SHERRY FRIEDMAN is a Brooklyn native, playwright, journalist, award-winning educator, Fulbright scholar and activist. She studied drama/playwriting at NYU Tisch, AADA, Primary Stages ESPA, and Dramatists Guild with Tina Howe, and Roland Tec. She has been published in The New York Times, Newsday, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, Writer’s Digest, Cosmopolitan, and numerous regional newspapers. The founder of the nationally recognized Mark Twain Wonder Writers Workshop, Sherry nurtured the writing talents of NYC public school students. She traveled on scholarships and created original curricula to bring back the world to her inner-city students. Sherry’s plays have been developed/produced at Cherry Lane Theatre, Primary Stages ESPA, Polaris North, Estrogenius Festival, New Perspectives Theatre Company, Strawberry One- Act Festival, 48 Hour Creative Quarantine Festival, and virtual OutCast Productions Pandemonium—Life in the Pandemic festival. Her proud memberships include Honor Roll!, Polaris North, Dramatists Guild, New Play Exchange, and League of Professional Theatre Women.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA http://newplayexchange.org/users/41430/sherry-friedman MORE ABOUT ME If I could bring one change to theater, it would be the greater representation by women writers and fair treatment. I believe we women need to be taken more seriously. Our work must be given the same consideration and respect that male playwrights enjoy, and we must be paid equally. Unlike actors, playwrights are considered independent contractors, and therefore, we're not in a union. I think many of the inequities would be addressed if playwrights could unionize. The play that changed my life was the comedy Enter Laughing. It was the first Broadway play I had ever seen. I was a little girl and my mother had two-fers for balcony seats. I was fascinated by the fun the actors were having onstage. When I read the Playbill and realized it was a writer who had created that fun, I knew that's what I wanted to do. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm workshopping monologues which lend themselves to the Zoom format. KEYWORDS Woman, comedy, drama, political satire, pandemic, senior Writer/director/actor, college professor, Lynn Wells Nelson has directed a hundred productions from musicals to Shakespeare. She has adapted dozens of scripts in cooperation with such authors as Winston Weathers, Jack Matthews, Ray Bradbury, and others. THE ARTICULATE VOICE, her textbook, is used in universities and colleges throughout the country. A member of ASCAP, Dramatists’ Guild, the Orange County Playwrights Alliance, a former President of the Western States Communication Association, Nelson has served on the Board of the Dana Point Theater Company and Dana Point Coastal Arts.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA http://www.lynnwellsnelson.com MORE ABOUT ME For all of the actors I have met in theater and and writers with whom I have worked, there is never just one moment that is the most memorable, gratifying or life-changing. Neither is there only one thing to know about anyone. We are all a multiplicity of our life’s events. For those of us over a “certain age” there are so many events, experiences, in our lives that constitute our reasons for continuing writing (whether for the theatre or other genre) that one cannot pull a single moment out of the hat. Was it the moment when at lunch Maya Angelou asked me a question? Was it when a student understood a simple direction? Was it when I think I got a character just right? Far too many answers to too many questions. Why do I keep on—yes at this age? Because I have to. Because the characters, the moments keep speaking. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Just finished recording a recent play, Friends and Family. It questions: what makes a friend or family and can riffs be repaired? |
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