Necessary Exposure: The Female Playwright Project » Podcast

This portrait was on display at Dixon Place. It is part of Necessary Exposure’s 3rd installation which explores what it means to be writing for the theater as a woman at this moment in history.

Click below to listen to an excerpt of Amina’s play The Animals read by; Charles Everett, Melissa Diaz, Leta Renée-Alan, Isabelle Pierre, and Amelia Fowler. Sound Design by Martha Goode.

“Empathy, in the form of giving space to a diversity of voices to be heard, is essential now.”

This portrait was on display at Dixon Place. It is part of Necessary Exposure’s 3rd installation which explores what it means to be writing for the theater as a woman at this moment in history.

Click below to listen to an excerpt of Melody’s play R&J&Z, read by; Melody Bates, Dave Bennett and Matt Hurley. Sound Design by Martha Goode.

“Shine a light, even in the darkest times.”

Melody Bates is a native Oregonian actress based in New York City. She began acting as a child, appearing in local plays and in a feature film that was shot in Oregon’s wine country. She fell for Shakespeare early—within a year of seeing The Taming of the Shrew at the Oregon Shakespeare festival, she was directing herself and her brothers and cousins in a midsummer production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, staged on the fair shores of Odell Lake in the Cascades, costumes pulled from their grandma’s dress-up box, line prompts whispered from behind pine trees, the lake lapping at the edges of the play.

She is a versatile and talented actress who works in stage and film in a wide array of genres. She has won and been nominated for multiple New York Innovative Theatre Awards, including Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role for her performance as “Dina” in J.Stephen Brantley’s Eightythree Down, directed by Daniel Talbott. Other nominations include Outstanding Revival of a Play for her play R & J & Z, and two nods for Outstanding Ensemble, one of which she won as part of the Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant company. She appears regularly on the Metropolitan Opera stage, where she has played small acting roles in all of director Bartlett Sher’s Met productions, and has worked with other notable directors including Michael Grandage and Sir David McVicar. She has a longstanding relationship with Opera House Arts at the Stonington Opera House on Deer Isle, Maine, where her acting credits include Cleopatra in Antony & Cleopatra, Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play (Lisa), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Titania), Macbeth (Lady Macbeth), Measure for Measure, Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night (Olivia/ Aguecheek). Melody also serves as part of the OHA Artistic Advisory Board. Her first full-length play, R & J & Z, was written for OHA as part of a two-year residency and premiered there in July 2014 to audience and critical raves. The Maine premiere was followed by a highly acclaimed sold-out run in April 2015 at New York City’s New Ohio Theatre.   

http://www.melodybates.com/index.html

This portrait was on display at Dixon Place. It is part of Necessary Exposure’s 3rd installation which explores what it means to be writing for the theater as a woman at this moment in history.

Click below to listen to an excerpt of Sara’s play Near Vicksburg, read by Roger Dominic Casey, Zoë Van Tieghem and Stephanie Regina. Sound Design by Martha Goode.

“Just remember this: Work your ass off. Do it yourself. Never, ever, ever take “no” for an answer.”

Sara Farrington is a New York based playwright, living in Maplewood, NJ. She is a theater evangelist and relentless DIY-er. Sara is passionate about writing big plays about big characters, twisting the form, never doing the same thing twice. She received her MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College with Mac Wellman.

Sara is a current HARP Artist at HERE Arts Center to create CasablancaBox, an exploration of the making of America’s favorite movie. CasablancaBox is directed by Reid Farrington and had workshop showings at HERE Arts Center’s CULTUREMART 2015 & 2016, and will premiere April 5th-29th, 2017.

 Recent and upcoming plays include:

 CasablancaBox, opening soon!

Leisure, Labor, Lust, about 3 days in New York in 1907, will be presented at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s estate in Lenox, MA, first in January and again in Sept 2017, directed by Marina McClure. The play was has been workshopped at HERE, JACK and The Mount.

Cosmicomics, is piece for kids inspired by characters and ideas from Italo Calvino’s collection of short stories by the same name. This episodic piece was commissioned by The Flea Theater and will be presented as part of their new children’s program, Cereals, in 2017. Directed by Marina McClure.

The Return, directed by new media artist Reid Farrington, celebrates the historic and scientifically groundbreaking restoration of Tullio Lombardo’s Adam (ca. 1490–95), one of the greatest sculptures of the High Renaissance at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The piece ran July/Aug 2015.

Near Vicksburg, about love and war in a cave in Vicksburg premiered at Incubator Arts Project, with subsequent showings at Walkerspace, Foxy Films and The Wild Project.  Requiem For Black Marie, about the Brecht Machine premiered at Incubator Arts Project, Foxy Films and Stella Adler Studios, directed by Paul Takacs.

 Mickey & Sage, about 2 kids, played by adults, making sense of the universe premiered at Incubator Arts Project with workshops and showings at Foxy Films, Great Plains Theater Conference, National Theater Institute @ O’Neill Center. The play had its regional premiere at the ShelterBelt Theater in Omaha, NE. Mickey & Sage is published by Broadway Play Publishing, Inc.

1001 Nights, a hybrid video adaption of The One Thousand and One Nights, which attempts to adapt every single story in the epic using story and film. This work will be supported by the TheatreWorks Residency at CityTech, 2017/2018. This piece is directed by Reid Farrington, with music by Gity Razaz and in collaboration with Luke DuBois.

Other work includes:

The Vultures (Weasel Festival)

That Stays There (Great Plains Theater Conference, Bushwick Starr Reading Series, Little Theater @ Dixon Place),

The Death of Evie Avery (FringeNYC),

The Rise & Fall of Miles & Milo (FringeNYC, winner: Outstanding Playwriting).

Sara’s work has been funded by the New York State Council for the Arts, The Axe-Houghton Foundation and The Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation.

 She produces workshop versions of her own work at Foxy Films, her work space in Downtown Brooklyn. She lives in Maplewood, New Jersey with husband Reid Farrington and little sons Jack Reiss and Frederick Levi. Sara is a runner, an avid reader, a lover of history and music. She can probably beat you at Simpsons knowledge and is trying to get off Facebook.

http://www.ladyfarrington.com/

This portrait was on display at Dixon Place. It is part of Necessary Exposure’s 3rd installation which explores what it means to be writing for the theater as a woman at this moment in history.

Click below to listen to an excerpt of Leah’s play Kentucky, read by Satomi Blair. Sound Design by Martha Goode.

“I hope all of your dreams that are trying to blossom, do blossom.”

Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese American playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky. Her play KENTUCKY  was among the top 10 on the 2015 Kilroys List and recently received an Off-Broadway Premiere at Ensemble Studio Theatre in coproduction with Page 73 and the Radio Drama Network. It subsequently received a West Coast Premiere at East West Players  in November-December 2016. Leah is also the author of Two Mile Hollow (2016 Kilroys Honorable Mention, CAATA conference), Death For Sydney Black (terraNova Collective, 2014 Kilroys Honorable Mention)  Diversity Awareness Picnic (2014 Kilroys Honorable Mention) , Double Suicide At Ueno Park (EST/Marathon) and The Adventures of Minami: The Robot From Japan Who Makes You Feel Safe When Loneliness Is Palpable (The Brick).  With playwright Teddy Nicholas, she cowrote Flying Snakes in 3-D!!!  which enjoyed performances in 2011-2012 at Ars Nova (ANT Fest), The Brick Theater and the New Ohio Theatre (Ice Factory ). Leah’s work has been developed at Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, New York Theatre Workshop, The Bushwick Starr, The Flea Theatre, Primary Stages, Artists at Play and more. Her experimental stuff has been performed all throughout the city at places like little theatre @ Dixon Place, Prelude Festival, Bowery Poetry Club and more.

Her collections of short plays, NAGORIYUKI & Other Short Plays and The Lowest Form Of Writing are available on Amazon and have been performed all over the US, France and Asia. Her plays have also been published in Nanjing University’s Stage and Screen Reviews , Smith and Krauss, Sam French and Dramatists Play Service.  She was an artist in residence at New Group/Urban Arts Initiative , a winner of the 2015 Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival, a 2015 and 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominee, a two time recipient of the A/P/A commission for the Japanese American National Museum, a recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship for Creative Writing, a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Playwrights Group, a 2016 Sloan Commission recipient with the Ensemble Studio Theatre, a commissioned writer with 2G, a 2016-2018 Time Warner fellow at the Women’s Project, an alumnus of Youngblood and a 2017 Sundance/Ucross Fellow. The New York Times called her a “distinctive new voice.”

Follow her @leahnanako.

https://leahwinkler.org/

This portrait was on display at Dixon Place . It is part of Necessary Exposure’s 3rd installation which explores what it means to be writing for the theater as a woman at this moment in history.

Click below to listen to an excerpt of Kristine’s play Plural Love,  read by Kristine Haruna Lee. Sound design by Martha Goode.

https://thefemaleplaywrightproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/kristine-haruna-lee.mp3

“I make a bit of horror, accrue grime and welcome the repulsive.”

Kristine Haruna Lee was born in Hong Kong, raised between Tokyo and Seattle, and now lives in Brooklyn NY. She is a founding member of harunalee theater company. Recent plays include Dog Gone Day, Suicide Forest and War Lesbian. Her work has been presented and developed with harunalee at Bushwick Starr, La MaMa Club, Prelude Festival, Ars Nova, York College, New Dramatists, JACK, Asian American Writer’s Workshop, and has held residencies and commissions with Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Dixon Place. harunalee will be in residence at Ars Nova starting in 2017 for the next year. They have been supported by The Mental Insight Foundation, LMCC, and The Indie Theater Fund. She is a recipient of the New Dramatists Van Lier Fellowship, a member of the New Georges Jam, and Interstate 73. Selected performing credits include: Futurity (Lortel Award 2016), The Offending Gesture (The Tank), War Lesbian (Dixon Place), Great Lakes (Obie 2015), The Lily’s Revenge (Obie 2010), and the E.P. release of Another World with Antony and the Johnsons. She has taught at NYU and York College. BFA NYU Tisch, MFA Brooklyn College.

http://www.harunalee.com/

This portrait was on display at Dixon Place. It is part of Necessary Exposure’s 3rd installation which explores what it means to be writing for the theater as a woman at this moment in history.

Click below to listen to Cara’s plays;  Life Is But A Dream, Thinker with Sunburn, Daydream One for the World: King of Hugs, read by Cara Francis. Sound design by Martha Goode.

https://thefemaleplaywrightproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/cara-francis.mp3

“There are two ways to fight evil. Vigilance. And love. Remember the Care Bears? They beamed both those things right out of their chests. I am trying to be one of those bears.”

Cara Francis is a writer, performer and maker of things. An ensemble member of The New York Neo-Futurists, she has appeared regularly in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind since 2008, also as writer/performer in The Soup Show, (un)afraid, Soft Hydraulics and designer/performer in The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill, Volume One: Early Plays/Lost Plays (Drama Desk Nominee for Unique Theatrical Experience). Her plays and performance have been seen at PS122, Dixon Place, The Ontological-Hysteric, The Flea, The Bushwick Starr, Galapagos Art Space, Catch Performance Series, AUNTS, 3LD, The Pit, The Brick, Ars Nova, UCB and The Bowery Poetry Club. Cara was recently in FEAST in the Under the Radar Festival and Elijah Green in the Prelude Festival, both with Andrew Ondrejcak. She played Amber in the film Welcome to Nowhere by Temporary Distortion, Megan in Living With the Dead and Melissa in Failing Better Now, has performed in the New York Clown Theater Festival, the Chicago and New York Sketch Comedy Festivals and is involved in various other top secret and insane side projects.

JOIN US AT DIXON PLACE to view the portraits: http://dixonplace.org/category/gallery/ 

An introduction to Necessary Exposure: The Female Playwright Project by photographer and creator, Jody Christopherson

This is what a playwright looks like. I want you see them. When you seek plays to program, scripts to buy, curriculum to teach, I want you to remember.

Necessary Exposure: The Female Playwright Project is a portrait and sound installation, which brings visibility to playwrights who identify as female. Through portraits and sound plays we bring awareness to what remains to be widely seen and heard.

Last January the first Necessary Exposure installation was mounted, and thanks to your interest and support, a new one opens  Sept 1st, 7pm at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie Street)!  Announced here in Broadway World!

Each installation employs a collage element of photos and text. For this installation we will be using photos and sound. I’m beyond thrilled to be teaming up with Director/Sound Designer Natalie Johnsonius Neubert, who is creating gorgeous sound plays, which can be downloaded anywhere in the world.

All the plays, which are sound designed excerpts of each playwright’s work, (either read by the playwrights or a cast of their choice). For opening night, Sept 1st, Dixon Place is giving us their MainStage to present sound immersions every 30 minutes. This is going to be a type of sensory deprivation to bring a heightened awareness to what remains to be seen. Audience members are invited get a cocktail, take a seat, and listen in darkness to the excerpts. (Breaks in between each section to freshen your drinks!)

Listen to excerpts of each writers work at: https://soundcloud.com/user-341986013

This installation can be seen/heard anywhere in the world. Please visit Dixon Place and share it widely. http://thefemaleplaywrightproject.com

Photography and concept by Jody Christopherson.

Sound plays recorded and designed by Natalie Johnsonius Neubert

An excerpt from Spare Rib by Winter Miller. Read by Winter Miller. Sound design by Natalie Johnsonius Neubert.

Winter Miller is an award-winning playwright and founding member of 13Playwrights. Her play In Darfur premiered at The Public Theater for a sold-out run, followed by a standing room only performance at their 1800-seat venue in Central Park, a first for a play by a woman. In Darfur was the winner of the “Two-Headed Challenge from the Guthrie Theater and The Playwrights Center. Winter travelled to the Sudan border with her then boss, Pulitzer-winning Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

Full-length plays include: Seed, 2, Paternity, The Arrival, Amandine, The Penetration Play and Conspicuous. Theaters where Ms. Miller’s plays have been produced or developed include: The Public, 13 Playwrights, The Cherry Lane, The New Black Fest, CenterStage, Goodman, The New Group, Sundance, Playwrights Center, TimeLine, The Donmar, Theater J, Keen, WAM, Tricycle, Geva, Horizon and New Georges. Her plays have been performed in London and Uganda and are published by Samuel French, Playscripts, No Passport, Smith & Kraus’ Best Stage Scenes, Best Monologues, and others. Ms. Miller’s monologue Mother to Son, is published in Eve Ensler’s anthology A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer and in the anthology Best Women’s Monologues of The Millennium.

Winter is currently a member of the Civilians R&D 2014-15 group and has been a fellow here: Sundance Institute, Hedgebrook, Blue Mountain Center, The Lark, Orchard Project, Voice&Vision and a member of the Cherry Lane Mentor Project and the Playwrights Center’s Core Writers.

In war-torn areas of Northern Uganda, Palestine, as well as marginalized populations in New York City, Winter has created theater working with youth groups. She currently mentors young women through Girl Be Heard and has worked with LGBTQ youth via Theatre Askew and underserved youth with Stella Adler Outreach. Winter teaches playwriting at Primary Stages’ ESPA, teaches theater criticism to urban high school kids with TRAC Arts Connection and leads frequent Weekend Warrior Writing Intensive.

Since all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, Winter is a certified Core Energetics Practitioner working with artists to identify and release blocks in mind and body to create the freedom and space to write the story waiting within. She has written for The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Boston Globe and other publications and was once an NBC Page. MFA Columbia University, BA Smith College.

An excerpt from Reporter Girl by Laura Rohrman. Sound design by Natalie Johnsonius Neubert

Laura Rohrman is the author of several full-length plays including: Reporter Girl which is about the life of her grandmother, Dale Messick who created the comic strip Brenda Starr Reporter in 1940. The play has been a Semi-Finalist at the O’Neill Festival, a Weissberger Award Nominee and a Princess Grace Finalist and My Life As You, a Finalist for the Playwrights First Award and Hoboken. She’s also the author of many one-act plays including: Below 14th (Samuel French Short Play Finalist, London’s Lost Festival, Without (Samuel French Short Play Finalist, Looking Glass, Rising Sun), He Says His Name Is John (Samuel French Short Play Semi-Finalist, Looking Glass). Laura is a graduate of The New School for Drama’s MFA program where she studied both playwriting and acting. In addition to being a playwright, Laura is also a theater producer, journalist, occasional actor and a marketing specialist with a long list of clients. Laura is developing a TV series that she’s really excited about. www.laurarohrman.com.

An excerpt from The Good Mother by Karen Cellini. Read by Karen Cellini. Sound design by Natalie Johnsonius Neubert

Karen Cellini is a multidisciplinary live performance artist, producer, writer and activist whose work has been seen at Amnesty International Human Rights Arts Festival (Silver Springs, MD), LaMaMa (New York, NY), Dixon Place (New York, NY), Alice’s Fourth Floor (New York, NY), Eugene O’Neill Theatre (Waterford, CT), Pasadena Playhouse (Pasadena, CA), American Dance Institute (Rockville, MD), The New Ohio Theatre (New York, NY), Berkshire Museum (Pittsfield, MA), Four Seasons Hotel (Tokyo, Japan), California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA), Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, NY) and internationally in a starring role in Aaron Spelling’s television drama Dynasty.

She co-produced the iconic Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding and its 25-year Anniversary revival (New York, NY), Cafe A Go-Go (New York, NY), The Life and Times of W.E.B. Dubois, Berkshire Theatre Festival (Stockbridge, MA), and the feature film Seriously Twisted where she also played a lead role. This season she was a producer on the broadway musical, Doctor Zhivago, Broadway Theatre (New York, NY).

As a community activist, Ms. Cellini’s personal commitment to serving at-risk youth is seen in the programs she has developed including The Good Mother Project, (Philadelphia, PA), Mary J. Blige Foundation (Yonkers, NY), Graham School (Mount Vernon, NY), Juvenile Resource Center, (Pittsfield, MA).

She was a resident artist at the Storefront Artists Project, (Pittsfield, MA), collaborated with artist/activist Gabrielle Senza’s Walk Unafraid (Pittsfield, MA) and has been invited to speak at Saint Paul’s School (Newry, Ireland), and the Anti-Violence Against Women Conference, Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival (Silver Springs, MD).

She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Temple University, a Master of Fine Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Writing for Performance at California Institute of the Arts under Carl Hancock Rux. She is Vice President of Corcoran Productions since 1992.

Teachers: Carl Hancock Rux, Erik Ehn, Dan Hurlin, David Neumann, Cassandra Medley, Margaret Whiting, Julie Wilson, Wayne Saunders, Betty Buckley, Michael Howard, and Fran Bennett.

Ms Cellini is currently writing a play on the female body as political landscape with Virginia Grise and Rachel Jendrzejewski.  She is also writing a book The Good Mother: making the invisible, visible, based on the writings of an incarcerated heroin addict. Her play The Good Mother: making the invisible, visible was directed by Dan Hurlin (New York) and a solo performance of the same name was performed at Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival, (Silver Spring, MD)