Stages), Hannah and the Dread Gazebo (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Here We Are Here (Sundance Theater-Makers residency, Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, Princess Grace Works-in-Progress @ Baryshnikov Arts Center), The Aves (McCarter Spotlight Festival) and contributions to Wondrous Strange (Humana/Actor's Theatre of Louisville). Her work has been developed through the Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab, The Public's Emerging Writers Group, P73, Playwrights Horizons, NYTW, Atlantic, Old Globe, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, Ojai, BAPF, CTG Writers Workshop, Banff Playwrights Lab, ACT New Strands, and Ma-Yi Writers Lab. Awards: Leah Ryan, Princess Grace, Weissberger, ANPF Women's Invitational; two years on the Kilroys List. Commissions: Playwrights Horizons, Yale Rep, Geffen, OSF, Williamstown, MTC/Sloan. Residencies: MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, McCarter/Sallie B. Goodman. She is a NYTW Usual Suspect, Lincoln Center New Writer in Residence, former Hodder Fellow, and current New Dramatists Resident Playwright. As a performer recently: Ripe Time/Naomi Iizuka's adaptation of Haruki Murakami's Sleep (BAM Next Wave, Yale Rep); Celine Song's Endlings (A.R.T.). She was a staff writer on season one of Marvel's Runaways and currently teaches Playwriting at Princeton University. BA, Amherst; MFA, UCSD.

Max Posner's most recent play The Treasurer premiered at Playwrights Horizons directed by David Cromer (NYT and TimeOut Critic's pick, Vulture's Best Theater of 2017). He made his Off-Broadway debut in 2015 with Judy (Page 73, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll). Other recent productions include: Sisters on the Ground (Tisch), Snore (Juilliard), Gun Logistics (Drama League). Awards: Edgerton New Play Award, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, Heideman Award, two Lecomte du Nouy awards from Lincoln Center. He is a two-time MacDowell Colony Fellow, a Sundance Institute Theatre Fellow, a P73 Fellow, runner-up for the Relentless Award and former Writer-In-Residence at Williamstown. Alum: Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Ars Nova Playgroup, The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm. Max is working on new play commissions for Williamstown Theater Festival, The Denver Center Theater Company, Lincoln Center Theater and Manhattan Theater Club. He is a graduate of Brown and Juilliard's playwriting program. Max was born and raised in Denver and lives in Brooklyn. His plays are published and licensed by Dramatists Play Service.

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, and writer of other things. Her ten plays include In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play, The Clean House, and Eurydice. She has been a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Tony Award nominee and the recipient of the MacArthur "genius" Fellowship. Her plays have been produced on and off-Broadway, around the country, internationally, and have been translated into over fifteen languages. Her book 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write was a Times Notable Book of the Year. She has received the Steinberg Award, a Sam French award, Feminist Press under 40 award, the Playwright of the Year from the National Theatre Conference, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Whiting Award, the Lily Award, and a PEN award for mid-career playwrights. You can read more about her work at www.SarahRuhlplaywright.com. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and she lives in Brooklyn with her children and her husband, Tony Charuvastra, who is a child psychiatrist.

Lucy Simon began her professional career at age 16 with her sister Carly as part of The Simon Sisters. She made her Broadway debut in 1991 as the composer of The Secret Garden. which continues to enjoy success in theaters and concert halls around the World. It will have a Broadway revival next season. Ms. Simon wrote and produced the songs and soundtrack for the multi-award winning HBO movie, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom, and received two Grammy Awards for her In Harmony albums, which she co-wrote and produced. Ms. Simon composed the music for the stage musical of Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize winning novel Doctor Zhivago, produced on Broadway in 2015 after a successful, award-winning production in Australia in 2011 starring Anthony Warlow.