Congratulations to the writers selected to participate in our June 2013 Writers Residency!
Check out the new work these writing teams will be working on during the residency:
Brandon Anderson & Jennifer Stafford
New Work: The Artist and the Scientist - A one-act musical that takes place over the span of five minutes. An out-of-space, out-of-time rock musical that explores the different ways we view the world, and the significance (or insignificance) of the decisions we make.
Knud Adams, Kate Hamilton & Nick Lerangis
New Work: The Highwayman - An experimental, subversive high-school-musical about Bryant, a sophomore misfit, trying to woo the head cheerleader with his rockstar prowess. He recruits his rebellious best friend Beth to help create a folk-rock opera based on Alfred Noyesʼ narrative poem 'The Highwayman'.
Douglas Hall & Joel Waggoner
New Work: Brand New Writing Project! Director Douglas Hall, and composer Joel Waggoner team up and will begin a new project at the start of the Writers Residency.
Fengar Gael & Dennis McCarthy
New Work: Soul on Vinvl - An exploration of the alienation and identity, of Roger Billy's as well as the nation's. During the twenty-five years that Roger Billy was institutionalized, has his country lived up to the ideals that inspired his songs? Has the United States remained a model for concepts of religious and political liberty as well as racial and ethnic pluralism? Has the nation, with all the blessings of modern science and technology, become a genuine refuge for the oppressed: for immigrants and dreamers, for champions of civil, economic, and environmental rights? Modern consciousness is often symbolized by the global blogosphere, and although Soul on Vinyl tells a tale of spiritual loss and redemption, it also attempts to reflect the diversity, intensity, and velocity of today's techno-society.
Terry Berliner
New Work: In The Making - A new Broadway musical about the making of a new Broadway musical. The story begins when a hot, young videographer is invited into the rehearsal room by an ambitious producer. The videographer has been enlisted to record the entire creative process and behind the scenes secrets. His videos are then simultaneously broadcast on the web. The tumultuous journey begins at the press event right before the first day of rehearsal and ends after opening night. And, even though it seems like a place where no one in their right mind would want to stay, the power of live theatre embraces everyone who touches it and changes their lives completely. What that young videographer records ain't real. It's theatre. But some people out in cyberspace, and even in New York, believe that this is how it is done.
Tamar Cole
New Work: Variations on a Theme - a play about family in which the issues of life, death, art, competition, kindness, love, choice, finding one's voice and finding one's place are examined.
James McLindon
New Work: James is working on two new works! Handicapping - A drama with comedy about the 99% set in an off-track betting parlor amidst the economic desperation of a dying industrial town. Bobby has one last day of betting to win the rest of the money he needs to buy a stake in a new pizza parlor, his last chance to make a living in his beloved hometown and bring his estranged wife and son home. Pooka - Features Martin, 12, a small, smart boy in a school where both conditions attract danger equally. Home is also no respite; his mother's abusive boyfriend, Davis, sees to that. Martin's one friend, Phoebe, who is also 12 and also a target for lunchroom bullies, provides some comfort, despite towering over Martin if not intellectually. Life holds little promise of improvement until a pooka, a mythical Celtic fairy who can assume the shape of any animal or person, appears to Martin one day. Initally, Peter seems a good friend and one capable of bullying Martin's bullies right back. But whether he means Martin well, ill, or indeed anything, and whether the possibilities he presents for Martin will lead to a happier life or disaster, are only made clear in the play's terrifying final scene.
