NNPN PLAYWRIGHTS IN RESIDENCE

One of the most exciting recent initiatives undertaken by NNPN is the Playwrights in Residence program, established in 2007 to support playwrights graduating from qualified MFA programs for a season-long residency at an NNPN member theater. Playwrights are nominated annually by member theaters, and those writers selected for the program receive stipends of $9,000 to learn from and engage with NNPN members throughout the year.

 

PROGRAM RATIONALE AND DETAILS

Currently, when MFA playwriting students leave their programs, they go into the world with virtually no connections to professional theaters and little opportunity for continued artistic advancement. Many of these young playwrights move, by default, to New York or Los Angeles, where they compete with thousands of other writers struggling to establish themselves. Through the Playwrights in Residence program, each participating member theater sponsors an emerging playwright selected for his or her talent, artistic vision, and interest in the type of work being produced by the theater. The theater provides the resident playwright with an artistic home for a season, while the playwright participates in the life of that theater. Playwrights have direct access to the artistic staff (artistic director, literary manager and/or dramaturg) for mentoring and dramaturgical consultation, as well as access to administrative and facility resources for writing and developing plays. Playwrights also gain entrée into the professional theater community. The participating theaters, in turn, add a new member to the staff who may participate in literary management, production, fundraising, outreach and audience development activities. Over time, it is the expectation that many of these playwrights will gain real world experience while developing long-lasting relations with the theaters and the community in which they have become invested.  Since its inception in 2007, the program has funded thirteen emerging playwrights.

 

2011-12 RECIPIENTS

 

CHRISTINA ANDERSON (Yale University) is the NNPN Playwright in Residence at Magic Theatre in San Francisco, CA. Anderson is from Kansas City, Kansas. Her plays include: Drip, Hollow Roots, Blacktop Sky, Inked Baby and Man in Love. Her work has been produced by or developed with Playwrights Horizon, Crowded Fire, A.C.T., About Face, The Public Theater, Penumbra and other theaters all over the country. Awards and honors include ASCAP Cole Porter Prize (Yale School of Drama), Schwarzman Legacy Scholarship awarded by Paula Vogel, Susan Smith Blackburn nomination (Playwrights Horizon), Cherry Lane Mentorship nomination, Lorraine Hansberry Award (American College Theater Festival), Van Lier Playwriting Fellowship (New Dramatists), Wasserstein Prize nomination (Dramatists Guild), Lucille Lortel Fellowship (Brown University), Core Writer Membership (Playwrights' Center). She holds an M.F.A in Playwriting from Yale School of Drama, and has a B.A. from Brown University. Her play Good Goods has been selected for the 2011 Eugene O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference. Read more at www.christinaranderson.com.

 

GABRIELLE FULTON is the NNPN Playwright in Residence at Horizon Theatre Company in Atlanta, GA. In addition to receiving a Master of Fine Arts from the Writing for the Screen and Stage Program at Northwestern University, she has studied playwriting at Chicago Dramatists and the Alliance Theatre. Ms. Fulton has a BA in History-Sociology from Columbia University in New York. She is a recipient of the City of Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs Artist Project Award and the Fulton County Arts Council Artists in Communities Grant Award. Through Ms. Fulton’s organization, Expanding Destinies, she has produced a variety of applied theatre activities designed to create social change in economically challenged communities. Her plays include Carrying the Mother Load, Sweet Dill, Redemption’s Road, MILF, Sal’s Head, and Shape of Faith, a community engagement playwriting commission from Next Theatre Company. Her Hip Hop Diaspora project was optioned by MTV Networks through an MTV Development Fellowship. Ms. Fulton is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

 

STEVE MOULDS (University of Texas at Austin ’11) is the NNPN Playwright in Residence at Curious Theatre Company in Denver, CO. Productions include Emergency Prom (UT Austin), published by Playscripts; Compound/Complex (Southern Theater, Minneapolis); Problem Box (UT Austin); Von Rollo (Illusion Theater, Minneapolis); Principles of Dramatic Writing (Source Festival, Washington DC); multiple short plays for Actors Theatre of Louisville; and three plays for the Minnesota Fringe Festival, Killer Smile, Buyer’s Remorse, and See You Next Tuesday. His work has been developed at The Inkwell (Washington, DC), and he has placed as a finalist for WordBRIDGE, Playwrights’ Week at the Lark, and the Heideman Award. Also a director, Steve has directed new plays for the Humana Festival of New American Plays, History Theatre (Saint Paul, MN), Walking Shadow Theatre Company (Minneapolis) and UT Austin. Upcoming work includes a new adaptation of Pirandello’s Six Characters for The Hypocrites (Chicago).

 

PREVIOUS RECIPIENTS

In 2010/2011, NNPN sponsored three Playwrights in Residence: Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig at Marin Theatre Company (Mill Valley, CA), Meridith Friedman at Curious Theatre Company (Denver, CO), and Joshua Elias Harmon at Actor's Express Theatre Company (Atlanta, GA).

In 2009/10, three Playwrights in Residence participated in the program: Carrie Louise Nutt at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey (Madison, NJ), Sarah Sander at Florida Studio Theatre (Sarasota, FL), and Steve Yockey at Marin Theatre Company (Mill Valley, CA).

In 2008/09, NNPN sponsored four Playwrights in Residence: Jennifer Fawcett at Curious Theatre Company in Denver, Dano Madden at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, Lia Romeo at Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey, and Andrew Rosendorf at Florida Stage. The successes of the 2008/08 residencies included: Jennifer Fawcett's play The Toymaker's War at the National Showcase of New Plays, Lia Romeo's Green Whales getting its premiere production at Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, and Andrew Rosendorf's appointment to the staff at Florida Stage.

During the 2007/2008 pilot year, InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, PA hosted Sean Christopher Lewis, a graduate from University of Iowa's MFA Playwrights Workshop; New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, MA hosted Meron Langsner, a graduate of Brandeis University; and Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in Madison, NJ hosted Brett Williams, a graduate of Rutgers.