(Photo by Cat Gwynn) Deanne Stillman is a widely published, critically acclaimed writer and playwright. Her books of literary nonfiction include Twentynine Palms, which Hunter Thompson called 'A strange and brilliant story by an important American writer'; Mustang, an LA Times 'best book of the year," now in audio with Frances Fisher, Anjelica Huston, and Wendie Malick; Desert Reckoning, based on a Rolling Stone piece, a Southwest Book of the Year, and winner of the Spur Award; Blood Brothers which received a starred review in Kirkus, and her latest, American Confidential, which was cited in Air Mail Weekly for its 'dazzling and evocative prose.' Her short film, "Marilyn Monroe Flees Her Crypt When Hugh Hefner Is Buried Next Door, has been winning prizes on the indy circuit, including Best Experimental Short at the Dec 2022 Indie X Festival. It's adapted from her play, "On Such a Winter's Day," which also includes other monologues for women that have been produced in festivals around the country, from Brooklyn to Topanga Canyon. Her play, "Reflections in a D'Back's Eye, was produced at Highways in Santa Monica in a short run, directed by Darrell Larson, just before the pandemic. A monologue from it appears in Best Men's Stage Monologues (2021, Smith and Kraus). It was a 2019 semi-finalist for the Blues Ink Playwriting Award from American Blues Theater. Her play, "Billy the Kid and Lee Harvey Oswald Praise Citizenship in the American Dreamtime," also produced by Highways and directed by Darrell Larson, is now streaming in vimeo. Her essays have appeared in publications such as lithub, Crime Reads, Journal of the Plague Years, the UK Independent, LA Review of Books (former columnist), and the NY Times. and she's a founding professor of the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Low Residency Creative Writing Program, where she taught for 13 years.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: http://deannestillman.com/ FB: Deanne Stillman TW: @deannestillman2 IG: @realdeannestillman MORE ABOUT ME As I often tell friends, "I brake for the sand." That means the desert or the beach - places where I set much of my work, especially the desert. This is not really a choice but something I'm drawn to. To me, the personal is not just political; it's geographic and spiritual as well. Place is a character in my work and sometimes a driver of story, and this applies to my plays and nonfiction. So this brings me to my most gratifying moment in theatre; it involved my play, where the abovementioned "Reflections in a D'Back's Eye" is set. In this play, the Grand Canyon and baseball converge, with a baseball diamond etched onto the canyon floor, and the little girl in the play (based on a real character), who was on her local Little League team at the time of the shooting and dreamed of playing professionally when she grew up, hits the ball outta the canyon (ballpark). A baseball stadium and the Grand Canyon are two of my favorite places, for real and metaphorically, and it was most satisfying to see that this staging worked and how imaginative and magical it could be, providing what I call "grace in the carnage" for this very unsettling story. Plus the characters, from the 9-year-old little girl to a 70-year-old Wal-Mart greeter to the oldest tree in Tucson - a mesquite that sings a duet with its caretaker - really conveyed what I was hoping they conveyed: a longing for connection, and I'm not talking about networking. The play is one of the things I'm most proud of ever writing, and I based it on a prose poem of mine which you can read here. Thanks in advance for taking a look, and if you ever have a chance to get to the Grand Canyon, take it! https://gwarlingo.com/2012/on-the-anniversary-of-the-tucson-shooting-a-new-work-by-deanne-stillman/ WHAT I'M WORKING ON A book about the last mountain lions of Los Angeles, called Ghost Cats. By the way, in my abovementioned short film about Marilyn Monroe fleeing her crypt, she runs away with mountain lions - free at last. Also, she's heard that there are cameras on the trail, and she's longing to hear that click and have one more photo taken. Can you imagine what the scientists will think, she wonders, when they see her in their recorded images? KEYWORDS Culture, Nature, Animals, Land/Place, Historical, cast-aways, war/peace, Bill of Rights/personal rights, Wild West/America, myth, wild horses/burros, rock, jazz, blues, opera I have always been fascinated by the gray spaces where I can comprehend the incrementalism that allows bigger horrors to occur, and I want to write characters and stories that move people to take personal and collective action to make society more just and allow our planet to endure. My plays include Hysterical! (Thrown Stone Theatre Company, NY Int'l Fringe Festival, UC Davis Ground & Field Festival, Second Act New Works, published Broadway Play Publishing), The Auntie Network (Studio Theatre Tierra del Sol Staged Reading Series, Bechdel Group Finalist, SWTP Finalist, published Broadway Play Publishing), Woman’s Work (Pittsburgh New Works Reading Series, Warner International Playwrights Festival Semi-Finalist), and Reclamation (in development). I’m playwright 862 in Adam Szymkowicz' 1000+ playwright interviews series (http://aszym.blogspot.com/2016/07/i-interview-playwrights-part-862-elenna.html). As an actress I’ve recorded hundreds of radio and tv commercials, promos, and audiobooks, and my voice is in the Library of Congress for my Audible.com recording of Jennifer Crusie's Getting Rid of Bradley. Yale (BA) and Columbia (MFA).
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA TW: @elennaselenna IG: @elspiration MORE ABOUT ME I keep "doing theater" because theatre is the medium through which I feel most connected to humanity. I love the ensemble work of rehearsal and I love the subversive feeling that connecting across the boundary of actor-audience in performance engenders. Writing my worries into existence allows me to ruminate collectively and to share the joy and beauty of being human with other human beings. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I’m currently working on a play, Reclamation, an eco-drama about the impacts of climate change, sharing THE TEMPEST's island setting, but taking place after the departure of the European colonizers. A play about what happens next, Reclamation is a reconceived masque where the audience comes to understand the play through shifting lenses: first as a Shakespeare-inspired period piece in iambic pentameter, then as a play about the present, and finally as a theatrical performance in which they are participating. And there are Elizabethan style songs. KEYWORDS Climate Justice, Feminist, Drama, Play-with-music Theatrical Mining Company has produced two of Susan Middaugh's full-length plays, A Modern Pas de Deux and Black Widows, for the Baltimore Playwrights Festivals. Next Stage Press has published Black Widows. 18 of her 10-minute plays have had productions by 34 theater companies in the U.S., Canada and England. They include the Source Theatre; Shelterbelt Theatre; the Arts Center, Carrboro; Onstage Atlanta; Fells Point Corner Theatre; the Magnetic Theater, Stone Soup Theatre; Barrington Stage; The Strand Theater; Shandaken Theatrical Society; the Open Hydrant Theater Company; Arena Players Theater; Short Attention Span Theater; Dorset Players; Greenbrier Valley Theatre; Lebanon Community Theatre and Wasatch Theatre Company among others. Her full length play, Feeble-Minded White Trash, was a finalist in the 2024 Waterworks Festival at Live Arts Theatre in Charlottesville, VA. She is a longtime member of the Dramatists' Guild and the New Play Exchange. Susan lives in the Baltimore suburbs.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA https://newplayexchange.org/plays/users/1616/susan-middaugh MORE ABOUT ME My two favorite things to do when not doing theater are singing in a chorus and hiking with the Mountain Club of Maryland. If I could bring one change to theater, it would be to encourage theaters that say they believe in diversity to produce plays about people with disabilities. I overcome disappointment by seeing other people's plays and by seeking out other submission opportunities. I keep doing theater because there are more stories that my characters want to tell. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm working on creating short plays about substance abuse and the impact it has had on individuals and their parents based on interviews that I conducted here in Maryland. KEYWORDS' social justice, Irish Catholic, plays that reflect the society in which we live Christine Benvenuto’s plays have been performed at Boston Theater Marathon, International Human Rights Art Festival and Sixth Festival NYC, The Braid in Los Angeles, Clamour Theater Florida, Fern Street Festival Connecticut, LAVA Center Western Massachusetts and online. A play is available as a podcast from Onstage/Offstage; another was performed by Orpheus Theatre Company, Lancaster, PA and included in the anthology Borderless Thalia, and monologues are forthcoming in the anthology Frozen Women/Flowing Thoughts from Venus Theatre and The Best Men’s Stage Monologues 2024. She is the author of two books from St. Martin’s Press, and stories and essays that appear in many newspapers, magazines and anthologies. She has been selected as a 2024 member of New Perspective Theatre’s Women’s Work cohort, NYC, and is a recipient of a 2024 grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://christinebenvenuto.wordpress.com/ FB:https://www.facebook.com/AuthorChristineBenvenuto IG: https://instagram.com/benvenutochristine MORE ABOUT ME Theater is thrilling. Saw my first Broadway play in high school and was hooked as an audience member. Had my first short play produced a few years ago after decades of wanting to write for the stage, and was hooked on playwrighting. Nothing replaces the live theatrical experience shared by everyone suspended together in space and time for the duration of the play. Magic. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Two full length and several one act plays are in progress. KEYWORDS Jewish, sexual violence, domestic violence, abortion, satire, family, young audiences, absurdism, climate change, dementia, race, class, political Erin Moughon is a playwright and teacher based in New York City. She is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and an Arthur Miller Fellow. Erin also loves being a cat mom to two tuxedo kittens and being married to David. Some of her short plays can be found in several editions of The Best Ten Minute Plays edited by Lawrence Harbison and her monologues can be found in Voices of America Vol 1, 3, & 4 edited by Mike Lesser of the Playground Experiment. Check more of her plays out on the New Play Exchange.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA FB: https://www.facebook.com/erin.moughon IG: @erinplaywright MORE ABOUT ME As strange as it may sound (and I promise this comes full circle to Honor Roll!), The Sound of Music changed my life. I saw it when I was six, and the actor playing Maria had long brown hair just like me. It was magic and amazing, and I saw myself on stage, which made me want to create theatre. Later, I had a former student play Maria, and it made my heart swell again because here was a young Jewish Latine woman playing Maria, and I saw in the crowd other young women like her getting inspired. Now I want to create work where people of all ages can see themselves in the work, especially those over 40. Theatre is not just for those who look a certain way, whether that is gender, race, or age. I want artistic directors to know that artistic statements are awful. I would much rather you just read my play. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I recently discovered that all of my works are about women seeking agency over their own lives. So I'm working on that in a couple of different pieces. KEYWORDS Demisexual, Christian, Dark Comedy, Magical Realism, science fiction, Realism, Horror, Women's Autonomy, adaptations, autobiographical Lesley Lisa Greene is a playwright and composer based in Ithaca, NY. Her full-length play about abortion access, The Turnaway Play, will premiere at the Kitchen Theatre Company in May 2024. She has composed music for nine musicals for young audiences with playwright/lyricist Rachel Lampert. Lesley is co-director of Story House Ithaca, an organization that brings people together to share, study, create, and enjoy stories in all their forms. She co-founded and continues to be an organizer of Porchfest, a festival that began in Ithaca in 2007 and now takes place in more than 180 cities across North America. Lesley is also a sound designer, video editor, director, swing dance instructor, and the winner of the 2024 Debra S. Newman '02 Cornell Tradition Community Recognition Award! She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the International Centre for Women Playwrights, and the New Play Exchange.
WEBSITE/SOCIAL MEDIA FB: lesley.l.greene IG: @lesleygreene1 MORE ABOUT ME: I keep doing theater because I love to collaborate on creative projects, and theater is the ultimate in creative collaboration. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I am working on a small-cast musical about a father with Alzheimer's and his daughter. Nancy Temple has written short and full-length plays. Her plays have been produced in numerous festivals in the US, Europe and Canada. Most recently, her short play “Ties that Bind” was chosen by Broken Arts Entertainment for their podcast. Her play for high-schoolers, “Victoria for President! 1872” was published by Next Stage Press (2020). Her full-length “The Caregivers,” received a staged reading by the North Shore Readers in December of 2020, and was published ARTemis Wisdom Anthology (2021). “Riverbend Blue,” a short story, was accepted for publication by riverSedge, the annual publication of the University of Texas Rio Grande. Nancy received her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University in June 2021.
MORE ABOUT ME Because I began writing plays close to retirement age, I'd say the most gratifying (and astonishing) moment was watching my very first play in production at the Image Theatre, in Lowell, MA. The dialogue in this short play was based on emails and conversations between me and my husband during his affair (and before our divorce). I watched two actors deliver familiar lines exactly as I had imagined them spoken as I wrote the play. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The audience gasped when the man received a text from his lover. At the end, the woman behind me said, "That was intense." At that point, I knew I had to keep writing plays. The experience was transformative. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I have recently been writing short plays derived from stories I am working on. I have just written a new short play that is both a stand-alone and the third chapter in a series of short plays. All three plays are about four people whom I have come to know intimately through writing about them. I'm now interested in seeing whether their journey could be written as a story/novella. It's interesting to move between the two mediums, plays and prose. KEYWORDS Relational dynamics, Family relationships, Transgender issues, Adoption, Racism, Immigration Marin Gazzaniga’s play The Unbelieving had its world premiere at 59E59th October 2022. Produced by The Civilians, it was a NYT’s Critic’s Pick and is based on interviews of non-believing clergy conducted for Daniel C. Dennett’s and Linda LaScola’s study “Caught in the Pulpit,” as well as her own interviews. Her first play, So Close, was co-produced by Rising Phoenix Rep (Time Out NY Critic’s Pick). It was inspired by interviews she conducted while writing for Victim Services and told the story of a violent relationship. She co-produced and acted in the independent film version (which streamed on iTunes and Amazon). Her plays have been developed by The Civilians, LAByrinth Theater Co. and Primary Stages ESPA in NY, Echo Theatre in Dallas, and Santa Fe Playhouse. In Ways Both Frivolous and Deep was produced by Ashland New Plays Festival’s Play4Keeps podcast (Apple Podcasts and Spotify). Her plays have received support from National Endowment for the Arts, the Pilgrim Project, and Venturous Theater fund of the Tides Foundation and have been finalists for Ashland New Plays Festival and the Heidemann Award, and semi-finalists for the O’Neill Playwrights Festival, and the Relentless Theater Award “Picket Plays.” She received her BA from Columbia, her MA in creative writing from City College and studied playwrighting at Primary Stages’ Einhorn School of Performing Arts.
Gazzaniga started her career in journalism (NBC News, Vogue, MSN.com and Fortune.com) has written and edited several nonfiction books, and produced award-winning digital features for HBO, Turner, Lionsgate and AMC. She co-created and starred in the IFC web series Like So Many Things… and was director of the Filmmakers’ Workshop for New York Stage and Film for five years. She has written comedy pilots for Hulu and Freeform, and is currently an Emmy-winning writer for The Young and the Restless (CBS). WEBSITE/SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://www.maringazzaniga.com/ IG: @itookthispic MORE ABOUT ME I wrote my first play over twenty years ago and ended up co-producing it with Rising Phoenix Rep and then making and selling the feature film. This past fall I had the world premiere of my second produced play at 59E59, with the Civilians. In the interim, I studied playwriting and have written several plays that have been developed by various companies (see bio), receiving workshops and readings and award recognition. Not having gone to an MFA playwriting program, I've at times felt at a disadvantage being outside the pipeline for produced playwrights. But that hasn't deterred me from persevering to write and find outlets for my plays - all while making a living as a full-time writer in other fields (mostly journalism and TV). In spite of success in other media, it is theater where I feel I can tackle the most complicated questions that haunt me like: What does it mean to mourn a child that never was? Is there love in a violent relationship? What does it feel like to go from clergy member to atheist? I return to theater because it is a place that doesn't demand pat answers - but allows you to explore these questions with an audience. It is where you can begin a dialogue, instead of end one. WHAT I'M WORKING ON The questions I’m circling around now are: Can you avoid the fear of losing someone? If you could, how? At what cost? KEYWORDS Science, faith, atheism, domestic violence, social issues, dark comedy, infertility, documentary theater Melissa Bell is a published and produced playwright whose work explores women’s agency as they navigate their power and repression. Awards: LADY CAPULET, Nominated Best Adaptation & Modernization in 2020 & 2021 by New York Shakespeare and Henley Rose Playwright Competition Finalist 2017, premiered by Barefoot Shakespeare Company in Central Park in 2019, and has been performed live or virtually at Turn to Flesh (NY), Advice to the Players (NH) Bernie Wohl Center (NYC), Farm Arts Collective (PA), Norwalk Library (CT) CreateTheater (virtual space), Bedford Playhouse, and the Little Shakespeare Festival and featured in Smith & Krause’s Best Men’s Monologues of 2020. Honored Finalist, Collaboration Award, 2019 by Women in Arts & Media Coalition for COURAGE based on Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children produced by NACL Theatre, immersive site-specific journey, featuring Debra Winger, performed on Governor’s Island, NYC, and Apple Pond Farm in the Catskills. Librettist for FINDING MADAME CURIE, musical with composer David Kurkowski. Associate Playwright/ensemble member of Farm Arts Collective based in Damascus, PA, whose decalogue of original eco-plays DREAM ON THE FARM was featured in the New York Times Arts Section in 2021. ZOE COMES HOME premiered at the Tusten Theatre in Narrowsburg, NY, in 2022, revived by popular demand in 2023, and produced in NYC by 29th Street Playwrights Collective, where I am a Resident Playwright. OFF BROADWAY: DEVIL & THE DEEP, music by Graham Russell of Air Supply, produced by Theatre East. LOST IN LOVE, the Air Supply Musical, one-night-only event produced by Triad Theatre benefiting the Actors Fund, featured 2x Tony nominated actor Constantine Maroulis and Tony winning actress Andrea McArdle. GAME BOY, produced by TRU, featuring Tony Awardee Cady Huffman, for TRUSPEAK. ICEBOX PLACENTA/PLAYGROUND PLACENTA, featured in Smith & Krause’s Best Women’s Monologues of 2019, Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom. Columbia University BA.
WEBSITE/SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://www.themelissabell.com/ IG: @themelissabell TW: @melissabell_wtr FB: melissa.bell.142240 MORE ABOUT ME I don't know why I keep doing theater! It's just that every time I feel like stopping, I remind myself that no one will care whether I stop or not -- except for me. Then something fun and wonderful comes along and I'm in production or arranging a reading or writing songs or a book for a new play or musical. Or I find a submission that is just right for one of my plays and they produce it. Or I stop in the coffee shop and the local arts alliance event director asks me if I have anything new. I say No, but then say, oh wait, I have something that might just relate to your audience. Honestly, I love being an artist and I've been one my entire life. If I'm not writing a play, I'm writing a press release or updating the graphics for my website or the 29th Street Playwrights Collective website, of which I am a founding member and the General Manager. I went to college late in life and I began work as a content creator with an agency creating PowerPoint marketing and corporate decks for Big Pharma. Before that I was a singer, recording dance music, and before that I had a rock band right out of high school. I'm a performer and theatre maker at heart who loves having a band of people around to create with. WHAT I'M WORKING ON TAYLOR'S INFERNO: A Juke-box musical featuring the music of a popular 80's rock band, based on Dante's Inferno. The next installment of DREAM ON THE FARM and the Book to FINDING MADAME CURIE. I am working on a novel version of LADY CAPULET, as well as a version for episodic TV. Keywords period, woman-centered, Immersive/site-specific, reimagining classical themes, heightened speech, dark comedy, depression/anxiety/mental health, Shakespeare adaptation, Shakespearean women, historic women, Madame Curie, Emma Goldman, Climate change, eco-plays, librettist, lyricist, songwriter. I am a recently retired African-American , Legal-Aid Criminal defense attorney who practiced in the Bronx for 33 years. After retirement, I wanted to pursue acting but after going to many auditions I realized that this dream may never come true, so I decided to write my own plays. My first one, is called the Hall of Justice, based on a true story of one of my clients who was falsely accused of Rape in the First degree, by a woman he did not know. It turns out, I like playwriting more than acting but if something interesting pops up I will take it. Member of SAG-AFTRA, AEA, The Dramatists Guild, and the New York Bar Association.
MORE ABOUT ME: If I could bring one change to the theatre, it would be more diversity, more inclusivity in accepting undiscovered playwrights. Things are changing but it's too slow. The Signature Theatre in New York, does some provocative plays, but always by the same African-American playwrights. Lynn Nottage, (don't get me wrong, she is my idol); Dominique Morriseau, Katori Hall, and Susan Lori Parks. The theatres will not take a chance on new playwrights. Although, Lynn Meadow, Artistic director of the Manhattan Theatre Club, recently said they accept plays from unknown playwrights, when you look on their website, they specifically say they don't accept unsolicited scripts, so their actual diversity statement is a bag of air. This also goes for The Roundabout. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I am reading about an African-American surgeon, medical professor, and the founder of plasma, Dr. Charles Drew. He died in a severe car accident when he was only 45. It is said that he was refused medical treatment because he was a Negro man, even though he looked white. After, I finish my research, then I will choose one aspect of his life that I think will make a "good" play. KEYWORDS Family, Mystery, People of Color, Inequality, Injustice |
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