I'm a cultural critic, author, journalist, professor, and dean at Parsons School of Design. I write the "Face Forward" column for the NY Times Style section, on beauty, media, and politics. I have been working as a writing consultant on The New Look, Apple+'s new series on European fashion, Dior and Chanel. I have written books on theater, fashion, modern dance, and literature. My last book was Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History (Random House) which has a long section on Chanel's work as a theater and film costumer. I have also been a theater and dance critic, and for 4 years wrote the "Reading the Signs" column for NY Magazine's The Cut. I have been a professor of comparative literature, theater studies and performance, and have a dance background. Also ran my own consulting firm for years--specializing in women's issues, strategy, market research, and crisis intervention. Went to Yale for my PhD and BA. Spent years living, studying, and working in Paris. Born and raised in NYC, alumna of Hunter College High School. I am hoping to do more writing and consulting for film and television.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA TW: rkgar IG: rhondagarelick FB: rkgarelick FB Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRhondaKGarelick/ MORE ABOUT ME The performance that absolutely changed my life was Ariane Mnouchkine's Twelfth Night in Avignon, at the Palais des Papes. And one more: Teno Sehgal's "This Progress" at the Guggenheim. I feel most like myself when I'm writing or deep in conversation with someone who challenges me. My favorite thing to do when not writing is dancing. Stories need to engage our bodies more. WHAT I'M WORKING ON A very big book about the untapped power of women's culture in global politics. A very inchoate play called 'The Interview." KEYWORDS Feminist, New Yorker, talker, narrative nonfiction, biography, dance, fashion, France. For the tenth anniversary of 9/11, "E-Mail: 9-12", now published by Next Stage Press, was produced by theatres in four states. Monologues from this, Guerrera’s response to the 9/11 tragedy, are also published in “Contemporary Monologues for a New Theater,” Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2018. Annarita, was selected for the Samuel French 29th Annual Short Play ‘Festival and revised in 2012. Historic works written and directed by Midge include: "Ruth St. Denis: The Dance Continues," commissioned by Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission and Vocational High School; a bi-centennial multi-discipline reenactment, "Turnabout " commissioned by the Millstone Historic Society; "Transitions," commissioned by the Somerset County Bi-Centennial Commission, re-counts the events that occurred in the Watchung Mountains in 1776; "Crane Chronicles", commissioned by the Stephen Crane House and funded in part by the NJ Council on the Humanities; and "Stephen Crane: The Middle Years", developed to be performed through-out the house that was home to author for one third of his life, commissioned and presented by the Stephen Crane Committee at the Stephen Crane House . "Many Snows Ago," explores the tales of Eastern Woodland Indians and has been performed at numerous schools. She has written over fifty plays for children. All were produced by the Laffin’ Stock Company. "Wanda the Girl Who Cried Witch" is published by Next Stage Press. Guerrera splits her time between New Jersey and a small village in Southern Italy. Her blog, www.nonnasmulberrytree.com shares her expat experience with subscribers in Europe, United States, Canada, Australia and South America. Set against the gorgeous roads of Italy, "Cars, Castles, Cows, and Chaos" published by Read Furiously is memoir-meets-tour-guide of errors and triumphs.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://midgeguerrera.com/ FB:https://www.facebook.com/midge.guerrera/ TW: https://twitter.com/midgeg INST: https://www.instagram.com/expat49/ MORE ABOUT ME How can one not tell stories in these times! Politics, pandemics, pillage, rape, human rights twisted and pulled - the world has been telling these stories for ions. The locations may change, the characters names altered but the themes remain. That is the tragedy worth talking about. Immersion theater - the street theater of my youth - the flash mobs - bringing theater out of the academic and price gouging closet and into the streets - that is how we can tell the stories in these times. There is much to talk about and to reach today's audiences one must get out of the theater. The pandemic made us more aware of the availability of digital presentations. We have more venues today than yesterday. We just need to fill them with material that inspires dialogue and change. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Plays about my Aunt Cat (one of first female postmasters), Ruth St Denis (mother of modern dance who I adore), Flagtown Fem-Miltia (a play about women in their third acts keeping the home fires burning and safe). I'm also workin on a travel guide for Pontelandolfo and a cookbook based on traditional fare and never uses a measuring spoon. KEYWORDS Mystery, Thriller, Political, Food, Equality, Historical, Fable/folktales, Immersive/site-specific, biography, young audiences, interactive Angela Page is a writer, producer and author. Her short films are featured on the Shorts TV channel, FunnyorDie and Indiepix Unlimited. Her recent comedy thriller, "There's a Dead Girl in My Yard" was released in Dec 2021. She was a director at the Copenhagen Theatre Circle and founder of The Crown Players in London. Her social drama "Legal Gringa" will be staged at Powerstories theatre in July 2022.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://angelapage.net FB: https://www.facebook.com/angelapage5127/ TW: https://twitter.com/angelapage1200 MORE ABOUT ME The best moment in the theatre, was directing and performing in my own one act musical, "Tapioca" about a a rebellion on a fictitious Caribbean island. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Revising play scheduled for performance July 2022 KEYWORDS Latinx, satire, comedy, drama, equality, versatile, worldly, quirky Bianca Bagatourian is a graduate of The Art Center College of Design and also the Brooklyn College Playwriting MFA Program, under lifetime Obie winning playwright, Mac Wellman. She is an experimental playwright who likes to stretch the boundaries of theater and whose works revolve around human rights themes. Her current play, THE TIME OF OUR LIES, based on the works of noted historian, Howard Zinn, was co-produced by Viggo Mortensen, and support from Eddie Vedder, Tim Robbins, Diane Lane, Tom Shadyac and the Zinn Estate and ran at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it was nominated for the Amnesty International "Freedom of Expression" Award is now going to be on at The Park Theatre in London, July, 2019. Her play about the 1976 revolution in Iran focused on the injustice to the children of a revolution and had readings at both the Ohio Theater in NYC and The Pasadena Playhouse in Ca. In 2016, a reading of her new work was presented at The Lark Theatre in NYC as part of the Middle Eastern Convening of Playwrights. She is also working on a play about the Armenian genocide based on 800 hours of survivor stories with permission from the Armenian Library and Museum of America called THE LEFTOVER as well as OPERATION AJAX about the downfall of Mohammad Mossadegh, the first democratically elected prime minister in Iran in 1953. Bianca is the president of the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance, a non-profit organization she founded in 2005 which administers the $10,000 Saroyan/Paul Human Rights Playwriting Award (www.armeniandrama.org). She also works in the film world and produced a feature film in 2015 and has another in production now as well as a genocide documentary being filmed in Africa.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://www.biancabagatourian.com/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/bianca.bagatourian TW: @timeofourlies IG: @bagatourian MORE ABOUT ME My play about the life of radical historian, HOWARD ZINN, changed me. I never liked history growing up and didn't see the importance. Then I asked Howard what the most important message was about his life's work and he replied, "Know your history. Because if you don't know your history and your president says, go to war, you won't know the consequences of the last one and you're a blank page. You're a babe in the woods." I then knew theatre had led me down the right path in my life. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Currently commissioned to write a play about Wikileaks- The Story of Julian Assange. Also have just completed 2 comedy TV pilots. KEYWORDS Human Rights, Social Justice, History, Zoom Plays, Radio Plays,Climate, Biography, Musicals, Adaptations, Middle Eastern, Armenian , UK Joanne is a playwright, director and filmmaker whose plays have been commissioned, developed and produced by Huntington Theatre Co., Boston Playwrights Theatre, HERE Arts Center, The Tank, The Marsh, Thrown Stone, East River Commedia, SIPA (School of International Public Affairs at Columbia University), Keeler Tavern Museum, Iceland Fulbright, Vestmannaeyjar Iceland Library and others. As a Fulbright Scholar in creative writing, she traveled to Iceland to write a play about a scientist who loses her ethics and finds her humanity, “unbidden,” now included in the literature of the Westmann Islands. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University School of the Arts. Joanne founded RIFF in 2015 in order to be around filmmakers and learn the craft of filmmaking, to share the beautiful town of Ridgefield CT and its many arts venues with them, and in the hopes of making the world a more compassionate place through the sharing of stories through cinema.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://www.riffct.org/ FB: joannehudson3 IG: joannehudsonplays; @mollusksmovie; book.sandtravel MORE ABOUT ME My most gratifying moment in theatre remains the first time I directed my own work. A friend told me, “Cast the best actors,” (as opposed to type) they will make you believe anything.” And it was true. My actors didn’t know I had never directed before (I read On Directing by Harold Clurman) and we rehearsed for 8 weeks for a 25 minute play for a one act festival. I was caretaking a loft space in Vinegar Hill and each day my actors and I would trek out to Brooklyn to rehearse in this giant artists loft where I would have them do mirror exercises to get in sync (they were playing doppelgängers). I knew it worked when I watched from behind as they walked down the street their heads cocked to one side and subconsciously mimicking one another’s movements. The two lead actors fell in love and didn’t tell me until after opening night. We were a smash hit and everyone filled the audience to see our show the second night. It remains one of the two most delightful theatre experience of my career, the other being the production of my play Pop Art at Boston Theatre Marathon, directed by Stephanie LeBolt, where all I had to do was show up and enjoy the show. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Currently, I produce and direct Ridgefield Independent Film Festival (RIFF) now in its seventh year. I also make short films, and am working on a feature length screenplay. KEYWORDS Film, theatre, micro budget Julia Pascal PhD is a London playwright-theatre director and scholar. Her new play 12-37 premieres at The Finborough Theatre, London in autumn 2022. She is currently writing and presenting a BBC World Service radio documentary on The Sin Only Women Commit-Ageing. Julia trained as an actor and worked professionally as a performer before becoming a stage director and playwright. She was the first woman director at the National Theatre on the South Bank with Men Seldom Make Passes her adaptation of Dorothy Parker’s writings. As a journalist she has worked for the London Times, The Guardian, City Limits magazine and The Observer as well as for BBC radio. Her plays have been published and produced in the UK, Europe and the USA. In New York, scenes from her St Joan, about a Black Jewish Londoner, were part of the Lincoln Centre’s Director’s Lab and her Dybbuk was seen at Theatre For the New City. Crossing Jerusalem, her contemporary drama set in the 2002 intifada, has had two London productions and a German adaptation at the Karlsruhe Staatstheater. Prizes include an award from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Produced and published texts include The Holocaust Trilogy, Crossing Jerusalem, Woman In The Moon, The Dybbuk, The Golem, Nineveh, L’Année Zéro, Honeypot, The Shylock Play and The Yiddish Queen Lear. They mainly focus on women’s histories and reveal stories of exile and trauma which are part of drama’s reluctant and hidden narratives. She is a director of Pascal Theatre Company. In 2021 she produced Dancing, Talking, Taboo! and was dramaturg and director of this community theatre project as a collaboration with students from London Contemporary Dance School. She is a Research Fellow at King’s College, London University and has taught at NYU in New York and London. Represented by United Agents
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: www.juliapascal.org TW: Ajuliapascal FB: https://www.facebook.com/julia.pascal MORE ABOUT ME I tell stories through theater as this is the language that I know best. Live performance is exciting to me and I feel the dearth of women's stories is something I have a mission to correct. If I could bring one change to theatre it would be parity for women on all levels. I have worked politically to try to change the marginalisation of women as a writer and as a poltiical activist. It is crucial to me and to all women. WHAT I'M WORKING ON A new play about Hannah Arendt, Charlotte Salomon and Eva Daube when they were imprisoned in Gurs 1940. A new play for a community project on Eleanor Marx. A television adaptation of the Oedipus story from Jocasta's point of view set in London today. KEYWORDS Political, Equality, Satire, Jewish, Myth, site-specific, biography. Gillian Fritzsche is a writer, director, and producer with 15+ years of experience. She has worked in theater, film, and the documentary space, as well as corporate content and awards shows.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://gillianfritzsche.com/ TW: @fritchbeetle IG: @fritchbeetle MORE ABOUT ME A recent memory was standing at the back of the theater and listening to the audience laugh at the jokes and the funny moments I wrote. I love bringing joy to people. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Currently, I have several feature screenplays that I'm working on. I have a slate of short Christmas plays that I would like to make available. KEYWORDS Family, Children, Christian, Holiday, Romance, Adventure Pam’s musical, "Urban Momfare" (composer/lyricist/co-book writer), won a Best Musical award, at the New York International Fringe Festival, garnered four stars and a Critics Pick from Time Out. Pam’s award-winning plays and musicals have been seen on stages throughout New York and nationally, including Primary Stages, Naked Angels, Theatre Now New York, The Group Rep/Lonny Chapman Theatre, Southwest Theatre Productions, and Emerging Artists Theatre. She is the co-writer, with Alice Jankell, of "Cicadas, The Musical," featured on Season 2 of the Amazon streaming series, “The Other F Word.” Pam’s songs have been performed at The Metropolitan Room, The Laurie Beechman Theatre, and The Duplex, among others. She recently completed a writing residency at Kervigo Ensemble Theatre (NY) and is a member of Theatre Now New York’s National Musical Writers Lab. Her musical Coda, co-written with Alice Jankell and composer Aaron Drescher, was selected as a semifinalist at the 2021 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Music Theater Conference. Dramatists Guild member. Education: Brown University, Fordham Law School, New York Theatre Workshop, and The BMI Musical Theatre Workshop.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://www.pamelaweilergrayson.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.w.grayson IG: @pamwgrayson MORE ABOUT ME My most gratifying moment in the theatre was watching the opening night performance of the first show I had ever written, URBAN MOMFARE, at the New York Fringe Festival, in 2014. That performance was the culmination of many years of work on this original musical, and it was pure joy (and okay, a little terror) to watch it come to life on a professional stage, and to hear the audience reaction to it. Probably the production that most changed my life was the original “A Chorus Line.” I had always wanted to be a performer, and when I saw that show, I was transported into a world that felt like the place I just had to be a part of. I overcome disappointment by learning to move on to the next thing, and by doing something that one of my collaborators said to me years ago: “Celebrate the ‘Yeses.’” So when I feel disappointed, especially with rejections, I try to think about all the “Yeses” I’ve gotten, and the positive affirmations that I receive from many others. I also meditate, exercise, eat chocolate, take a walk, or watch some escapist movie or t.v. show. I’m still working on how to master disappointment, as I believe it’s a lifelong journey. But I’m getting better at it. Most days! I imagine telling stories in these times by trying my best to write truthfully and to commit to my characters and their journeys. I believe in the power of storytelling and that people will respond to a well-written play, whether or not that play conforms to the current trends. I also believe in the power of humor (especially dark comedy), which I infuse into all my shows, even the most dramatic ones. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I’m always working on different projects, which are in different stages of development, but in terms of writing, I’m currently (as of March 2022) focusing on two main works. One is an original musical, where I am co-writing book and lyrics with Alice Jankell, and Aaron Drescher is our composer. The show is about love, sex, and connection in an assisted living facility. We use Indie Rock music to help challenge the common notions of older age. The second piece is a play about a contemporary American Jewish family, focusing on three generations of women, as they wrestle with their identities when antisemitism hits home. KEYWORDS Comedy-dramas, Musicals, Jewish, Women-centric, Mid-Life Tina Esper's play, Neighbor Jane has been selected for the 2022 Great Plains Theatre Conference. Neighbor Jane was developed at The Workshop Theater's Spring Intensive 2021 and at the Sewanee Writers Conference 2021. Her play Fireflies was a 2021 Woodward/Newman Drama Award Finalist as well as a 2020 O’Neill Semifinalist, a 2022 Athena Project Semifinalist, a 2021 Garry Marshall New Works Festival Semifinalist and a 2021 Cimientos Semifinalist. Fireflies was also a Finalist for the Loom at Woven Theatre. She was a 2020 Garry Marshall New Works Festival Semifinalist and a 2019 O’Neill Semifinalist for her play, Jersey Intersections. Tina was a visiting artist at the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive in 2018. Tina (she/her) is a member of Pick Up Sticks Playwriting Collective founded and led by Gary Garrison.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/21406/tina-esper Facebook: Tina Esper MORE ABOUT ME I am most myself when I am alone thinking, writing or meditating. WHAT I'M WORKING ON A modern-day adaptation of Medea centered around two Brazilian sisters in Newark, New Jersey. KEYWORDS Surreal-pastoral, magical realism, female-centered plays Donna was the winner, with two other writers, of the Point Loma Community Theater's 24 Hour Experiment with her play "Guess Who Isn't Coming to Dinner". She produced and wrote three plays in the San Diego area: "Longing" and "The Break Room" at the Tenth Avenue Theater; and "Out of the Bookstore" at the Performance Annex. Two of her plays were written and produced at Plymouth Congregational Church. She acted in three of these plays and made costumes for three of them. She won the three minute play contest at the International Center for Women Playwrights, and has had zoom readings of three of her plays at Scripteasers script review in San Diego. Donna's play "Men Who Couldn't Save Her" had a zoom reading at the International Center, and several other plays have been read at Merely Writers in Georgia and the Playwright Center in Minneapolis. Her scene from "Invitation" was read at the Playground Experiment in New York. Donna is a PhiBetaKappa graduate of Cal Berkeley and has taught high school and was a teaching assistant at Cal San Diego.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: http://theaterismylife.com Facebook: https//www.facebook.com/donna.gordon.1690 Twitter: @DonnaGo73418612 MORE ABOUT ME My most gratifying moment in the theater was my second production in San Diego. The play ran for three nights and the audience grew each night. I've had many other jobs in my life but this achievement was the most meaningful. Several friends from San Diego theatrical world helped me produce this play. I keep doing theater because I've been a costumer, actor and writer. Though I wasn't young when I started writing plays, I think I belong in the theater. I hope artistic directors realize that mature writers have wisdom and depth to share. I always try to uplift and inspire audiences so my plays usually end on a hopeful note. When I'm not writing I like to garden and sew clothes. I really love to act, and I read Shakespeare on zoom. I like to get into another character and forget myself. It seems like a very other-oriented thing to do and I love the Bard. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I am rewriting a play about addiction. Since I've been studying play structure, I've gone back over previous plays to improve them. I have many notes written for a three act play called "The Writer Pays the Price". It is inspired by my roommate's poem of the same name. The theme of the play is the obstacles an artist must overcome in this society. These include lack of money and support of friends and/or family. The main character in this play is a woman, and sometimes being a female artist brings additional baggage. But the play will end on a positive note as a couple determines that they will pursue their art. KEYWORDS Family, Romance, Thriller, Historical, Adaptations, biography, period, young audiences |
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