Wendy Graf is a film and TV writer and an award winning playwright whose plays have been produced nationally and internationally. Recent plays include: WEDNESDAYS CHILD; EXIT WOUNDS (First Place Gold Medallion Winner Moss Hart and Kitty Carlisle New Play Initiative; Open Fist First Look Festival Winner); UNEMPLOYED ELEPHANTS – A LOVE STORY (Stage Raw Recommended Top Ten; multiple Critic’s Picks; LA Times Pick of the Week; Outstanding Production/2 Hander StageSceneLA); PLEASE DON’T ASK ABOUT BECKET; ALL AMERICAN GIRL (Stage Raw Recommended Top Ten/2015 nom Playwriting and Solo performance; LA Times Pick of the Week; LA Weekly “GO!” StageSceneLA 2015 Outstanding Solo Performance Production; Bitter Lemons 2015 Ten Best; Winner Last Frontier Playwriting Conference); CLOSELY RELATED KEYS (StageSceneLA Best World Premiere Plays of 2013-14/ Best Production Drama/Intimate Theater; NAACP win/nominations); NO WORD IN GUYANESE FOR ME (2012 GLAAD Award Outstanding L.A. Theater; Helen Hayes Awards Recommended); BEHIND THE GATES; LESSONS (L.A. production dir by Gordon Davidson); LEIPZIG (LADCC nomination; Garland award/Playwriting; Dorothy Silver finalist); THE BOOK OF ESTHER (San Fernando Valley Artistic Directors nominations including Best Play; ASK Theater Projects Grant Award); BETHANY/BAKOL (Attic Theater One Act Winner, produced September 2009 and her newest, A SHONDA and THE CROSS AND THE SABER, commissioned by Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble’s BIPOC Voting Plays Series, now developing the full length version.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Website: https://www.wendygraf.com Facebook: Wendy Graf MORE ABOUT ME: A life in the theater is never a smooth road. There are high highs and low lows. There are good years (five productions!) and bad (none, the year everything was canceled due to Covid). There are many personalities to deal with. There are zillions of outside voices saying “Don’t” and “No!” it is a challenge to listen to your gut and your inner voice and trust them, stay true to them… There are phases in what’s popular over the years and you must write for yourself and not for what is a la mode or what someone else wants you to write – unless they commission it and are paying you a lot of money! My most gratifying and informative relationship was with the late, great Gordon Davidson - my play, Lessons, was the only play he directed after leaving CTG. He was more than a director - I still hear his words in my head every day. I would say my biggest disappointment is that while I have been very lucky in getting productions, my career has not seemed to follow the course that many male playwrights' has seemed to follow: from smaller productions to LORT productions and larger high profile National theaters and commissions. I have always tried to tell myself what's important is the work, and how I've been so lucky to work with wonderful artists - still it stings when I see mostly male playwrights on this upward path. I write of themes I return to again and again: family, identity, home. In much of my work, these themes have played out against a backdrop or seen through a lens of the social, political and religious landscape of our times. It has been said that I provide a voice for the voiceless. My plays are challenging, provocative, dangerous and always ask hard questions. I do not provide answers but aim to have the audience talk about the play on the way home, argue it out, go across the street and have a drink and discuss. I leave it up to the audience to provide their answers. I am very proud that my plays, while entertaining, are meaningful and challenging. My characters may not always be “nice” and sympathetic, but they are interesting and raise consciousness. I have also promoted diversity in my work – I have won the GLAAD award, NAACP awards and others. I am constantly asked, “what do you want the audience to take away with them?” As always, I don’t not presume to offer answers, only questions. I have no agenda for what I want the audience to take away with them except to see the truth of human behavior and something of their own humanity. To see something of themselves reflected on the stage and in one way or another understand it, not necessarily condone nor accept it, but understand it. I leave it up to the audience to answer the questions. I hope it will start conversations about why, and maybe if we can talk about why and try to understand it, then maybe we can start to change it. WHAT I'M WORKING ON: This Fall I have been lucky to have two full productions - CLOSELY RELATED KEYS International City Theatre, Long Beach) and LEIPZIG (Bema Productions, Victoria, BC) - that were cancelled in 2020 revived - Live! A third production, Wednesday's Child, had its live World Premiere in Tampa, Florida in August/September and that was one of the most gratifying experiences I've ever had, despite I had to rehearse virtually and could only see the production virtually. Another play that was to have its World Premiere in D.C. March 2020 but was cancelled due to Covid, has just been chosen to have a staged reading in Miami, hopefully leading to a full production. I will finally get back to writing again after the first of the year - my play THE CROSS AND THE SABER, commissioned as a one act by Lower Depth Theater Ensemble, is being developed as a full length. KEYWORDS: Lesbian, Queer, Jewish, Muslim, African American, Family, Multi Generational, Gun violence, Political, Holocaust, Twins, Fundamentalism, White supremacy, Political Science fiction, Mystery, Romance, Burmese Odyssey, Israel, India, Satire. Playwright, screenwriter, end-hunger advocate, women-in-theater activist, beach walking devotée, Sheila Rinear has received grants, commissions, and awards for her work resulting in development, productions, publication, and readings nationally. Bufflehead Bay (Full-length, contemporary play received a ZOOM reading at The Public last season); Bound by Truth (Full-length, commissioned by Access to Art; developed by The Classic Theatre of San Antonio; Finalist in Screen Craft’s 2020 international competition; 2nd Rounder in Austin Film Festival; and sitting at #2 on Coverfly’s Red List of the 20 best written history plays of all time); The Princess and the Peanut Allergy (TYA Musical developed by The Magik Theater of San Antonio); So, When Are You Leaving? (Full-length comedy, selected for New Works Virtual Festival fund-raiser for The Actors Fund, December 2020 starring Marsha Mason, Tonya Pinkins, and Joely Fisher); Merry Gentlemen (Full-length holiday drama, commissioned and developed by The Public Theater of San Antonio; produced by The Overtime Theatre); Deities (Full-length drama, workshopped at The University of Oklahoma; featured script in Texas Playwrights Festival, Alpine, TX. 8 separate grants from the City of San Antonio resulted in Rinear’s writing 8 new Social Justice performance pieces including A Hunger; Beyond Walls; Do I Look Like Anyone!? all productions in Luminaria, the city’s annual International Contemporary Arts Festival. Leicester Bay Theatricals has published several of Rinear’s plays including the very recent publication of a volume in their Playwrights on the Page Series, Five Plays by Sheila Rinear. Sons of Treason (a full-length feature historical drama) is currently a semi-finalist in The Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards and has placed in the Nicholl Fellowship and a Second Rounder at The Austin Film Festival; Chasing the Blues (full-length feature female-driven comedy) was a finalist at The Austin Film Festival.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Websites: http://www.sheilarinear.com, https://newplayexchange.org/users/621/sheila-rinear, https://www.dramatistsguild.com/members/sheilarinear Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/srinear MORE ABOUT ME: During the run of my play Cries That Bind at The Public Theater in San Antonio, each evening that I attended there were more and more military in the audience. The play concerned a sister’s losing her brother to suicide when he returned from Iraq with PTSD…just as I had lost my brother. While this production was in my home-town (and I have many friends in SA), my friends were very uncomfortable with my dealing with such a sensitive and painful subject. They are used to my comedy. But once the word got to the large military community in our city, they flocked to the production because it spoke to them. So…my most gratifying moments in theater? They all involved hugging and crying and laughing with my fellow humans in uniform who “got” my story and who “woke” me to their amazing strength of spirit. My heart used to not have room for appreciating our military. That production and the sharing it provided changed my life, my outlook, and who I now include in my prayers. Theater has such power! WHAT I'M WORKING ON: A new feature-length screenplay, We Ourselves and turning my award-winning play, Bound By Truth, into a limited series (because I cannot get it produced in the theater). KEYWORDS: Historical, Mystery, Comedy, Climate, Political, Environmental, Biography, TYA Musicals, Holiday. LISA RAMIREZ writer/actor. Plays include EXIT CUCKOO (nanny in motherland), Working Theater, PlayMakers Rep, Oakland Theater Project; ART OF MEMORY, Ontological-Hysteric Theatre & 3-Legged Dog, NYC; Pas de Deux (lost my shoe), Cherry Lane Theatre & TheatreWorks Silicon Valley; TO THE BONE, Cherry Lane Theatre, Oakland Theater Project, Working Theater; Pulitzer Prize Nominee, Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award; DOWN HERE BELOW, Oakland Theater Project, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award; IN THE MOUNTAINS, Workshop Theater, NYC; sAiNt jOaN (burn/burn/burn), Oakland Theater Project. Currently working on the pilot, FIFTY & the film adaptation of, TO THE BONE. A recent member of the Center Theatre Group's playwright workshop 21/22. As an actor, she has performed extensively at theaters on both the East and West Coast, including, the Cherry Lane Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, Magic Theatre, Berkeley Rep, and many more. Lisa was the first Latina Angel in a major U.S. production of ANGELS IN AMERICA at Berkeley Rep and recently completed a sold-out run of TS Eliot’s, THE WASTE LAND in a drive-in theater at Oakland Theater Project, marking it the first live theatrical production in California, post-pandemic.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Website: https://oaklandtheaterproject.org/saint-joan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ramirezlisa/ Twitter: @liram1010 Instagram: @lisaramireznyc MORE ABOUT ME: Qu: What was your most gratifying moment in the theater? A: TO THE BONE at the Cherry Lane Theater. Qu: What play or production changed your life? A: All of them do, actually. Qu: I feel most like myself when ...? A: I Am writing/ acting/working. Qu: How do you overcome disappointment? A: I cry then I get mad then I help someone worse off than me. Qu: If you could bring one change to theater, what would it be? A: More women and women of color in leadership positions. Qu: What do you want artistic directors to know? A: That they need to wake up and shake shit up. Qu: What’s the one thing nobody knows about you that you’d like them to know? A: I almost drowned at age two. And I swim every morning. Qu: What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not writing? A: Walking, working out, swimming, dancing. Qu: Why do you keep doing theater? A: I have no choice. Qu: How do you imagine telling stories in these times? A: In parking lots, outside, any way we can. WHAT I'M WORKING ON: 3 plays, 2 screenplays, one TV pilot KEYWORDS: Mixed race Latina/Irish Val Stulman is a writer, actor and educator. She received her B.A. from Loyola Marymount University, in Theatre. While at LMU, Val was privileged to study classical drama in London with instructors from RADA. Later, Val studied acting with Roy London and Ivana Chubbuck, and Austin Pendleton. She performed in Los Angeles plays, had bit parts in TV shows of the day, photo-doubled the little girl in Grease 2. Her biggest claim to fame was her portrayal of a 19th century beleaguered housewife in several Virginia Slims print ads. Eventually, Val came to realize that she had not come a long way, baby, so she shifted direction. She was hired at Metromedia TV in 1986, as one of the last women and minorities, under Equal Rights. She worked as a camera utility, teleprompter operator, and audio assistant on your favorite 1990s sitcoms, game shows and a parade or two. Needing to remain creative, Val started writing. After hitting 40, an injury and life drama forced Val to shift again. She earned her English credential from CSUN and an MFA in Playwriting/Screenwriting from the University of California, Riverside. She adjuncted at community colleges and universities, did a little casting, worked briefly in a post vault and wrote. When she got a job teaching at-risk high school students, she wrote more. Her stage play, Triggers, won 3rd place in the Ebell Playwrights competition. Mercy Mission was a finalist for Humanitas New Voices. Her TV/film screenplays placed in many competitions. She co-created and acted in the horror-comedy web series, Monster Shrink. Val recently partnered with fellow UCR MFA alum Rob Rinow. They have a producer attached to their new TV pilot, Augmented, and are developing a historical TV pilot/series while Val contemplates her next play. Think Medea, but funnier.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Website: https://monstershrink.com/ and http://www.valstulman.com/ Facebook: @monstershrink FB: @ValStulman Twitter: @Val Stulman and @monstershrink Instagram: @monstershrink MORE ABOUT ME: Writing heals me. The theater, when it's great, inspires me. I'd like to do more theatre. During these troubling times, I write mostly TV & Film with a male partner. WHAT I'M WORKING ON: Putting together a pitch deck with my partner Rob Rinow for our new TV pilot which has a producer attached. Developing a new TV pilot/series. I have a new play in my head, but need a structure for it. It's semi-autobiographical. KEYWORDS: Drama, comedy, personal narrative, thriller, mystery, horror-comedy, family, adaptation, romance, crime, spiritual, healing, Jewish, historical, sci-fi. B.J. BURTON is a playwright and teaching artist. Her plays include “Lobelia Lodge,” “Hunting Season,” “For the Record,” “Good Neighbors,” “Pizza Again,” “A Sky Full of Stars,” and “The Dangers of Lightning.” Her work has been produced and/or developed at InterAct Theatre Company, Hedgerow Theatre, The Refinery at Steel River Playhouse, Pittsburgh New Works Festival at City Theatre, Six Women Playwriting Festival, Manhattan Theatre Source, Players Club of Swarthmore, Colonial Playhouse, The Brick Playhouse, Rosemont College, Widener University, and others. Honors include two Fellowships from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and winner of the Pennsylvania Playwriting Award. She was a finalist for the Heidemann Award, a finalist in the New York Screenplay Competition, a finalist twice in the Set in Philadelphia Screenwriting Competition, and a semifinalist in the Nicholl Fellowships. "Lobelia Lodge” is published by Samuel French. Her short plays for teens are published in many anthologies by Applause. "White Roses and Gooseberries" is published by YouthPLAYS. She’s the author of “The Philadelphia Connection: Conversations with Playwrights,” which is in libraries and universities worldwide. Other published work includes nonfiction/journalism, poetry, and short stories. One of her favorite projects (as writer/director/producer) “Typing,” a short film based on her play, was screened at FirstGlance Philadelphia Film Fest. She has been supported by PEN America, The Dramatists Guild Foundation, and The American Society of Journalists and Authors. Her B.A. is in Theatre (Acting) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She also studied at American Conservatory Theatre, UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, AFI, Playwrights Horizons, and in the Graduate Theatre Program at Villanova University. She received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing – Playwriting at Rosemont College. Memberships include The Dramatists Guild and the International Centre for Women Playwrights.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Website: https://www.bjburtonwriter.com MORE ABOUT ME: The most gratifying moment for me was the first production of my full-length play, "Lobelia Lodge," at Widener University. The director, Patrick F. McDade, and I stood in the back of the theatre as the story came to life. It was better than I had imagined. The actors gave their all. They were brilliant. The set, by Joe Kinsolving, worked exactly right, especially with the addition of leaves and pine needles scattered around, which made the experience feel (and smell) authentic. It was magical. One of the earliest life-changing experiences was when I was in high school. Our senior play was "Blood Wedding." I played the Servant Woman. It was the first time I had lines in a play. I was expecting wine bottles to be ready for me backstage to pick up on my next entrance. They weren't there. The prop table--empty. So, I walked back onstage and improvised. The director was amazed (and so was I) that I kept talking...and talking and talking. I realized later that I was telling a story, maybe not the one Lorca had in mind, but one that flew out of me, nonetheless. I was hooked. What's the one thing nobody knows about you that you'd like them to know? I worked as a stand-in for Jodie Foster and Helen Hunt in "Stealing Home." (However, a few people do know about this.) WHAT I'M WORKING ON: A new full-length play, "Maddie on Her Way Home," inspired by real-life experiences right before the pandemic. It's about a family crisis, sisters, friendship, strangers, betrayal, and home. KEYWORDS: Women-centered stories, family, sisters, friendship, drama, humor, mystery, magical realism, personal epic, newspapers, PTSD, grief, guns, hurricanes, social issues. Catherine Butterfield is probably best known for her plays JOINED AT THE HEAD and THE SLEEPER. Other produced full-length plays include TO THE BONE, LIFE EXPECTANCY, IT HAS TO BE YOU, BROWNSTONE, WHERE THE TRUTH LIES, SNOWING AT DELPHI and LIFE IN THE TREES. Her newest play, TOP OF THE WORLD is slated to premiere at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis in the fall of ‘22. Two short films were recently produced by the Interact Theatre of LA; ANOTHER BIRTHDAY IN BEDLAM won awards at Top Shorts, Indie Short Fest, Los Angeles Film Awards, and the Festigious Film Festival where she won for Best Original Story and FAULTLESS won Best Sci Fi short. She and husband Ron West created a web series on Youtube entitled LIFE DURING LOCKDOWN, which consists of (so far) 64 short sketches about their life and the lives of their friends during the Covid-19 crisis. Awards: George E. Oppenheimer/New York Newsday Award, Roger L. Stevens Kennedy Center award, and the Kaufman & Hart Award. JOINED AT THE HEAD, in which she also performed was nominated for a Drama Desk award. Commissions: Manhattan Theatre Club and Laguna Playhouse. TV writing/producing: Grimm, Ghost Whisperer, Fame LA and Party of Five. Plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Concord Theatricals and Playscripts, Inc. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Website: http://www.catherinebutterfield.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catherine.butterfield.129 Instagram: @catherinebutterfield MORE ABOUT ME: I'll never have a more gratifying moment in the theatre than when the woman about whom I had written the play "Joined at the Head" came to see it at the Manhattan Theatre Club, just a couple of months before she died. To heighten the pressure even more I was portraying the role based on her, a remarkably strong, humorous, kind, blazingly honest woman with cancer. The fact that she fought so much pain to get there was evidence of her indomitable spirit -- she flew in from Boston with her husband and had to use a walker to get up the street from her hotel to City Center (the longest walk of his life, her husband said,) upon which the MTC people rolled out the red carpet for her. Her husband told me that every night after that she would remark when it was half hour, that now, the actors must be getting into costume, that now the show must be starting. He said it was as if it were keeping her alive, because she was so very, very fragile. And on the final day of our run, she died. There's nothing more to say about the impact of theatre after that experience. WHAT I'M WORKING ON: A feature film screenplay entitled TOUCH ANYWHERE. Michele Remsen writes for theater, film, and television. Her plays have been produced and workshopped in New York and Los Angeles, at Naked Angels, Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Class Company, HBO Workspace, Hudson Theater, Coast Playhouse, The Lillian, Access Theater, New Georges, Stevedore Productions. Plays include ENTANGLEMENT THEORY, THE LA RONDE PROJECT (adapted into her first short film, TWO IN THE MORNING, with Selma Blair and Peter Frechette), SULLIED, TOSS IT (adapted into her first feature film), TRY THIS AT HOME (solo-show), DIARY OF A NOVEL. Short Plays include JUKE, OBSCURA, SAND, UNCLEAN HANDS, UNIFIED THEORY, MY BITTER VALENTINE, TWAS (one-line play, now on YouTube). Michele is also an award-winning film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. Her first feature, TOSS IT, was awarded WIF/Sundance ReFrame Stamp and NYWIFT Nancy Malone MAP Grant. JUKE (ShortsTV) is a festival-winner, earning Best Short at Williamsburg, Asheville, NYC Downtown Short; Michele won Favorite Actor at NYC PictureStart, and SLACKLEY MANOR won Best Pilot Script at the LA Comedy Festival. Michele was Head Writer for the comedy-series THE TINSLEY BUMBLE SHOW (WE-tv). Member: WGAE, NYWIFT, Film Fatales, Ensemble Studio Theater, Access Theater Writers Group, Founder/Artistic Director of the critically-acclaimed Stevedore Confederacy, the theater-arm of Stevedore Productions film company. Education: Bryn Mawr College; B.A. Columbia University; British American Drama Academy - Midsummer in Oxford.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Website: https://www.micheleremsen.com/ https://www.StevedoreProductions.com/ https://www.TossItTheMovie.com/ Facebook: Michele Remsen Instagram: @MicheleRemsen Twitter: @MicheleRemsen MORE ABOUT ME: I enjoy writing smart, funny, deeply probing, entertaining stories that make audiences laugh and think. I feel every story can open a conversation with the wider world, as we collectively dive into complex topics. WHAT I'M WORKING ON: When COVID-19 closed the world, theaters and the film industry, I adapted what was to be my second feature film, RACCOON, into a novel. That manuscript is now the first of a darkly comic crime trilogy. KEYWORDS: Comedy, Drama, Quantum Theory, Global Warming, Historical, Adaptations, Crime, Thriller, Science Fiction, Biography, Romance, Adventure, Complex Women Some of my plays appear as magic realism, exploring the mystic and molecular memories of our consciousness. I also write comedies because I love it when an audience recognizes something in a script that takes them by surprise and makes them laugh. In my young years, I performed in new works with the Magic Theatre, San Francisco Rep, and the Celebration Theatre; and these roles sparked my interest in hearing new voices for theatre. I pursued readings of new works with the Theatre Series on KCRW (The House In The City), the Coast Playhouse (The Crimson Thread), The Burbage Theatre (Pearls & Marlowe), and the Marin Playwright’s Festival (Sarah Bernhardt). During our pandemic years I’ve performed in online readings for new scripts, including: Running For My Life, (CCCT Theatre), Shloshim, (Words That Speak Workshop), and Flora Welles, (Words That Speak Workshop). Some of my current work includes: “CHANGE FOR MARTHA WASHINGTON”, is a full-length play exploring the afterlife trial for Martha Washington as she tries to negotiate her way to heaven. “THE HOARDING HOUSE”, examines the gluttony of hoarding, the molecular memory of slavery in a historic home, and the permission to grow beyond one’s legacy. My full-length play “THE LOST YEARS”, centering on the backstage life of women during Shakespeare’s time, had it’s premier at the Contra Costa Civic Theatre in 2017, under the direction of Marilyn Langbehn. My writing is included in “ALICE IN QUARANTINE”, a collaborative script published by Next Stage Press. Member of the Dramatist Guild, Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative (LAFPI), International Centre for Women Playwrights (ICWP), and the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP).
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/5747/cynthia-wands Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.wands.5/ MORE ABOUT ME: What was your most gratifying moment in the theater? A few years ago, after years of writing and workshops and readings, I had the opportunity for a script of mine to be produced. I had an incredible director, who was able to see more things in my script than I did. And I was able to travel to the theater to see the auditions, and the table read, and some rehearsals, and the final dress and the opening night. I saw the young woman in the play blossom on stage into a character with humor and gumption and vulnerability. I also saw the leading young man in the play bring his character to an unexpected performance: he was hilarious. I didn’t know how hilarious the character was until he showed me. A lot of this I bring to the actor’s vulnerability and charm (he didn’t know how charming he was). But here it was - the best moment/the peak experience in the play happened on their opening night. At the end, after an exchange with some raucous laughter, the characters lock arms and walk off into a new life together. The light went out. There was a moment of quiet in the house, and then there was a kind of WHOOSH, and a burst of laughter and clapping. It felt as thought the audience wanted to go out in the night air and walk off with these characters. And the curtain call was that excited jazzed up buzz that you can feel on some opening nights. This was a different excitement than being an actor on stage, or watching someone you care about giving an accomplished performance. As a playwright, I watched these characters become real, and spark laughter and spirited conversations and an excitement about the actors performance. So a dream came true – and I’ll never forget it. WHAT I'M WORKING ON: I'm finishing a new script, THE LOST AND FOUND OF 2020, a full-length script, which follows a mystical tarot reader who helps people find what they have lost during the pandemic years. Creating the artwork for the tarot cards in this piece was a challenging, weirdly esoteric, and powerful experience. KEYWORDS: Historical, Magic Realism, Pandemic, Biography, Women Focused Stories, Comedy |
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