Results matching “showcase” from Inkblog!

It’s almost September?! Wow. Time flies when you’re reading plays.

The Inkwell team (including me, Anne, your ever intreprid, if sometimes tardy, blogger) has been reading all right. Reading and reading and reading. We received more than 320 plays in the middle of March, when so many brave playwrights heard our call (our second call for submissions, that is) and put their work into our hands.

We know it’s frustrating for playwrights to experience months of radio silence.   Well, let me explain a little bit more about our process, which includes more than 50 people, a thorough review of plays (sometimes over and over again), and a lot of discussion among our readers and The Inkwell leadership team.

First off, I can't emphasize this enough — we take all submissions very seriously.  We know it takes courage and tears to write a play... let alone let others take a look at it.

That’s why we assembled a team of more than 50 readers, each of whom we train to review your plays with an open heart. We also gave them very specific criteria by which to review these plays from many different angles.

Our Managing Director and play submissions master Lindsay Haynes explains how we look at these plays in her blog entry from a couple of months ago.

We then asked them to read every play. EVERY PLAY. And that’s what we did.

But wait. There’s more.

We sifted through the reviews of all 320 plays and selected about 100 plays to read a little more closely. And not just by one more person. We had each of these plays read by at least two more reviewers.

But wait. There’s more.

We then selected about 35 to review again. These are the plays that our readers themselves found to be inventive, to play with language in a way they hadn’t seen before, to portray characters that grabbed them, that experimented with theatricality and spectacle.

And we read them again. Each of these plays was reviewed by at least three people….  In the end, these 35 plays were read by at least four people.

We then brought our readers together for a series of discussions about this group of plays… to talk about why they loved them, to examine the playwright’s approach to collaboration, to explore the ways in which The Inkwell might help the playwright.

And that takes us up to August…and to The Inkwell's first showcase event!

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Without further adieu, I’m happy to tell you more about our first showcase reading of 2010 featuring plays and playwrights chosen from The Inkwell's 2010 open call for submissions.

We’ve chosen four raw, wild, provocative, magical, and deeply funny plays from four talented local writers. And we will be presenting a showcase reading of each (meaning a 20-minute excerpt from each play) at The Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival on September 6th at 7:00 p.m. in the South Atrium Foyer.

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We’re terribly excited about this showcase.

First, we’re thrilled to provide local writers a chance to collaborate with us and to have their work seen at The Kennedy Center. For those of you who are out of town, The Page to Stage Festival is a big event, bringing 40 theater companies from all over the area to the building for a day of exploring new plays. It also attracts hundreds and hundreds of people from all over the city who are excited to see plays in progress.

We’re also excited to gather a group of more than 40 artists to work on these plays with us — four writers, four directors, four dramaturges, two supervising dramaturges, and 20 or so actors.

Finally, we’re really excited about the plays! We’ve got myth and magic, a funny and disturbing exploration of eugenics, a ballad about a graffiti artist/folk hero, and a musing on astrophysics as it relates to grief. Here’s a short synopsis for each play… to whet your appetite for some bite-sized morsels of some seriously rich and delicious work.

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MADDY LEE: A SOUTHERN TRAGEDY by Stephen Spotswood - Maddy Lee's a bootlegger's daughter and voodoo sorceress who knows all the dark, knotted secrets of the bayou. But when she falls for Jason, the son of the richest man in town, she gives up everything to be with him. And in that moment of sacrifice, Maddy unleashes a terrible spell.

DARWIN'S COUSIN by Christin Siems - Layne is given everything she thought she ever wanted after in-vitro fertilization. But with that wish fulfilled comes a horrible choice...to choose among five unborn babies...to decide who is weak, who is strong, who will be happy, who will be miserable...to choose who will survive.

WE FIGHT WE DIE by Timothy Guillot - The infamous Q is a rebel vandal artist leaving a beautiful, terrific trail of graffiti art wherever he goes. When he’s caught for the 23rd time tagging where he shouldn’t, tthe mayor offers him a deal that could give him freedom or steal that which is most precious to him.

BLUE STRAGGLER by Rebecca Bossen - As an astrophysicist, Lisa can neatly order her world around numbers, equations, and all the different theories of the universe. But there’s no equation in the universe that can explain why the person she most loves has been taken away. Or is there?

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We hope you can join us at The Kennedy Center on Labor Day.  If not, learn more about the showcase here at the blog (hopefully with a few words from the playwrights and dramaturgs and directors).

And please stay tuned as we announce more showcases and readings to come.  It's going to be a busy Fall!

Guess what?!

The Inkwell just launched its SECOND CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS, and we couldn't be more excited.  We can't wait to hear from playwrights from across the country... we can't wait to find out what is brewing in their heads and what they are throwing down on the page.

So PLAYWRIGHTS — We are ready for you!  SEND US YOUR PLAYS BETWEEN MARCH 1st and MARCH 21st. 

We'll be selecting plays to develop through a sustained collaboration with dramaturgs, directors, actors, and designers.  There's lots more information at The Inkwell's website.

This whole submissions process wouldn't be possible without the quick wits and superhuman organizing skills of The Inkwell's Lindsay Haynes.  You're the best, Lindsay!

And she wants to tell you more about how we manage this whole big thing.  So I am yielding the blog floor to her to describe our review process.  Take it Lindsay!

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We’re like a crew of little kids looking over a pile of presents at a birthday party.

Over a few short weeks, we’ll get to unwrap all sorts of wild, thrilling, thoughtful, engaging and wonderful plays. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

“But come on,” a playwright might say, “you don’t really read all those plays, do you?”

Oh, my goodness, do we ever!!

Our famous blog maven Anne McCaw and I were thinking it might be a good idea to explain our play reading process, so you don’t feel like you are throwing your play into a void when you send it to us… and why it takes so long for us to come out of play-reading hibernation and tell you what we’ve figured out.

First off, we get your plays over a three-week period. And this year we have a fancy new submissions site that our fantastic web designer Jessie Glass has put together for us. (Check out Jessie Glass's website if you’re in the market for a web guru. Man, is she great... but I digress.)

So here’s what happens on our end of things.

Starting from day one, our band of around 30 awesome readers (and counting) hit the ground running. Each has been trained how to read a play for The Inkwell and will be assigned between one and three plays per week to review and respond to via an all-important evaluation form. We’ll start sending out plays to our readers as soon as we get them, and we’ll keep sending them out to our readers until each and every play is read.

We then ask our readers to evaluate how well these plays fit into The Inkwell’s aesthetic based on a number of criteria — story/plot, structure, character, theatricality, and language, among them. (You can read a bit more about these criteria — how we define them and how we examine them — at the play submissions page on our website.)

We also ask our readers to advocate for plays, telling us why they find them fascinating and how they think the playwright would benefit from a collaboration with The Inkwell. Here’s a sampling of the questions we ask our readers:
 

• What about this piece excites or engages you?
• What is the most memorable thing about this play?
• How and why do you think that the playwright could benefit through The Inkwell’s development process?

• Did the playwright fill out the form correctly?

(Yup, we really ask that. And it’s important to us – more than you might think. Since The Inkwell’s relationship with playwrights is so process-intensive we really care about the human behind the play — as much as, maybe more — than the play they submitted.)

Last year, we received 428 plays over two weeks, and it took about eight weeks for our readers to get through their first review.  That’s the end of step one.

We then read through all of our readers’ responses and narrow the field down for a second round of evaluation of about 100 plays. Those will be read and responded to by at least two more readers, and then from those responses, we’ll narrow the field down further to one last group.

In all, the final pool of plays will be read by five people at least.

Finally, we’ll work with the finalists in different capacities depending on the need of the plays or the playwrights. The first step is likely to be a showcase reading of a 20-minute excerpt. We’ll be producing a series of these readings in the fall.

All-in-all, it’s an exhausting, exhilarating process. It takes us about six months to select our final plays, and we think it’s important to take that time because it’s a process we feel strongly about. We know you’ve poured yourself into what you’ve sent us, and we respect that, and do our best to honor it by reading every play we’re sent. We get a lot of them, so – though we wish we could -- we can’t respond to all of you, but your plays are well-cared for in our hands.

So thank you for your time and effort in creating your scripts and sending them in to us. We’re doing our best to be good stewards for the industry, and to further the development of new plays and playwrights. We’re glad to get to know you and your plays, and we promise to do our best to take good care of them.

It's been a lot like Narnia before the return of Asland.... It's been a lot like that time when Hans cut open that Taun Taun to save Luke from freezing up like a popsicle.

It's been a lot like Minnesota here in Washington, DC... although I haven't seen anyone setting up a tiny house on the Potomac and cutting a circle in the ice for fish.

To put it plainly... it's been cold... and it's been snowing inches and inches and inches and inches and inches.

But that doesn't stop The Inkwell from plotting and planning, my friends.  Nope.  We've been sitting in our thinking chairs, a hot cup of coffee on the table beside us, and we've been cooking up a whole lot of playmaking for 2010!

And now we are just burstin' to tell you all about it.

So I'm going to give you a little taste of what we've been thinkin' and what we've been plannin'. 

But if you really want to find out all there is to know about The Inkwell in 2010, come out to LOCAL 16 this coming Tuesday, March 2nd.  We're holding our first Happy Hour of the year.

The Inkwell team will venture forth (rain, sleet, or snow) to raise a glass with you and talk a bit more about... well, everything playmaking!

To start the conversation, I’d like to share with you a few things that The Inkwell team learned this past year about making plays… lessons we’ve been discussing quietly amongst ourselves.

LESSON #1:  As daunting as it was to read so many plays, our first national call for submissions was a tremendous leap forward for The Inkwell.

We connected with more than 400 playwrights… wow.  We are grateful and inspired by all who submitted their work.  What a landscape of the imagination… if I may wax poetic for a moment.

PLAYWRIGHTS:  Keep writing, keep revising, and send us your work.

SERIOUSLY….Write…revise… send us your plays starting MARCH 1st!

That's right... we're doing it all again with The Inkwell's SECOND NATIONAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS.

Make sure you check out The Inkwell website on MONDAY, MARCH 1ST where you can get all the details on how you can submit your play.

LESSON #2:  Our collaborations with the 23 playwrights we chose to showcase during the 2009 Inkubator Festival taught us so much about how playwrights work and how plays get made. 

There’s so much more to say, but let me boil it down to one observation. 

We could see how isolated playwrights get from the people they most need to collaborate with… other playmakers.  Every single playwright that came into town for the festival (and many paid their own way) thrived in the rehearsal room, watching their work up on its feet and talking with their directors, actors, designers, and dramaturgs.

So we're working on bringing in more playwrights over time, and bringing them in for longer rehearsal periods.  Stay tuned over this next year, as we tell you more about our ongoing collaborations with playwrights... you may even get to see them in action as we being a video blog series of our playmaking projects!

LESSON #3:  We want to work with playwrights all the year round… and we want to find all sorts of ways to make connections between playwrights and playmakers here in DC.

So we've a big decision.  We are going to forgo a festival this year.  We've just got too many activities to cram into four weeks.

Instead, we are going to host events throughout the year, starting with our Happy Hour on March 2nd.  We want all the playmakers and playwrights in DC to come out and play with us... winter, spring, summer, and fall!

And all this starts with our second national call for submissions.  On Monday, you'll hear from the fabulous Lindsay Haynes, who is overseeing the submissions process.  She's going to tell you more about how to submit, how we read plays, and what kinds of plays we are looking to explore in 2010 and beyond.

Gosh, I don't know about you, but I'm gettin' all heated up with excitement.  That's good, because it's still pretty cold here.

We continue to look backward for a bit, dear readers, as we enjoy the many exciting moments of the 2009 Inkubator Festival.  We had a fully packed last weekend, with five playwrights in town, four of whom came in to watch 20-minute excerpts of their work at our last showcase reading.

It was a showcase of dazzling word play, an afternoon of plays that play with language in one way or another.  Here are the dramaturgical notes from the showcase.  Meghan Long joined me in presenting these pieces.

It was particularly fun to hang out with the playwrights afterward.  We discussed the ways in which these very different plays connected.  There was great generosity among these playwrights as they talked with one another about language, character, revision, acting, and all other things playmaking.

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This particular suite of plays is inspired by words… whether a pretty turn of phrase, a single sentence that can change the course of the world, poetry of excavation, of things lost and found, of a particular place or time. These are also plays that explore the larger dominion of language as it shapes and moves worlds.

Please note that these are some of the more complex plays that we have presented over the course of the festival, so some of the introductions are extensive. Overall, we hope you look for ways in which the music and exploration of language intrigue you.

Balls
by Jonathan Yukich

(presented by Meghan Long)

Balls is a hilarious depiction of a family living in the 1970s South.

In a community where football rules, news that famed college football coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant, is planning a visit to Balls, Alabama shocks the Moon family and sends them into a frenzy of preparation so Keegan can impress the famous coach. Keegan is a high school kicker wants nothing more than to play for the Crimson Tide and make his late father proud. Posey, Keegan’s twin brother couldn’t care less about football and doesn’t understand why the rest of the town is so worked up about Bear Bryant’s impending visit. Posey buries himself in his journals and knows there is something bigger outside of Balls. Mary Merle, the boys’ mother, is never too far from her bottle of Old Crow and believes that through it all, there is no place on earth better than Balls.

The family dynamics shift when Mary Merle takes out an ad in search of a renter for the spare room and the call is answered by a stranger, Mr. Granger. Ruthie-T, Keegan’s girlfriend rounds out this eccentric cast of characters. Events play out over a few rainy nights in Balls leading to a dramatic conclusion. Is Balls big enough for the Moon family?  There is certainly never a boring day in Balls.

We loved the language and comedy of this play; the play is very funny, but takes a dark turn towards the end. We also loved the role that the South plays in this script; this play shines a light on a way of life in the South that isn’t necessarily explored in plays and this language of the South is quite musical. I was instantly drawn to the characters – they kept me hooked throughout the play and were very memorable because they are all so eccentric and funny.

For this showcase, we present the first 20 pages of the play. The top of the play starts with the news that Bear Bryant is visiting Balls.  In first pages we meet Posey, Mary Merle, and Keegan. We encourage you to listen for the puns of Balls and take in the language of this play.

Spake
By David Williams

We now present another apocalyptic epic, one that none of our readers could put down. I myself read the play from midnight to 1:30 in the morning, long after I should have been asleep.

The play in part inspired by the Voynich Manuscript, a book housed at Yale University Library, a text — now untranslatable — that is believed to be a spell book. David the playwright was drawn to this most intriguing mystery, but also wanted to explore the death of languages. As he told us in this original submission form, UNESCO has released an atlas showing 2,500 world languages are at risk of disappearing. He also wanted to explore the ways in which we try and often fail to communicate, be it through languages, emotions, or secret codes.

This excerpt takes us from the very beginning of the play, when the roof of a church collapses through to the third act when a Cornell University linguistic student Jessica makes a run for it across the country with her boyfriend, Cal, a divinity student who has recently left his studies, faltering in his faith because of his love for Jessica. In between, we see the ghost of a murderer and linguist, Ruloff, who visits Jessica with a warning. We also see how a spell — or curse — manifests.

Monument
By Doug Dolcino

(presented by Anne McCaw)

This is an incredibly challenging, layered, and delightfully absurd play.  It is inspired by the language and form of Greek Tragedy, of Bertolt Brecht’s spare poetry and presentational style, and by the dreamlike imagery and language of the French Symbolists.

What happens when you mix all these influences?  Doug has created something epic, something surreal that explores time and space, identity and family dynamics, death and birth of civilization, and that explores the ever-present themes in Greek tragedy of fate, hubris, and impermanence.

A bit daunting… sure.  But perhaps the best description is from one of our readers:

“Sheer and utter madness! The playwright is creating something unlike anything I have ever seen or heard.”

Let me give you a brief synopsis, touching on the plays many twists and turns.

The play revolves around the Leibert family — stuck and restless — the head of which, Herman, is a renowned civil engineer of the made-up country of Arbythnia. Arbythnia, and the family, are plagued… by gnats, by frogs, and by a prolonged, painful bout of insomnia. An exasperated chorus of mailmen are desperate to relay a message to the Leibert family: Read your mail…recognize your stagnation or the plagues will continue.

Yet Herman is steadfast in ignoring the mailmen, as well the strife within his family. Rather, he is focused on plans to create the ultimate monument for the population of Tarzania… a land far different than Arbythnia.

His family — his wife and two children — are so desperate for change that they decide to take on different identities. His wife declares herself a widow and resumes a courtship with Herman’s brother, Uncle Mangel. Herman’s daughter and son assume the identities of a chambermaid and an aspiring entrepreneur… and begin a romance.

This excerpt joins the family as they finally begin their long desired journey to Tarzania… and mayhem ensues.

The Hairy Dutchman
By Andy Bragen

(presented by Anne McCaw)

The Hairy Dutchman is a rhapsody to New York City, to tennis, to the layered history of a one beloved neighborhood.

The play is set somewhere in Queens, where a number of aging tennis courts stand. These courts — their age indeterminate, built on centuries of history that have shaped New York — are under threat — from a city that wants to bulldoze them and from rising seas.

The characters you are going to meet are drawn to the courts for any number of reasons. Some actually live day to day at the courts… some court on the courts… and two people rekindle an old grudge and a childhood love … but for all, the courts are a sanctuary.

We became enthralled with the play because of two fascinating conflicts played out in language and rhythm. There is the classic, timeless conflict of opponents in sports inspired such pop cultures classics as Rocky and The Natural. At the same time, there is the conflict between Michael, the court historian and the city inspector, a conflict of reverence for history versus progress to a new future.

This play creates a language for the game. Listen for a beat and rhythm that captures the back-and-forth of the game, as well as the high stakes for each character.

Beautiful Province (Belle Provence)
by Clarence Coo

Beautiful Province is a play that explores the connection of language and identity. How can language enable us to explore a different part of ourselves?

In early conversations with Clarence, we talked about the power of language and the belief that different languages allow us to explore a part of ourselves that we may not know existed in our native tongue.

In Beautiful Province, we meet Mr. Green, a high school French teacher and Jake, his 15-year old student, as they embark on a journey to French Canada. They cross over borders in search of the beautiful province.

The journey of these two characters’ lives in three worlds; the world of reality, Jake’s fantasy world, and Mr. Green’s fantasy world.   Jake’s fantasy is a world where he is the Last of the Mohicans, while Mr. Green lives in a fantasy world where he is stuck at the security gate at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris awaiting passport approval to enter the country. What happens when these three worlds collide? How far can one language take Mr. Green and Jake?

This play has a transformative language that takes us on a journey, just as the characters journey in the play.  The complex relationship created between Mr. Green and Jake keeps the play going. They travel across geographical borders and boundaries within themselves and each other, each in search of his own beautiful province.

The excerpt presented today at the showcase joins Mr. Green and Jake on the road as they have just crossed over the border and have spent the previous night in a hotel room with a view of Niagara Falls. We visit all three worlds in this excerpt, and we see what happens when these worlds meet. We encourage you to listen to how the characters explore themselves and connect with others through language.

You know what's cool, besides new plays, playmaking, and playwrights?  Banyan trees are really, really, really cool.

And one of the playwrights we have been working with, Adam Krarr, has written a play with an ancient talking Banyan Tree.  Oh yeah... The Inkwell totally, totally digs that.  The play is called Empire of the Trees, and we staged a 20-minute excerpt of the play as part of our festival. (Of course, you can read more about the play in Inkblog!)

And here are few words from Adam about his experience with The Inkwell.  Adam, we are so excited to learn more about this mysterious banyan tree in the next draft of your play.

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The invitation to participate in The Inkwell's showcase reading at The Kennedy Center came at an ideal time for me and my play, Empire of the Trees.  The play was scheduled for three readings here in New York City (at MultiStages and Ensemble Studio Theatre), but was also seeking a workshop.  So it was heady and exciting to get an email from The Inkwell's Jessica Burgess. 

I was quickly struck by the energy, ambition and generosity of the Jessica, Chris Niebling (who directed my excerpt), and The Inkwell crew.  It seemed to me they were taking on a lot - but always with the goal of advancing new plays and playwrights (which is not always the case with companies promoting new work).

The worst moment?  When I realized couldn't be there for the readings on September 7th.  Jessica had written me that the aim of this project was to get to know me and my work - so I was truly regretting that I'd miss this opportunity to learn more about this unusual company up close.  But Chris Niebling and I had a terrific talk about the play and the reading of the excerpt, so I was kept in the loop.

Then, several weeks after the Inkubator Festival reading, Anne McCaw contacted me to see if I wanted to talk with her and Meghan Long about Empire of the Trees.  I was just about to start rehearsals for the readings at Ensemble Studio Theatre.  Anne and Meghan's encouraging words, excellent questions, thoughtful suggestions, and ideas for possible next steps for the project were all incredibly useful to me as I listened to my play during rehearsals and at the reading.  Some changes to the script were made, and I'm excitedly exploring next steps.  The experience left me eager to work further - and, hopefully, closer! - with The Inkwell.  I'm very grateful for the opportunity.

It never, ever ceases to amaze any of us at The Inkwell... the twists and turns and flights of fancy of the playwrights mind.  Man, do we love sharing what they are thinking with you, whether through their plays or as they write back to us about their experiences with The Inkwell.  As I've mentioned before, we asked that the playwrights we worked with during the 2009 Inkubator Festival blog for us, if they can. 

So here's a delightful little interlude from one playwright that we love... Anna Moench.

The Inkwell staged a 20-minute excerpt of Anna's play The Pillow Book as part of our By the Book showcase (there's more to share about this wonderful evening of plays, so check out the blog post of a couple of weeks ago).

Anna gave us one of the most interesting explorations of a marriage I have read or seen... a play based on the form the pillow book, a collection of observations and musings invented by a Japanese lady of court in the 10th Century.

And so it's a delight for her to share her own take on blog dialogue here, which includes a portrait of me.  Please know that I am really not that scary (at least I don't think so).

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Anne McCaw, Queen of the Dramaturgs, chills in her Dramaturgy Throne.
Anna Moench, Playwright Supplicant to Dramaturgy's Insights, enters.

Moench: Oh Great Anne McCaw!  I come to extend my gratitude for including my work in The Inkubator Festival!

McCaw: I don't need gratitude, woman, I need blog posts!

Moench: But Great Anne McCaw, I am frightened of the Internet and the lurking masses who shall read my words!

McCaw: Aren't you supposed to be a writer?  Isn't that the whole point?

Moench: Touche.

Anne asked us writers to describe a particular moment in the Inkubator Festival process that stood out as particularly awesome, but for me, there were several.  And all of them were moments I shared with The Inkwell's intrepid staff.  So here they are.  In a list.  Because I like lists.

Great Moments With People I Met At The Inkwell
by Anna Moench

1. Discussing my piece with my dramaturg, Deb Sivigny.  Deb's questions and observations were insightful, and she gave me the thing that every writer really needs while revising a new piece: an intelligent, critical outsider's perspective.  Thanks, Deb!

2. Watching the series of excerpt readings.  The group of actors who played characters in each piece were so talented, so committed, so up for anything, and, perhaps most importantly, so supportive of each other and the plays they were showcasing.  Plus, the actors who were in my excerpt did a fantastic job.  Thanks, guys!

3. Observing a young, dynamic theater company do something ambitious and important.  It is incredibly difficult to read through hundreds of script submissions, to organize and run a festival that involves dozens of writers, actors, directors, dramaturgs, technicians, staff, and the like, and to do it all with panache.  But The Inkwell did it.  And they've only been around for a few years.  Booyah.  I was so impressed with everyone I met and worked with, and I can't thank you all enough for doing what you do.

Well, folks, we've taken down the lights and flats down at H Street Playhouse... and we've left the premises.  Yes, the 2009 Inkubator Festival came to an end yesterday after one final performance of The F Word.

I gotta admit... I'm tired.  It was a hectic weekend of rehearsals, our final showcase reading of plays that play with language, and then The F Word.  I myself was up until 2:30 a.m. on Friday doing laundry for The F Word (hey, we all share responsibilities for the festival, and I've got a washer/dryer in my apartment)... and then we headed out of H Street Playhouse after our closing party at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday.

I'm tired, but I'm proud.  Perhaps that pride is best expressed by some statistics.  Here's a synopsis of our festival by the numbers:

• We hosted 18 public events – three open rehearsals, four showcase readings, three developmental workshops, one panel discussion, and one master class, and six public performances of the bare bones production of The F Word.

• Through our national call for submissions, we made connections with 428 playwrights who screwed their courage to the sticking place and sent us their plays.

• To review plays from these writers, we enlisted 28 people to serve as readers and evaluators. We created an orientation program for readers, as well as an online forum to share comments about plays.  Several of our readers joined the Inkubator Festival team as dramaturges and actors.

• We assembled a team of 22 playwrights, 46 actors, 4 directors, 13 dramaturges, 7 panelists, 3 choreographers, and 13 designers/technicians – more than 100 playmakers – to explore the process of making plays.

• Another goal of the festival has been to create a network of local playwrights.  So we invited four DC-based writers to present excerpts of their work at our second showcase reading.  We then asked 125 local playwrights to a local writers convening. More than 30 writers and Inkwell company members participated in the convening on September 27th, identifying a range of exciting ways in which The Inkwell can help local playwrights reach their professional and artistic goals.  Stay tuned for details as we figure out how to follow through.
  

• We more than doubled attendance from our first festival,  with more than 450 coming to events over the past several weeks.
  

 

• Through our continuing outreach to playwrights, playmakers, and playgoers, we have built a contact list of more than 1,400 people who are engaged in play development.  We keep these supporters informed through regular email updates, Inkblog!, and a newly revised website.

 

• With the help of the DC Commission of the Arts and many generous donors, we raised $24,700 toward the festival.

Cool, huh?  We need to catch a few winks, but The Inkwell team is excited to start scheming for 2010.  And we've got some thoughts to share with you from our festival participants, including playwright Anna Moench and dramaturge Jenn Book.  I hope you enjoy reading about their experience of the festival and The Inkwell.

Readers (and hopefully playgoers as well) - We are well into the 2009 Inkubator Festival now, and here's the tally:

We've explored and showcased 15 new plays so far.  We've assembled a team of actors, directors, dramaturges, designers and actors that numbers around 100.  The F Word is completely rewritten and staged... and now we jump on the ladders to hang lights, get on our knees to paint the floor, and continue to collect a lot of plastic food (I hope that intrigues you.) 

Michael Bigelow Dixon gave us a thorough tutorial on the art of dramaturgy, allowing class participates a own chance to write, rewrite, and engage in a lively discussion of how a dramaturg can help a playwright. (More on that in a later blog entry.)

And we staged a marvelous play by Susan Hoon Se Stanton...Cygnus... a play about the possibility of immaculate conception, the weight of sin, the bind that family can put us in, and the stories we need to make ourselves meaningful. 

Susan was a delight to work with, and we love the revisions she made to the play.

Yep...we at The Inkwell have been busy.  And we're looking forward to our final week at H Street Playhouse.  We'll be sharing with you a fascinating play about sisterhood and race called Tether, opening the Inkubator Production of The F Word, and sharing with you excerpts from five more plays that experiment with language.

But let me stop and share some thoughts about one of particular Inkwell event.

On October 3rd, we showcased excerpts from five crazy (dare I say crack-tastic) new plays.  I was not there for the final performance because of a nasty cold, but as supervising dramaturge, I prepared notes to introduce each of the pieces.  Here are my notes... and some photographs to give a sense of what this terrific evening of theater was all about.

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This particular suite of plays are inspired by literature and history. One way to look at them is that they are continuing a conversation in one way or another, about marriage, family, home, lust and greed, the start and resolution of age old conflicts that affected generations.

The Owl Girl
by Monica Raymond

This is a story about conflict and resolution, perhaps the oldest, most fundamental story found in history. Let me quote the playwright in explaining the origins of this play:

“My original impetus for the play was a conversation with an Israeli man named Dovid Dolev who had come to the United States and was running Muslim-Jewish dialogue groups in Cambridge, Massachusettts. In the conversation, Dovid mentioned that there were Palestinians living in the West Bank who still had the keys to the houses their families had formerly occupied in Jerusalem. I was struck very strongly with that image of one house with two different keyholders.”

For the most part, The Owl Girl takes place in a two-story, blue house in an unspecified place. One family — Rav and Ora and their two children, Stel and Capi — have recently moved into the house that was once owned by another family — Zol and Leedya, and their two children, Joze and Anja — displaced to a refugee camp. Both families carry with them the scars of conflict. Anja in particular has a peculiar affliction… she hasn’t grown for seven years.

Joze, a young man “in love with peace,” travels back to his old house, key in hand. When he unlocks the door, he unlocks the conflict that brews underneath the lives of these two families. Yet both families find themselves living side by side in this house, along with a dormant grapevine. Just as the vine begins to thrives, so Anja begins to grow and to reclaim a power given to her by her grandmother… the ability to turn into an owl.

Our readers loved this story that that reexamines war, peace, home, and family through humor, through complex and surprising interactions between deeply fascinating characters, through a dark, unsettling magic, and through a sparse aching poetry.

This excerpt is from the very end of the play, when both families have “settled” into the house.

Genesis
By Alexis Roblan

We are showcasing a play inspired by what may consider the original story, the original history. This is the story of Cain and his struggle to understand his own existence.

We all know the story, right? Maybe. Here Cain is deeply conflicted, wanting to please, wanting to find love and companionship, wanting to succeed, wanting knowledge and understanding. As you all know, his journey is one of murder, shame, and exile. This story continues past the death of Abel, as Cain finds Lilith, the original woman.


Here’s what one of our readers had to say about the play:

"One of the epicenters of this play is the question: are we children of biology (of genetics, of evolution, of our parents, of our experience) or are we more fundamentally children of the spirit - children of God? To even flirt with that question today is courageous; to place it at or near the center of your play is heroic."


This play is dark and perversely sexy and courageous. As any good telling of a myth, it brings us face to face with taboos and mysteries.

This excerpts presents several scenes from the play, from the beginning when Cain questions his mother Eve, to after the death of Abel, to the banishment of Cain and the moment he finds Lilith.

The Pillow Book
By Anna Moench

The original Pillow Book was written by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Empress Sadako in early 11th century of Japan. Sei Shonagon was the daughter of a renowned poet. The book is a compilation of lists, events at court, poetry, and opinions of contemporaries. It is considered one of the most important pieces of Japanese literature alongside the Tale of Genji.

Here’s a small excerpt from the book.

Words That Look Commonplace but that become impressive when written in Chinese Characters:

Strawberries
A dew-plant
A prickly water-lily
A walnut
A Doctor of Literature
A Provisional Senior Steward in the Office of the Emperor's Household
Red myrtle

Alexis uses the Pillow Book idea to dramatize a marriage and the struggle to come to terms with a pivotal decision… whether or not to have a child. She is wildly imaginative in exploring this relationship of John and Deb, taking them from their bedroom to the Serengeti. Fragments of poetry, scenes, and musings lead us into the depths of this marriage, exploring intimacy in a fascinating way, finding the moments when you know and think you know your partner.
 
Here’s a fragment in the play that takes us from John and Deb’s headspace to the airport to a moment in their marriage years ago to another marriage entirely.

The Missing Pieces
By Nick Zagone

We end this showcase in a modern history of family, inspired by memory and by Hugh Hefner. The play takes place right after the eruption of Mount Saint Helen in 1980. Ash is falling all over the planet, but no where is the ash so thick as in Portland Oregon. From the playwright: The Country is in a Recession. In the Northwest, a Depression. It’s Wet. It’s Dark. And it’s Quiet.

Timmy is 12 year-old boy from a broken home. His father is off philandering, his mother is at home steaming. He comes up with an inventive solution… journey to the Play Boy Mansion to find Hugh Hefner with the help of Lillian, a Playboy Playmate from 1963.

The Missing Pieces is a coming-of-age story with a unique spin in many ways. The language of each character has unique rhythm, especially the characters of Lillian and Timmy. And these are an unusual mix of characters... an overly Irish Mom, a Playmate, a guru, an Optimist...it's fun, stuff to see how these characters interact, and Nick does not disappoint in surprising us in their reactions and responses to one another. Lillian is worth the price of admission alone. 

The landscape of a place covered in ash gives the play an interesting sense of apocalyptic proportion. At this point in the play, Timmy has brought Lillian home to meet mom.  An argument ensues.

Clementine and the Cyber Ducks
By Krista Knight

This play is a thoroughly original mix of folk tale and history, taking us back and forth in time in California, from the Gold Rush Ear to the Dot-Com Boom.

We all know who Clementine is… she is the heroine of the American folk song, Oh My Darlin’, Oh My Darlin’… Clementine is caught between these two eras, in love with an enterprising young man in search of capital to launch his Internet Search Engine, and living with her father, a Miner 49ner in search of gold, who imagines the death of his daughter over and over again.  Clementine is egged on to commit fraud for love and money by three Cyber Ducks obsessed with making it rich.

The playwright calls this a vaudevillian Greek tragedy.

What can I say? Cyber Ducks? We loved the theatricality of this piece, the inventiveness of language (somewhere between then and today), the movement in time and space, the struggle between loyalty and greed, and the magic of ducks that can conjure an electrical charge.

The excerpt is from near the end of the play, when Clementine has embarked on a scheme to bilk money from lonely bachelors. Clementine’s sister has come to California, sensing that something is wrong. They both interact with the Cyberducks at the river, where Clementine is panning for gold… and any other kind of investment that might float along.

In the first photograph above, we see the back of Michael Bigelow Dixon's head as he speaks before an animated class on the art of new play dramaturgy.

In the second photograph, Adam Segaller performs for an excerpt from Genesis by Alexis Roblan.

In the third photograph, playwright Anna Moench, dramaturge Deb Sevigny, and director Randy Baker listen to comments from the audience after the showcase reading.

And finally, Regina Aquino performs for an excerpt from Krista Knight's Clementine and the Cyber Ducks.

Hello there, loyal readers. WOW. There's so much going on over at H Street Playhouse... it's hard to keep up with the panel discussions, the rewrites, the showcase readings, the conversations between playwrights and actors and directors. So here is my solution... a little alphabet lesson in the land of The Inkwell!

A is for ACTOR, who is so important to the play development process. We heard from acclaimed actors Naomi Jacobsen and John Fescault at our panel discussion — The Actor and the New Play — the dos and don’ts of working with an actor on a new play. Do trust an actor to help you fill in a character, to find the funny in a comic play, to “find the pebbles among the boulders in the river, so we can make it to the other shore” as Naomi put it. DON’T ask actors to read a monologue that they have been stumbling over for weeks, that they have tried to make work three ways to Sunday. Much shouting and stomping follows.

B is for BOLDNESS, which we are finding is a big part of the play development process. Actors are bold in asking pointed questions about character and in helping playwrights make choices about the emotional intention of a scene. Playwrights are bold in putting raw material in the hands of directors and actors… plays that may not have seen the light of day before.

C is for COMMUNITY and CONNECTION, which we found that local playwrights crave. That’s what they said when we brought them together for a moderated discussion on what they need to put forward their professional and artistic goals. They need a community of playwrights, actors, and directors to help them better understand their own writing process, to hold their hands in between drafts, and help writer overcome the fear factor of looking at a blank page.

D is for DRAMATURGES, who have been an essential resource to our playwrights thus far. A team of 13 dramaturges is working with 18 playwrights. Their first job is to listen… listen to what the playwright needs, where they are with the play, what questions that they can no longer answer by sitting hunched over a computer. Their second job is to help the playwright identify goals for a play development process… such as better understanding a girl attracted to a boy who is the son of a warrior, a boy who has a very dark side (see G is for Gray below).

E is for EXCERPT, which each of our showcase playwrights present to you, the audience. We’ve asked them to give us 20-minute excerpts from their plays high in emotional conflict, a place in the play were we as an audience are dropped right into the middle of the action. We’re finding that (1) those scenes are fun for you all to watch and (2) these scene are illustrative in helping the playwrights find out more about the world of their plays.

F is for F WORD, or FAT. This is the subject of Melissa Blackall’s biting, funny, and heart wrenching play about our obsession with body image and fat. She’s totally rewritten the play over the past several weeks, mixing metaphor with satire with brutal confession to show the journey of seven different bodies — Toothpick, Voluptuous, Stout, Blimp, Lean, Belly, and Huge.

G is for GRAY, as in the middle name of the fabulous Jason Gray Platt, who joined us for a week to explore his play strike/seek/find. Director Chris Gallus and actors Lindsay Haynes, Nigel Reed, Valerie Leonard, and Evan Casey put their heart, soul, and heads into this dark, bloody take on The Odyssey. In this version, Odysseus is no where to be found in Athens.  Telemachus is a sullen teenager, unsure of himself as he sits in the shadow of his missing father.  The team helped Jason explore some key character arcs, particularly that of Calliope, the young girl who is attracted to Telemachus for his fame, his vulnerability, for all that he can promise and all that he can take away. They also dug into the motivations of Telemachus’ mother, Penelope, who is caught between her abiding loyalty and love for Odysseus and the political machinations of her many suitors. The actors put on a hell of a performance. We were all stunned by their commitment to this emotionally fraught piece. We hope that Jason went home to New York with a new enthusiasm for the piece.

H is for HIP HOP, which we explored through the world created by Q Terah Jackson in his play 20Twenty, one of four plays we showed off on Sunday, September 27th as part of a Local Writers Showcase and Convening. The Inkwell’s own Lee Liebeskind guided a talented group of actors through a reading of a 20-minute excerpt of the play. They covered a lot o territory in 20 minutes — from the rage that inspired the first hip hop songs to the troubling sexual imagery of hip hop today to the disconnect between generations that grew up with different versions of the hip hop mythos. We can’t wait to see the next draft, Terah!

And I is, of course, for INKUBATOR, the name of this smorgasbord of new play development, this festival that we are in the midst of at the playhouse.  Please come on down for our next series of events, which include a master class on new play dramaturgy, a showcase of plays inspired by literature and history, two open rehearsals of The F Word, and a staged reading of Susan Soon He Stanton's Cygnus.

Above, actors Eric Humphries, Jace Parker, Theo Hadjamichael, Toby Mulford, Alia Faith Williams, Lynn Horton, and Tara Garwood perform an excerpt from Of Dice and Men by Cameron McNary as part of the Local Writers' Showcase event held last Sunday, September 27th.  The photo is by the multi-talented Melissa Blackall.

We've launched, loyal readers!  We're off!  We're out of the starting gate... you pick your metaphor.

In plainer speak, we started our second Inkubator Festival at Page to Stage last week... and it was such a treat to hang out in The Kennedy Center's North Atrium with directors, actors, dramaturges, and playwrights to catch up, talk shop, and get a taste of five new plays!

There's so much to share about our Page to Stage activities, but here's a great summary from DC Theatre Scene... the inteprid Rosalind Lacy joined us for the entire day of events.

I thought I'd also share with you my notes from our showcase event, where we presented 20-minute excerpts from four new plays, each with a political bent.  As the supervising dramaturge, I am serving as a sommelier of sorts, helping playgoers taste all the rich, surprising flavors of the plays we have chosen to explore.  Let me know if that metaphor works for you.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to the plays we showcased last week:

Island of Outcasts by Fengar Gael

What you are about to see is the first 20 minutes of a wildly imaginative take on the next phase of human existence.  The play is set on the imaginary island of Dolphina, amidst the raging storms brought on by climate change.  On Dolphina, two idealist marine biologists hatch their own solution to perpetuate a species on the verge of extinction... that species is, of course, human beings.

Our readers were fascinated by the magical way that Fengar approaches pressing issues of the day... of climate change, of how we steward the planet and ourselves, and of the ethics of scientific experimentation.

 

Here's a comment on the play from one of our readers:

"Nearly everything about the play is memorable.  It suggests visual, musical, and dramatic possibilities that are stunning to consider -- from raging storms on a tropical island to shimmering swimmers and ethereal songs of fish people."

Empire of the Trees by Adam Kraar

We now go back in time to 1963, the moment before Kennedy is assassinated, as our picture of perfect America dies.  An expatriot, a Jewish American, is living in New Delhi, coming to terms with the loss of her child, her loneliness, and a crisis of identity that often comes when a person is uprooted and taken from everything they know.

Again, we are seeing the very beginning of the play, as well as a journey of the imagination that the heroine, Deborah, finds herself in.

This is also a story explored through magic, through the mythology of India, and through a dangerous, compelling relationship between our heroine and a poor Indian bookseller.

Our readers loves the mixture of political events, of mythology and literature, and the journey of troubled people in a landscape that they don't really understand.

i put the fear of mexico in 'em by Matthew Paul Olmos

This is a tense thriller of a play, and it kept us all on the edge as we read it.

It's also a dissection of difference, of connection, of the borders and barriers we use to distance ourselves, and those dangerous moments when we cross over those borders and barriers.

This is the very beginning of the play when two hapless tourists, Adrey and Jonah, have wandered down an alley in Tijuana to find Efren and Juana.  While it first appears that we are the edge of a nasty confrontation, we soon learn that they have more in common that it seems, more in common that either couple is comfortable with.

Matthew is getting a lot of attention with this play.  He recently received a workshop at the Sundance Institute, and the play will receive a reading in October at Gala Hispanic here in DC.  We're delighted to showcase it and these characters, all of whom are dangerous and terribly delicate, brutal and passionate and terrified of the future.

Monkey Adored by Henry Murray

We end this showcase in another strange and surprising place, in the world of animals.  Literally.

This is a play from the perspective of animals, those that fight and love and lose as we do, yet always fighting the pernicious ways of man, who are in search of the next lab experiment.

This excerpt drops us into the middle of the play, when Sonny Bonobo, a monkey, is about to engage in an act of terrorism.  His partner of the moment, Brown Spot the dog, is dead set against Sonny's activism, struggling to come to terms with his deep sense of loyalty in a world of people and animals who are not very loyal to him.  We also catch a glimpse of Sonny's compatriot, James the Rat, and Sonny's former lover, Madeleine the Cat.

I was the one who first this play, and it made me laugh and laugh and laugh.  But there's something else beyond a set-up of animals wrestling with a human condition.  The language is stunning, moving, surprising.  The philosophical discussion is engaging.  The characters are complex, rich, hilarious.  And you'll see here in this excerpt a theatricality that is truly surprising, funny, and thought provoking.

We'll be creating a library of these excerpts and of the suite of plays we are exploring through our Inkubator Festival, which picks up speed again on September 24th, where we host an open rehearsal for Strike Seek Find, a dark, brutal, and truly modern take on The Odyssey from the perspective of Telemachus, Odysseus's son.

Stay tuned!

Fearless reader!  I can’t wait to finally reveal to you the details of The Inkwell’s next big adventure… 

 

THE SECOND INKUBATOR FESTIVAL!

 

So let me catch you up a bit.  The Inkwell team has been reading and reading and reading and reading… scripts that is.  We sent out a call for submissions in March and received 428 PLAYS!  Over the past several months, we read every single one of them and chose 24 wild and wonderful plays to explore as part of our Inkubator Festival, which launches this coming Monday (Labor Day) and ends October 17th.

 

As a writer myself, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the imagination and courage of all the writers that submitted plays.  Please keep writing and keep in touch with us!

 

So now, we are about to launch the latest and greatest Inkubator Festival, which will feature 24 plays and playwrights, a forum to discuss the needs for local writers, two fascinating panels exploring the role of the actor in new play development and the challenges that women writers face in the DC area.  We’ll also host a class on the mysterious art of dramaturgy… and end the festival with an Inkubator production of The F Word by Melissa Blackall.

 

Gosh, there’s so much to tell you about.  But let’s start with our kick-off event.

 

Leave that Labor Day barbecue early and join us at The Kennedy Center for a day of new plays and talk of new plays.  We are taking over that venerable institution’s North Atrium as part of the annual Page to Stage Festival.  Here are all the details you should need...

 

THE INKWELL'S KICK OFF

of the SECOND INKUBATOR FESTIVAL

Monday, September 7th

at The Kennedy Center's North Atrium

 

Come join us for any and all of the following events:

 

A SHOWCASE OF PLAYS WITH A POLITICAL BENT at 2:00 p.m.

 The Inkwell presents excerpts from a suite of thought-provoking plays that explore topics of the day... from global warming to terrorism, from the ethics of scientific experimentation to the explosive confrontations between people of different classes and culture.

Here’s what you’ll be seeing and hearing:

 

Island of Outcasts by Fangar Gael

Directed by Jessica Burgess

featuring Danielle Drakes, Fatima Quander, Felipe Cabezas, Gregory Burgess, Lindsay Haynes, and Michael Grew

On the mythical island of Dolphina in the middle of the Caribbean — amidst the storms brought on by a warming planet — two marine biologists hatch a plan to save humanity.

Empire of the Trees by Adam Kraar

Directed by Chris Neibling

featuring Cindy Martin, Frank Mancino, Jamie Jager, and Valerie Fenton

In 1963 — the last year of America's Camelot — a young wife reaches out to a poor bookseller and thief in search of her own perfect kingdom among the ancient trees of New Dehli.

i put the fear of mexico in 'em by Matthew Paul Olmos

directed by Jessica Burgess

featuring Adam Segallar, Ashley DeMain, Betsy Rosen, Jon Reynolds, and Rachel Beauregard

A chance encounter in the back alleys of Tijuana bring three couples together across borders of wealth, opportunity, and love... while setting in motion a confrontation that will tear their worlds apart.

Monkey Adored by Henry Murray

directed by Chris Niebling

featuring Cindy Martin, Valerie Fenton, Frank Mancino, Jamie Jager, and Steve Beall

It's a dangerous world for animals.  That’s what Sonny the monkey, Brown Spot the dog, Madeleine the cat, and other species find time and time again as they search for love and purpose in the underdog fight against the pernicious, bewildering ways of man.

 

A PANEL DISCUSSION: THE ACTOR AND THE NEW PLAY at 5:00 p.m.

How do you built the most fruitful partnership you can between actors and playwrights?

 

The Inkwell brings together actors, playwrights, and dramaturgs to investigate the inspirations and the impediments that actors encounter while working on a new play — and that playwrights encounter working with actors — in hopes of defining some best practices for the actor/playwright collaboration.

 

Our impressive panel of experts include:  awarding-winning actors Naomi Jacobsen and John Lescault, dramaturg and Artistic Director of Maryland's Active Cultures Mary Resing, playwright and dramaturg Jacqueline E. Lawton, and Jason Loewith, the Executive Director of the National New Play Network.

 

A STAGED READING OF MELISSA BLACKALL'S THE F WORD at 7:30 p.m.

Directed by Jessica Lefkow

featuring Alice Gibson, Jason B. McIntosh, Jessica Lynn Rodriguez, Prairie Griffith, Thierry Barston, and Patrick Magill

We’re so proud to present the latest iteration of Melissa’s biting play about America's obsession with the dirtiest word in the English language… FAT.  She’s been working with us for 18 months now, and we think you’ll be excited to join the journey of her characters Belly, Toothpick, Stout, Voluptuous, Lean, Huge, and Blimp as they search for their perfect size and shape — physically, psychically, and spiritually.  (You can learn more about the development process for this play in previous Inkblog entries, like this one.)

 

AND MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THE INKUBATOR PRODUCTION OF THE F WORD, OCTOBER 13th THROUGH OCTOBER 17th, at H Street Playhouse.

 

More to come about the festival, readers… and soon!

But before I tell you all what we have coming up, let me revisit with you our last event... the 2008 Page to Stage Festival.  You have to turn your thoughts back to last September.  Do you remember where you were?

Hopefully, some of you came out to see us at The Kennedy Center, where we produced a showcase of 20-minute nuggets of five intriguing plays, a lively and timely panel discussion, and a staged reading of one wild and raw new play.

To start, let me update you on a couple of the plays and playwrights that we brought to Page to Stage.

Adam Jonas Segaller continues to furiously work on his epic of 17th Century France, Hercule de Bergerac, and in April hosted a reading at the Clark Street Playhouse.  It featured a cast of some of The Inkwell's favorite actors, Sara Barker, Daniel Eichner, John Geoffrion, Heather Haney, and Scott McCormick.  We are excited to see what Adam continues to find in the script.

Kristen de Wulf has also been busy.  Her play, Ignis Fatuus, received a staged reading from the dynamic start-up company The Hub (here's a little more about the reading from The Hub's blog).  We hope to see more of her work, including the latest and greatest version of her surreal and hilarious Lullaby.

Melissa Blackall continues her harrowing journey into the land of bodies with The F Word.  She's in the midst of a new draft that will receive an Inkubator Production at The Inkwell's next Inkubator Festival, to be held at H Street Playhouse from September 19th through October 21st.  Yes, folks, that's a teaser.

Here are some photos from our Page to Stage festivities to help jog your memory... and hopefully to whet your appetite for what's coming up.

Here you see our illustrious artistic director, Jessica Burgess, listening intently to a full house at the panel discussion The Inkwell hosted as part of Page to Stage.  The panel -- Playwrights:  Pampered? Patronized? Pushed Aside? -- centered on a rather provocative article written by theatre critic Nelson Pressley, positing that playwrights are far too coddled in the play development processes that most theaters offer.  Nelson himself (the gentleman in the middle of the photo) joined Ari Roth, artistic director of Theatre J (sitting next to Jessi), Round House Theatre's Blake Robinson (sitting to the right of Ari), and Dramatist Guild regional representative/playwright Callie Kimball for the spirited discussion.

And here's a noted voice in new play development, Arena Stage's David Dower, offering up his thoughts and opinons at the panel discussion.  You can learn more about what he's thinking about playwriting and plays these days at his blog.

We capped off the day-long event with a stage reading of Greg Beuthin's bizarre, edgy, apocalyptic fairy tale, A Time Upon.  Here is Alex Perez as Once, a pet of sorts who only speaks through kazoo.  He's following Niki Jacobsen as Fillette, a wanderer on a mission.

Finally, here's Colin Smith ranting and raving as Slim, a dangerous and devlish shadow, a frightening presence in A Time Upon.  Niki Jacobsen as Fillette looks on.

Next up... a report on the plays we've been reading to get ready for the 2009 Inkubator Festival.

All photos were taken by the multi-talented Melissa Blackall.  You can see more of her work at her website.

Dear readers -

If I (your ever faithful blogger, Anne) haven't whetted your appetite enough to come join us for our FIRST BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION at Page-to-Stage, describing the spirited discussion we are going to have with Nelson Pressley, Calli Kimball, Blake Robinson, and Ari Roth...

maybe I can entice you in another way... with a few tidbits from the plays we will be reading that day.

We wouldn't be The Inkwell if we didn't share with you all some mischief and mayhem leaking out of the brains of talented, up-and-coming playwrights.

At two o'clock (that's in the afternoon, folks) on Labor Day, we're producing staged readings of 20-minute excerpts from five wild plays at The Kennedy Center's Rehearsal Room One... with topics ranging from baby-making to comas to mathematics and threesomes.. as well as a preview of the new edition of The F Word by Melissa Blackall, the crazy collage of a play about fat that The Inkwell has been developing for the last year.

What will you be seeing and hearing?  Here's a tiny taste...

Here's a delicious little snippet from LULLABYE by Kristen DeWulf, directed by Andy Wassenich

LIBBY
I have cows.

TIM
I have a . . . you did say cats, right?

LIBBY
Cows.

TIM
Cows, really?

LIBBY
Six cows.

TIM
That’s . . . a lot of cows.

LIBBY
I had seven--

TIM
At the same time?

LIBBY
They stay outside, of course. They like to graze around the pasture. It’s
very comforting, really, to sit outside with them as they graze on the hillside.
It’s peaceful listening to their mews.

TIM
You mean moos?

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And here's one of my favorite lines from COMA, PATIENT by Shaun Raviv, directed by James Hesla

DR. PUNTOFF
Besides I’m just testing his awareness. That’s all. I’m not
going to torture him. (laughing) Then I’d be no better than
the guys who stuck my thumbs in molten hot motor oil. Don’t
bother looking. They’re still there. But my fingerprints
aren’t.

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Finally, here's a provocative little exchange from SEVEN DREAMS OF HER by Sarah Sander, directed by Christopher Niebling

AUGUST
Do you want to play with your dog?

IVY
What will you call me?

GREY
Do you want to play on the slide?

IVY
I need a name.

AUGUST
She does need a name.

GREY
Not everything needs a name.

IVY
What will you call me? I NEED A NAME NOW.

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After the showcase, we'll take a little break, returning at six o'clock for the panel discussion. 

Then ending the evening is a staged reading of Greg Beuthin's A Time Upon, which I'll just describe to you as a totally cracked-out fairy tale with one of my all-time-favorite stage directions...

Grin's heart bursts into flames.  He's oblivious to the fire.  Slim's head bursts into flame… he's flaming mad.  He beats Grin —  viciously.  For falling in love.  For being an idiot.  For this new wrinkle in their plans. Grin is dead.  Slim returns to his position in the window.

You can learn more about Greg from his blog.

And take a look at what The Washington Post has to say about our Page-to-Stage events, with a quote from our illustrious Artistic Director, Jessi Burgess.

So I hope you can come out and join us on Labor Day at The Kennedy Center.  We at The Inkwell would love you to see what a handful of ambitious playwrights are up to.

Here's the full menu of events in one place:

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The Inkwell invites you to our first anniversary celebration at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Page to Stage Festival

Monday, September 1, 2008

FREE New Play Events from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.

in Rehearsal Room One at the Kennedy Center

In celebration of our first anniversary, and in true Inkwell style, The Inkwell offers a full day of the exploration and celebration of new works in the nation's capital!  Join us for staged readings of six wildly creative and innovative plays, a timely and provocative discussion on the merits of the American play development process, and a celebration of The Inkwell's first birthday at the Kennedy Center's Page to Stage Festival.


2 p.m.  SHOWCASE READINGS of the following new plays:

• HERCULE DE BERGERAC by Adam Jonas Segaller, directed by Lee Liebeskind
• LULLABYE by Kristen DeWulf, directed by Andy Wassenich
• COMA, PATIENT by Shaun Raviv, directed by James Hesla
• SEVEN DREAMS OF HER by Sarah Sander, directed by Christopher Niebling
• THE F WORD by Melissa Blackall, directed by Patrick Torres

6 p.m.  PANEL DISCUSSION - PLAYWRIGHTS:  PAMPERED? PATRONIZED? PUSHED ASIDE?

A provocative panel discussion on how the trend to coddle new work may help it flourish or falter.  With playwright Callie Kimball, Washington Post Theatre Critic Nelson Pressley, Round House Theatre Artistic Director Blake Robison and Theater J Artistic Director and playwright Ari Roth.

8 p.m.  STAGED READING of A TIME UPON by Greg Beuthin, directed by Jessica Burgess

Two old women, Gran and Mum, eke out their lives in a forgotten corner of a giant futuristic metropolis.  They are barely aware of the passing days until a young woman and her strange traveling  companion-cum-pet enter their lives. The young woman, Fillette, is somehow related to the family, but is cagey about her answers.   The pet, only known as Once, doesn't speak — but even he can smell that something else is afoot.  For the entire group is being watched by an evil shadow and his crony, who want to get at what lies beneath the decrepit courtyard in which the old women have made their home.  Perhaps a fairy tale told in the era of Blade-Runner, the play features shadow puppetry, physical theatre, and lyrical language, all hallmarks of Greg Beuthin's future folkloric style.

Readings feature Wyckham Avery, Frank Britton, Valerie Fenton, James Flanagan, John Geffrion, Lindsay Haynes, Lisa Hill-Corley, Q. Terah Jackson, Hilary Kacser, Amy Kellet, Lee Liebeskind, Eric Messner, Wendy Nogales, Alex Perez, Kevin Pierson, and many more!

We at The Inkwell just couldn't get enough of ten-minute plays this weekend.

First, we held a class on how to write a kick-ass ten-minute play with the incomparable Gary Garrison.  Then on Sunday night, we hosted a panel with three experts on the form.  And we got an earful on the ten-minute play, from its origins to the benefits of the ten-minute play festival to the topics that seem to be on the minds of playwrights across America.

Gary stuck around to spread his wisdom and opinions.  In addition, award-winning playwright Marco Ramirez (also literary manager of Miami's City Theatre, which produces nothing but short plays) and Source Festival Producer Jeremy Skidmore chimed in on the discussion.

From left to right, Jeremy Skidmore, Marco Ramirez, and Gary Garrison discuss the merits and problems with the ten-minute play at the newly renovated Source Theater.
Where did the ten-minute play come from?  The origins of the form trace back to John Jory, who served as the producing director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of new plays.  In the 1980s, he introduced a festival of ten-minute plays to complement the longer works performed as part of the festival.  Today there are hundreds of ten-minute play festivals across the country.  And they generally sell out.

So why is the ten-minute play so wildly popular?  For a theater producer, a festival of ten-minute plays provides the opportunity to showcase the work of dozens of playwrights at very little cost.  For Jeremy in particular, the showcase of ten-minute plays that he is producing as part of the Source Festival allowed him to match area artistic directors with a bevy of talented non-equity actors who they might not ever meet otherwise.  For the theatre-goer, such a festival provides a chance to hear many diverse voices, see many different forms, and meditate on a wide variety of themes and issues.

The problem?  As Gary stated so emphatically in his class, very few playwrights actually write true ten-minute plays; most festivals are full of sketches and character scenes.  Another issue:  the form is very seductive for the playwright, since it's the easiest way to get your work seen and heard.  So what happens to the full-length play?  Gary worries about this.  Marco — who won the prestigious Heideman Prize for best ten-minute play awarded by the Actors Theatre of Louisville — admitted that he feels most comfortable with the form and isn't sure he's ready to write a longer play.

Here are some other random facts, thoughts, and observations offered by the panelists:

• There are more than 400 different festivals and/or venues showcasing ten-minute plays, representing explosive growth over a short period of time.  When Gary Garrison wrote the first edition of his book on ten-minute plays (Perfect 10) eight years ago, he listed 30 festivals.

• The producers of the Source Festival received 910 plays to consider for its showcase of 25 ten-minute plays.

• Some of the major themes of ten-minutes plays that Marco, Gary, and Jeremy have read include various perspectives on Aghanistan and Iraq, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the difficulties creating and sustaining intimacy in our time and age.

• Topics and situations that panelists were totally sick of reading and seeing:  coming out plays and conversations set in coffee houses.

• Marco Ramirez is always waiting for King Kong or Godzilla to enter that coffee shop in a play.

All agreed that the form provides everyone — theatre artists and audience alike — a chance to see a snapshot of American culture through the eyes of the playwright... and all in ten minutes.

If you're here in the Nation's capital, check out the collection of ten-minute plays produced as part of the Source Festival.  I (this is Anne, by the way) saw the first night's showing and there's some interesting work from some very talented actors, directors, and writers.  A collective favorite — the monologue about a soldier and his epic battle with a horse in Afghanistan.

Hello all -

It's the ghost of Anne returning to tell you about the latest goings on at The Inkwell.  While we all needed a bit of a rest after the January Inkubator festivities, Inkwellians soon revived and we have been busy scheming and planning.  And now our latest plot is coming to fruition!

Over the next three weeks, we are teaming up with the folks of the Source Festival to offer a series of panels that explore various aspects of playmaking.  And we've brought some rather distinguished theatre artists from out of town to join us in the discussion.

Here's the lowdown (you can also take a look at our calendar for more details, including more detailed biographies of each of the panelists:

Award-winning teacher and theatre artist Gary Garrison and Heideman Award winning playwright Marco Ramirez head up the first of three panel discussions hosted by The Inkwell as part of the Source Festival (June 23rd-July 6th) at the newly renovated Source Theatre.  This first panel, Ten-Minute Plays in American Theatre (held on June 22nd at 8:00 p.m.), focuses on one of the most innovative and popular forms of theatre in America Today.  Jeremy Skidmore, the producer of the Source Festival, is the third panelist.

Garrison, Ramirez, and Skidmore bring a wealth of experience, knowledge, and insights into the discussion of this important theatrical form.  Gary Garrison is renowned teacher, playwright, and author who serves as the Executive Director for Creative Affairs of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Artistic Director and Division Head of Playwriting for the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at the Tisch School of the Arts.  Miami-based playwright Marco Ramirez won the prestigious Heideman Award for this short play I am not Batman from the Actors Theatre of Louisville and is the literary manager for the City Theatre that produces the Summer Shorts American Short Play Festival.  Jeremy Skidmore is the producer of the Source Festival, a Helen Hayes nominated director, and the former artistic director of DC's Theatre Alliance.

In addition to participating in this first panel, Gary Garrison will teach a weekend playwriting master class, How to Write a Kick-Ass Ten-Minute Play (June 21st and 22nd at Flashpoint, culminating in a viewing of ten-minute plays at the Source Theatre on June 23rd).  Sorry, folks, the class is sold out!

The second panel, Collaboration in New Work (held on June 29th at 5 p.m.), features Synetic Theater's dynamic and award-winning collaborating team Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili.  The third and final panel, New Works in Washington (held on July 6th at 5:00 p.m.), features David Dower, Associate Artistic Director at Arena Stage and head of its new Cradle program, as well as noted Washington City Paper theatre critic, Trey Graham, exploring the role that the Nation's Capital plays in the emergence of a new generation of playwrights.

Our illustrious Artistic Director, Jessica Burgess, will moderate each of the panels.

Designed to complement the programming of the Source Festival, each of The Inkwell's panel discussion focuses on a different aspect of playmaking that relates to the festival's showcases of ten-minute plays, interdisciplinary projects, and one-act plays.

So please come out and join us for the conversation.  And if you can't, please check back here as various Inkwellians (and maybe a few special guests) share with you all the juicy details.

Here's Anne again, checking in to let you know that The Inkwell has gotten it's first piece of press!  In the Backstage column in the Style section of The Washington Post, there's a great article on what we are up to with the Inkubator Festival and our up-coming Inkubator productions that open on January 22nd at H Street Playhouse.

Go ahead and read the article at The Washington Post website, and in addition to keeping up with our festival, you can learn more about Scott Bakula (of Enterprise and Quantum Leap fame) and his singing career.  Sadly, he is not joining us on stage next week... but our Inkubator productions will be exciting nonetheless.

Or you can read all about it below....

FRESH INK

By Jane Horwitz

Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, January 16, 2008; Page C05

The Inkwell, a fledgling organization dedicated to nurturing and producing new plays, is in the midst of a mini-festival at H Street Playhouse through Jan. 28. (Go to http://www.inkwelltheatre.org for the schedule.)

Born last September, when it presented pieces at the Kennedy Center's Page to Stage festival, the Inkwell is a descendant of the Hatchery, a new-play incubator that presented works in 2005 and 2006. Jessica Burgess, a carryover from the Hatchery, is artistic director.

For "suggested donations" of $10 or so, the public can attend open rehearsals and bare-bones "Inkubator" productions of two plays -- Anne McCaw's "OK," about the women behind the men who fought the gunfight at the OK Corral, and "Underground" by James McManus, about a West Virginia mining accident. A third new work, "The F Word" -- as in fat -- by Melissa Blackall, will have a staged reading.

Burgess, who directs around town and was in charge of finding new works for Catalyst Theater, will stage "OK" and was deeply involved in choosing all three plays, which are "about what it means to be American here, now."

She also liked the way they sounded in her head.

" 'OK' has beautiful cowboy poetry and 'Underground' has this earthy West Virginia accent [that] brings out the poetry in that community," while "The F Word" is "surprisingly funny," poking fun at "the American obsession with its gut."

Aside from McManus, a winner of the Princess Grace Award for playwriting, whose work came to Burgess's attention while she was at Catalyst, the playwrights are friends and Inkwell members. Next year, she says, they'll seek full-length plays in an open submission process "from anywhere and everywhere."

The Inkwell offers something playwrights don't get at other Washington theaters, Burgess maintains. Others may workshop plays and stage world premiere productions -- a goal of any development process -- but "what we're doing is the step before that production," says the director. She wants theatergoers to think of an Inkwell showcase as "the final draft" of a play -- "designed and fully staged, because designers ask good questions about a text" -- but not the final product.

Putting playwrights, designers and audiences together early to see what percolates is an Inkwell mission.

Burgess cites a stage direction in "OK" that calls for a character to put a drop of honey on a wilted sunflower, which blooms again onstage. "I loved the challenge of that stage direction," she says. "We want to just engage the playwrights' imaginations in creating the impossible onstage." Even on a tiny budget, "there are different ways to make that moment seem like it's happening," she explains, with lighting, other effects and just plain acting.

"The complicity between audience and actor is incredible. The audience will always go the extra mile in their imagination. That's why they go to the theater. They want theater magic."