Donja R. Love and National Queer Theater Announces WRITE IT OUT! A Free Virtual Playwriting Workshop

Donja R. Love and National Queer Theater has announced the 2022 Write It Out! program, a 10-week virtual playwriting workshop designed to help people living with HIV sharpen their playwriting skills as they find and develop their voices.

The free program aims to create a community for people of similar lived experiences to express themselves freely while amplifying the visibility of those living with HIV in theater in tandem. Following the conclusion of the workshop, a final sharing of playwrights' short plays, read by professional actors, will be held on Zoom on World AIDS Day, December 1st, at 7 pm EST.

Confidential applications for the 2022 cohort opened on July 15th at www.letswriteitout.com. Applicants can submit a writing sample of up to 10-pages. The deadline to submit an application for the Write It Out! program is August 8th at midnight ET.

Write It Out! is created and led under the direction of Love, an award-winning playwright living with HIV, arts educator, and HIV advocate. Love is the recipient of the Antonyo Awards' inaugural Langston Hughes Award, the Helen Merrill Award, the Terrence McNally Award, and the Princess Grace Playwriting Award. Other honors include The Lark's Van Lier New Voices Fellowship, the Playwrights Realm's Writing Fellowship, and the Philadelphia Adult Grand Slam Poetry Championship. He is the co-founder of The Each-Other Project, an organization that helps build community and provide visibility, through art and advocacy, for LGBTQ+ People of Color. Plays include soft (MCC), one in two (The New Group), Fireflies(Atlantic Theater Company), Sugar in Our Wounds (Manhattan Theatre Club, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Nominations), and What Will Happen to All That Beauty?. Love is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at The Juilliard School.

Love started the program in 2019 as a means of counteracting the loneliness oftentimes experienced by those living with HIV, which he himself has encountered firsthand. According to Love, outdated stigmas that still linger in today's society often contribute to many living with HIV battling feelings of isolation, depression and anxiety. By navigating these feelings and expressing them through creativity, Love has found strength and greater confidence through both his Queer and HIV-positive journeys. In creating Write It Out!, he hopes to offer a safe space and resources for other people living with HIV to freely express themselves, build community and amplify their artistry.

"With how writing helped me navigate my status after diagnosis, I started Write It Out! as a way for people living with HIV to be in a creative space void of shame and stigma, to be in a community," said Love. "Now in its third year, I realize Write It Out! is more than just a writing workshop. It's a family that helps people grow as artists and people living with HIV.

Dwayne, an alumnus living with HIV whose last name will remain confidential, describes the annual workshop as "life-altering."

"Write It Out! has been life-altering for me; effectively changing the trajectory of my life as an artist, and my outlook on living with HIV," said Dwayne. "Completing writing prompts that encourage us to be honest and transparent, under the excellent guidance of Donja, while connecting to fellow artists of different backgrounds but a shared lived experience, was exactly what I needed at that moment in my life. I am so grateful for Write It Out! and the community that it has built."

In addition to the annual workshop, in 2021, Write It Out! awarded a $5,000 cash prize to Dominic Colón, a playwright living with HIV, for his work The War I Know. The prize, which honors and holds space for writers living with HIV and working in the American Theater, was funded by Emmy Award-winning actor Billy Porter, known for his roles on the hit TV show Pose and the musical Kinky Boots, and includes additional support from LGBTQ nonprofit GLAAD to hire a dramaturg in order to develop new work.

Along with Love and National Queer Theater, Write It Out! is presented in partnership with Pride Plays, Mobilizing Our Brothers Initiative, and The Each-Other Project, with the support of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

"Write It Out! fights the pervasive stigma around HIV through the community-building inherent in making theater. While the program is therapeutic, it is also fun and creative, which makes its impact so much more profound than a support group. National Queer Theater is proud to be a partner on this incredible initiative, which continues growing every year under Donja R. Love's leadership," said Adam Odsess-Rubin, Founding Artistic Director of NQT.

For more information about Write It Out!, visit www.letswriteitout.com.

For more information about National Queer Theater, visit www.nationalqueertheater.org.

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