Jojo Ruf News

The Welders, a DC-based playwrights' collective whose mission is to establish an evolving, alternative platform for play development and production, today announced the members of its Board of Directors. The nine-member board of area professionals will advise, lead, and counsel the collective of DC playwrights.

Five Washington-based playwrights have formed a new playwrights' collective dedicated exclusively to developing and producing new work. The Welders' inaugural members-playwrights Bob Bartlett, Renee Calarco, Allyson Currin, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, and Gwydion Suilebhan and Executive and Creative Director Jojo Ruf-will write, develop, and produce new plays over the course of the next three years. After their three-year term is complete, the five playwrights will give The Welders' entire operations-everything from the logo to the checking account-to a new generation of five playwrights, who will carry The Welders forward for another three years, and so on into the foreseeable future.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, has named Nan Barnett as the new Executive Director.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, will produce six American and two Australian new plays in staged reading format at its National Showcase of New Plays, hosted November 29 - December 2 in Washington, DC by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.