National Playwriting Month is complete, and End of Play.® 2023 is in the books. Melissa breaks down how the experience was for her, and some key things she learned about herself and her own playwriting process. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Melissa began the project with a major facepalm moment
• Her biggest game-changer when it comes to research
• How Melissa made the most of the multiple silent writing sessions and did it her own way
• The workshops and EOP activities she attended

And more!

Resources + People Mentioned

End of Play.® with Lily Dwoskin & Jordan Stovall from the Dramatists Guild (Ep. 23)
End of Play.®
Dramatists Guild
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
C. Julian Jiménez
Lucy Wang

Connect with host Melissa Schmitz
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Nan Barnett returns! We are thrilled to have her back because there was so much more to talk about after the last conversation. This time Nan reveals more about her personal story and some of the sacrifices she's made for her work.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What NNPN is focused on in terms of equity and diversity
• Post-pandemic trends she's seeing in the theatre industry
• What 24 seasons of producing new work at Florida Stage taught her about theatre-making

And more!

Resources Mentioned
Episode 9 with Nan Barnett
National New Play Network
New Play Exchange

About Our Guest

Nan Barnett is a new play developer and producer and an advocate for theater-makers and the theater they make. She is the Executive Director of National New Play Network, the country’s alliance of theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays. While on NNPN’s Executive Committee she worked to create the organization’s revolutionary Rolling World Premiere and Residency programs. She came to the Network full-time in 2013 and guided it through the development and launch of its field-altering database, the New Play Exchange ®, now home to more than 51,000 plays by living writers, and its recent planning process, which resulted in the organization’s much-lauded new governance and membership structure and plan for leading the field towards a truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive new play ecosystem. Nan spent 24 seasons at Florida Stage, a LORT theater producing exclusively new and developing work, was a member of the inaugural Helen Hayes Awards’ New Play Panel for the nation’s capital region and Coordinating Producer for the 2015 and 2018 iterations of DC’s Women’s Voices Theater Festival. She serves on the Artistic Council of the O’Neill Theater Center and was inducted into the National Theatre Conference in 2017.

Connect with Our Guest

National New Play Network

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Shakespeare's birthday is coming up, and this week Melissa talks to Oregon Shakespeare Festival's former Director of New Play Development Lue Douthit about the giant playwriting project known as Play On Shakespeare. Grab a Mounds bar and learn how she helped usher the Bard into the 21st Century. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Play On Shakespeare is and does and how the project came to be
• Why they are called Shakespeare translations
• What's happening now that all 39 plays have been written
• The various educational possibilities for the translations

And more!

Resources Mentioned

Play On Shakespeare
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Play On Shakespeare Podcast
Research in Action at Shakespeare's Globe in July 2023

Order the plays at ACMRS Press

About Our Guest

Lue Morgan Douthit is the President/Co-Founder of Play on Shakespeare. Prior to that, she spent 25 seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where she was director of new play development and dramaturgy. She also was the Production Dramaturg for more than 50 productions, including 15 world premieres: Hannah and the Dread Gazebo, Head Over Heels; A Wrinkle in Time; Family Album; The Unfortunates; The Tenth Muse; WillFul; Throne of Blood; Equivocation; Don Quixote; Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter; Tracy’s Tiger; By the Waters of Babylon; Continental Divide; and The Magic Fire. She has worked on over a dozen Shakespeare productions, including co-adapting a six-actor Macbeth and seven-actor Measure for Measure, which were both produced at OSF and elsewhere. She was the co-producer and founder of the Black Swan Lab (2009) at OSF and subsequently produced the Lab until 2016. Lue is the recipient of the 1999 Literary Manager & Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) Prize in Dramaturgy and The Elliott Hayes Award for her work on Lorraine Hansberry’s play Les Blancs. She received her PhD from the University of Washington, her MFA from Trinity University, and her MA from University of Arizona.

Connect with host Melissa Schmitz
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Amy Wheeler and Paul Kruse, the masterminds behind Play Club, stop by to talk about this new project (prepare for some major name drops) and which of them hails from Melissa's hometown.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Play Club is, how it works, and why they started it
• The education initiatives Play Club has begun and will expand upon
• Why Amy knows literally everyone in the theatre community 

And more!

Resources Mentioned
Play Club
Hedgebrook
Fresh Fruit Festival

About Our Guests

Amy Wheeler is a nationally produced playwright, educator, speaker and nonprofit leader. Wheeler led the beloved Whidbey Island nonprofit Hedgebrook for many years, evolving it into a global community of influential female-identified writers authoring change in the arts, culture and social justice. Celebrating the culmination of her tenure in 2020, Seattle Arts & Lectures recognized Wheeler with the Prowda Literary Champion Award for “demonstrating true commitment to the Pacific Northwest’s community of readers and writers.” She holds an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts, an MFA from the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and she studied acting at University of Kansas and in NY. Wheeler’s front burner project is The Last Babushka, a musical she’s creating with first generation Ukrainian-American composer Natalie Nowytski about women living in Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone. She founded Play Club: A Book Club with a Theatrical Twist, a venture that’s growing into a movement. Play Club’s community is a cross-generational audience from across the country who are reading, discussing and going to see contemporary plays together. Amy’s father Jim passed away during the pandemic. Play Club is imbued with his spirit, love of community and conversation.

Paul William Kruse tells Queer love stories. As a playwright and media artist from Western Wisconsin, his work flows from his Catholic roots and ever-evolving experience of family. Paul often writes collaboratively, drawing from his years of experience as a videographer and documentarian. He is a cohort member of Audible’s third Emerging Playwrights Fund, and his audio play Once Removed was an official selection a

Connect with host Melissa Schmitz
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Ways to support the show:
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Eric Coble is back to answer all the playwriting & adaptation questions that Melissa wanted to ask in Episode 1. (If you haven't listened to that one yet, go check it out!)

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Hollywood can put an already-written stage adaptation on hold indefinitely
• If a playwright really needs to live in New York to get work and make a living
• Eric's mountain metaphor as it relates to writing a new play
• Advice for emerging playwrights

And more!

Resources Mentioned
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus LIVE!
Dramatists Guild

About Our Guest
Eric Coble was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and raised on the Navajo and Ute reservations in New Mexico and Colorado. His scripts have been produced on Broadway (Tony-and Pulitzer-nominated The Velocity of Autumn), Off-Broadway (Bright Ideas, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, Side Effects May Include…), in Disney Theme Parks (Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple), in all fifty states of the U.S., and on several continents, including productions at Manhattan Class Company, The Kennedy Center, Playwrights Horizons, Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company, Arena Stage, South Coast Rep, Cleveland Play House, Alliance Theatre, New York and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, Habima Theatre (Israel), Pentacion Productions (Spain), Teatr Polski (Poland), Orange Row (Mexico), and the Contemporary American Theatre Festival (U.S.).

Awards include two AATE Distinguished Play Awards for Best Adaptation, an Emmy nomination, the Chorpenning Playwriting Award for Body of Work, the AT&T Onstage Award, National Theatre Conference Playwriting Award, an NEA Playwright in Residence Grant, a TCG Extended Collaboration Grant, the Cleveland Arts Prize, two Cuyahoga Arts and Culture Fellowships, and four Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants. Thirty of Mr. Coble’s scripts have been published by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, Dramatic Publishing, Smith & Krause and others.

Connect with Our Guest
Eric's website
Read Eric's plays on New Play Exchange
F

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National Playwriting Month is approaching, and that means it's time for End of Play.®, the Dramatists Guild's annual month-long writing challenge for Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists, and Librettists. Guild staff members Lily Dwoskin and Jordan Stovall stop by to tell us about their work at the Guild and all things End of Play.®.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What End of Play.® is and who can participate (Hint: anyone and everyone!)
• How working at the Guild helped Lily become a better advocate for her own work
• How the pandemic has changed the way drag & musical theatre are created & consumed

Resources Mentioned
End of Play.®
Dramatists Guild
AWP
Follow the DG on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram

About Our Guests
Lily Dwoskin is a bookwriter, lyricist, & playwright based in New York. Her bookwriter/lyricist credits include Off Broadway: Turtle On A Fencepost at Theater 555 & The Scarlet Savior at St. Luke's Theatre. Other credits include: Hyena in Petticoats and The Aviatrix. Lily works for & is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America and has worked as a director, dramaturg, teaching artist & stage manager. lilydwoskin.com |  NPX | IG

Jordan Stovall is a playwright, arts administrator, & drag artist known as Wanda Whatever. They presently serve as the Director of Outreach & Institutional Partnerships for the Dramatists Guild, where they have worked since 2016. Their plays have been shortlisted & selected as Finalists for the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Festival and Relentless Award, with productions in London and the US. As a drag artist, they are the founding producer of Boulangerie; and Fussy, a series of queer community gatherings. jordanstovall.com |  NPX

Connect with host Melissa Schmitz
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Ways to support the show:
- Buy Me a Coffee
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This week Melissa is joined by her brilliant friend Alex Mallory to talk about her original translation and adaptation of Frank Wedekind's German play, Spring Awakening, which she also produced as an MFA Directing student. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why Alex decided to write this adaptation for her MFA Directing Lab (when she really didn't have to)
• What was missing from other English translations of Spring Awakening that prompted Alex to write her own
• What German translations Alex wants to tackle in the future
• How community-building is the cornerstone of Alex's love of theatre

And more!

Resources Mentioned

The Metal Shop Performance Lab
DE-CRUIT

About Our Guest

Alex Mallory is the director of The Metal Shop Performance Lab, founded with the mission to create theatrical events that foster radical community-building and authentic exchange between artists and audiences. She uses intersectional, anti-oppressive rehearsal processes to create conditions for productive conversations on personal and collective histories of violence in both rehearsal and performance spaces. Alex’s directing work investigates personal and political agency and examines the resilience of the mind and body through human connection. Alex also facilitates healing-centered engagement for military veterans as the Chicago Regional Coordinator for DE-CRUIT. She has worked with the veteran community for over a decade with the Veteran Artist Program, The Telling Project, and as director of Takeo Rivera’s choreopoem Goliath, which toured for seven years in New York and California. Alex has served as Co-Artistic Director of Poetic Theater Productions and as Director of Culture Project’s Women Center Stage Initiative. She has an MFA from Northwestern University and a BA from Stanford University. Alex is an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Connect with Our Guest

alexmallory.com 

For Spring Awakening  inquiries, email [email protected] 

Connect with host Melissa Schmitz
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Ways to support the show:
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- Tell us your thoughts in our Listener Survey!
- Give a 5-Star rating
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The enchanting Kate Scelsa stops by the podcast to talk about her hilarious parody adaptation titled Everyone's Fine With Virginia Woolf.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How her play was a love letter to Albee's classic, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and that it was also written bespoke for actors at Elevator Repair Service
• Just how much Kate is obsessed with WAOVW, particularly the character of Martha
• The abundance of Easter eggs and the annotated list she provides in the script
• What writers can do to cope with rejection

And more!

Resources Mentioned
Everyone's Fine With Virginia Woolf
Elevator Repair Service Theater
Luminary: A Magical Guide to Self-Care
Improbable Magic for Cynical Witches
SNL Skit - "Dinner with the Dean"

About Our Guest
Kate Scelsa is a novelist, playwright, and songwriter. Her debut young adult novel Fans of the Impossible Life was a Fall 2015 Indie Next pick, a Junior Library Guild pick, a 2016 Rainbow List Top Ten Pick, and has been published in ten languages. She is also the author of Improbable Magic for Cynical Witches, a new YA novel from HarperCollins/Balzer+Bray, and Luminary: A Magical Guide to Self-Care from Simon & Schuster. A recipient of a Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant for playwriting, Kate has worked for many years with New York experimental theater company Elevator Repair Service, including a decade spent performing in “Gatz,” their eight-hour-long version of The Great Gatsby. Her play Everyone's Fine with Virginia Woolf was produced in NYC and Dublin in 2018 and has been published by Dramatists Play Service. Kate also writes songs and performs

Connect with host Melissa Schmitz
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Ways to support the show:
- Buy Me a Coffee
- Tell us your thoughts in our Listener Survey!
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Creators: Host your podcast through Buzzsprout using my affiliate link & get a $20 credit on your paid account. Let your fans directly support you via Buy Me a Coffee (affiliate link).

Melissa reconnects with playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer. They first met when Melissa interviewed her about her play, Be Here Now. Now we be here again to talk about one of Deb's (apparently many) stage adaptations, The Three Sisters of Weehawken, based of course on Chekhov's Three Sisters. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why Deborah set her adaptation in New Jersey
• Which of Chekhov's 3 sisters we are
• What message Chekhov's plays have for us today 
• How writers groups influence her writing process

And more!

Resources Mentioned

The Three Sisters of Weehawken by Deborah Zoe Laufer
Melissa's first interviews with Deborah : The Be Here Now Interview, On Playwriting Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

About Our Guest

Deborah Zoe Laufer’s plays have been produced at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Playhouse, Geva, The Humana Festival, Everyman, Primary Stages, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and hundreds of other theaters around the world. Plays include Be Here Now, End Days, Rooted, Informed Consent which was a NYTimes critic’s pick, Leveling Up, Out of Sterno, The Last Schwartz, Sirens, Meta, The Three Sisters of Weehawken, Fortune, dozens of short plays, and the musicals, Window Treatment, and By Any Other Name, written with composer, Daniel Green. Deb is a recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, the Lilly Award, The ATCA Steinberg citation, and grants and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Edgerton Foundation, The National New Play Network, and the Lincoln Center Foundation. Her work has been developed by The Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Theatre Lab, PlayPenn, The Cherry Lane Alternative, The Missoula Colony, LOCAL Theatre, Asolo Rep, The Baltic Playwrights Conference, and more. Her plays are published or recorded by Concord/Samuel French, Smith and Kraus, Playscripts, LA Theatreworks, and Premieres. She is a graduate of Juilliard, an alumna of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical T

Connect with host Melissa Schmitz
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Follow the Podcast on Facebook & Instagram
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Ways to support the show:
- Buy Me a Coffee
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- Give a 5-Star rating
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Creators: Host your podcast through Buzzsprout using my affiliate link & get a $20 credit on your paid account. Let your fans directly support you via Buy Me a Coffee (affiliate link).

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Chicago Theatre Week is
• Ways to save money on a big theatre trip
• What plays Melissa saw and the experiences she had
• What she might do differently next time to see even MOAR theatre at a better price

And more!

Resources Mentioned

Chicago Theatre Week
League of Chicago Theatres
Choose Chicago
Hot Tix
Goldstar
TodayTix
Broadway in Chicago Deals
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company
Steppenwolf
Court Theatre
Fen set tour
Aguijón Theater Company
Broadway in Chicago
Bramble Theatre Company
Lookingglass Theatre Company
TimeLine Theatre Company
Loyola University Chicago Theatre Department

Connect with host Melissa Schmitz
***Sign up for the 101 Stage Adaptations Newsletter***
101 Stage Adaptations
Follow the Podcast on Facebook & Instagram
Read Melissa's plays on New Play Exchange
Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn

Ways to support the show:
- Buy Me a Coffee
- Tell us your thoughts in our Listener Survey!
- Give a 5-Star rating
- Write a glowing review on Apple Podcasts
- Send this episode to a friend
- Share on social media (Tag us so we can thank you!)

Creators: Host your podcast through Buzzsprout using my affiliate link & get a $20 credit on your paid account. Let your fans directly support you via Buy Me a Coffee (affiliate link).