New York Theatre Workshop Announces Intergenerational Playwriting Program

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced the start of "Mind the Gap," a new intergenerational playwriting workshop, as part of the theatre's education program.

With seven participants over the age of 60 and seven high school students, "Mind the Gap" teaches playwriting skills and hopes to foster better communication and understanding between these two groups. Through the course of the workshop, participants from each group will work in pairs to write plays based on interviews with each other, culminating with the work being read by professional actors. The ethnically and socio-economically diverse participants in this pilot project range in age from 13 to 84.Classes are taught by emerging playwrights, Alex Lewin and Chris Pena, both MFAs in playwriting and both associated with New York Theatre Workshop as Playwriting Fellows. Caroline Reddick Lawson, NYTW's Director of Education, oversees the workshop, which runs through March 24.

"Mind the Gap" is the newest component in a multidisciplinary theatre education program that supports development as artists and audiences by critically engaging participants in the artistic process and production of new and challenging work. NYTW's leading school partner is Lower Manhattan Arts Academy (LoMA), a small public high school on the Lower East Side founded in the fall of 2005 and designated an "Empowerment School" by the New York City Department of Education. NYTW provides in-school residencies for LoMA taught by teaching artists and NYTW staff, as well as subsidized tickets for NYTW student matinees. LoMA drama majors attend monthly mentoring workshops at NYTW to learn about all aspects of theatre production. In addition, NYTW has an extensive internship program for high school, college and post-college students.. NYTW also provides fellowships for Emerging Artists of Color to be affiliated with the Workshop in either one-year part-time fellowships or two-year full-time fellowships. A range of public programs in connection with the Workshop's season of performances are offered yearly, as well, such as AfterWords discussions following performances and panel discussions about topics presented on stage.

New York Theatre Workshop, now celebrating its 26th season, is a leading voice in the world of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. NYTW has emerged as a premiere incubator of important new theatre, honoring its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape our lives. In addition, NYTW is known for its innovative adaptations of classic repertory. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village neighborhood, NYTW presents four to six new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 60,000 audience members. Over the past twenty-five years, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent, Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Doug Wright's Quills, Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, and Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number. The 2002 remounting of Martha Clarke's seminal work Vienna: Lusthaus and subsequent American tour was one of the longest-running productions in NYTW's history. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies, and minority artist fellowships. In 1991, NYTW received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement and in 2000 was designated to be part of the Leading National Theatres Program by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

 

 

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