Kennedy Named A Hutchins Family Fellow
Cambridge, MA – Guild member ADRIENNE KENNEDY has been named the second (non-resident) Hutchins Family Fellow at the Du Bois Research Institute for the 2016-17 academic year. Her project is titled Discovering What A Writer is: Exploration of 1929 Atlanta University Scrapbook of my mother Etta Hawkins.
The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research supports research on the history and culture of people of African descent all over the world and provides a forum for collaboration and the ongoing exchange of ideas. It seeks to stimulate scholarly engagement in African and African American studies both at Harvard and beyond, and to increase public awareness and understanding of this vital field of study. As the preeminent research center in the field, the Hutchins Center sponsors visiting fellows, art exhibitions, publications, research projects, archives, readings, conferences, and new media initiatives that respond to and excite interest in established and emerging channels of inquiry in African and African American research.
Winners of The Dresser DVD
New York, NY – We had two winners in our History Issue trivia contest. Bradley Beckman was the first correct answer to the following question in the September/October 2016 issue: “Who was the illustrator of The Dramatists Guild Quarterly?” The answer is Tom Funk. And Abigail Taylor-Sansom was the first correct answer to our Twitter trivia question: “Which two plays led to the formation of the Provincetown Players?” The answer is Constancy and Suppressed Desires.
Each winner received a DVD of the BBC production of the STARZ Original movie, The Dresser, by Ronald Harwood from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Digital HD from Starz Digital.
Tina Fallon Is The Guild’s New Executive Director of Creative Affairs
New York, NY – The Guild is pleased to announce Tina Fallon as its new Executive Director of Creative Affairs. She succeeds Gary Garrison, who recently retired from the position after a ten-year tenure.
Guild President Doug Wright says, “It’s a bittersweet time at the Guild; we’re saying a very fond and heartfelt “farewell” to Gary Garrison as our exemplary Executive Director of Creative Affairs. In the same breath, we are very pleased to welcome the dynamic, inventive Tina Fallon to his post. Tina promises to continue Gary’s remarkable work, and make thrilling new contributions to better the lives and work of Dramatists Guild members.”
Fallon is a New York-based producer, arts advocate, and the founding producer of The 24 Hour Plays.
Since 1995, Ms. Fallon and The 24 Hour Company have produced The 24 Hour Plays and The 24 Hour Musicals, often as charity benefits for The Old Vic, Atlantic Theater Company, Urban Arts Partnership, Dublin Youth Theatre, The Orchard Project, The William Inge Festival, and Finland’s Teatterifestivaali Lainsuojattomat, among others. The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway is now in its sixteenth year.
As a young producer in Los Angeles, Ms. Fallon worked with Theatre 40, FreightTrain Shakespeare, and the L.A. Rep. She returned to New York and co-founded Crux Productions. As a director, Ms. Fallon led the first workshop production of Will Eno’s Tragedy: a tragedy and the world premiere of Linell Ajello’s Lonely Comet at the Ohio Theater’s Ice Factory Festival. She produced independent film, television, and commercials. As a scenic carpenter, technical director and production manager, she spent years in the trenches—sometimes literally off and off-off-Broadway, working for the Atlantic, Primary Stages, WPA, New Georges, the Kitchen, La MaMa, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, the Theatorium, Galapagos Art Space and more.
In London, Ms. Fallon co-created The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic/New Voices, an education and early career development program for emerging artists. Filmmaker Chris Terrill chronicled the process in a 2005 documentary, Extreme Theatre.
She teamed with The New School for Drama to bring the program to New York, through its outreach to high schools, conservatories, colleges and universities, The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals now reaches thousands of students each year. Ms. Fallon has led workshops for Q-teatteri, Teatteri Takomo and Helsinki Theatre Academy in Finland, Old Vic/New Voices in London, and Urban Arts Partnership in New York.
Fallon is on the advisory boards of The New School for Drama and Cora Dance. She has been a presenter at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and The Association for Theatre in Higher Education, a judge for the KCACTF Irene Ryan Awards, and a panelist for The Kevin Spacey Foundation Artists of Choice.
She received a Lilly Award for Grace Under Pressure in 2011, and was named one of New York Moves Power Women of 2005. Her work has been profiled in The New York Times, Paper, and American Theatre. She is a graduate of Lang College and lives with her family in Brooklyn and Greenport.
Maazel Wins 2016 International MUT Competition
Munich, Germany – On July 23, 2016, Guild member ILANN M. MAAZEL was awarded the Jury Prize and €5,000 in the 2016 International MUT Competition for Musical Entertainment Theatre Author’s Competition organized by the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz. Maazel won for his musical Believe Me, for which he wrote the book, music, and lyrics. Six finalists were selected from blind submissions by an international jury of specialists, made up of artistic directors, dramaturgy experts, publishers and famous authors from the German and international music theatre scene.
The 2016 Edgerton Foundation
New Play Awards Announced
New York, NY – Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, announced the recipients of the first round of the 2016 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards. The awards, totaling $580,000, allow fifteen productions extra time in the development and rehearsal of new plays with the entire creative team, helping to extend the life of the play after its first run. Two more rounds of recipients will be announced later this year.
2016 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards were presented to the following productions by Guild members: The Prom, book by CHAD BEGUELIN and BOB MARTIN, lyrics by CHAD BEGUELIN, music by MATTHEW SKLAR, Alliance Theatre; Way of the World by THERESA REBECK, Dorset Theatre Festival; The Fundamentals by ERIKA SHEFFER, Steppenwolf Theatre Company; Queen by MADHURI SHEKAR, Victory Gardens Theater; Cost of Living by MARTYNA MAJOK, Williamstown Theatre Festival; Romance Novels for Dummies by BOO KILLEBREW, Williamstown Theatre Festival; Poster Boy by CRAIG CARNELIA and Joe Tracz, Williamstown Theatre Festival; and Scenes from Court Life (or The Whipping Boy and his Prince) by SARAH RUHL, Yale Repertory Theatre.
TCG Member Theatres with a strong and consistent track record of producing new work are invited by the foundation to submit letters of inquiry to plays@edgertonfoundation.org. A panel of readers reviews the plays and one-time grants ranging from $5,000 to $75,000 are awarded.
The Edgerton Foundation New Plays Program, directed by Brad and Louise Edgerton, was piloted in 2006 with the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles by offering two musicals in development an extended rehearsal period for the entire creative team, including the playwrights. The Edgertons launched the program nationally in 2007 and have supported 297 plays to date at over 50 different Art Theatres across the country. The Edgerton Foundation received the 2011 TCG National Funder Award in June in Los Angeles.
Durang Named Ingram New Works Fellow
Nashville, TN – Nashville Repertory Theatre announced that DG Council member CHRISTOPHER DURANG will join the Ingram New Works Project as the Ingram New Works Playwriting Fellow for the 2016-17 season.
This project culminates in the Ingram New Works Festival, a celebration of all five new plays fostered in the program that season. The plays are performed as staged readings with professional Nashville actors and are an opportunity for Nashville audiences to be a part of this exciting process. This season’s festival is slated to run May 10-20, 2017.
Past Fellowship recipients include DAVID AUBURN, JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY, THERESA REBECK, DOUG WRIGHT, DONALD MARGULIES, and REBECCA GILMAN.
The Ingram New Works Project is a locally valued and nationally recognized new play development program that cultivates and amplifies new voices for the stage and expands the creative capacity of Nashville by connecting artists and audiences across extraordinary new works.
Correction
The photos of Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter on pages 26 and 27 of the 2016 Season In Review issue of The Dramatist are from the Primary Stages production of In The Continuum which toured to Yale. Our apologies for not acknowledging Primary Stages
