'Burning' wins 2013 Boston My Theatre Award for Best New Work

Burning reunion: (L-R) star Mal Malme, playwright Ginger Lazarus, and assistant stage manager Will Carter at last night's Boston My Theatre Awards. (According to Mal, the fine ensemble work of this group even extended to this photo -- it was Will's phone, but she hit the button. Great job, guys!)

Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards announced

KCACTF winners past and present at BPT for Peter M. Floyd's Absence. L-R: Stephanie Brownell, Abbey Fenbert, Peter M. Floyd, John Kuntz and Michael Parsons. (Thanks for the photo, Kate!)

Great KCACTF news for current MFA students and alums: Abbey Fenbert's Intentions was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting; Michael Parsons' Sumner Falls won the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award; and Steven Barkhimer's Windowmen was a co-recipient of the David Mark Cohen Award. Stephanie Brownell's Eskimo Pie is a national finalist for the KCACTF Ten-Minute Play Award. All four will travel to D.C. next month for the national festival.

Also: Lesley University's Cassie M. Seinuk (our friend and sometime stage manager!) was a co-winner of the KCACTF Latino Playwriting Award for her play From the Deep!

Congratulations all!!!

Alumni news, in brief:

Ronan Noone's new play, The Compass Rose (produced by Fat Violet Theatre), is part of NYC's annual 1st Irish Festival Sept. 12-29...

Molly Smith Metzler's Elemeno Pea plays at Carolina Actors Studio Theatre through Sept. 21...

SL1 12:32 a.m. by K. Alexa Mavromatis was voted Audience Favorite at The T Plays V: Last Call, presented by the Mill 6 Collaborative...

MJ Halberstadt's My Grandson the Power Bottom is the next Ink Spots Staged Reading (presented by Fresh Ink Theatre) on Sept. 4...

John Greiner-Ferris was one of The Glass Eye's August playwrights...

Monica Bauer's solo show The Year I Was Gifted will be presented as part of Stage Left Studio's Women at Work Festival Sept. 23-Oct.5...

Winning trio

A trio of Boston KCACTF winners at last month's National Festival in Washington, D.C.: Rick Park (L) won the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting for Gay Guy, Fat Girl; Lesley University's Lisa Kenner Grissom (C) won the National Ten-Minute Play Award for Tattoo You; and Michael Parsons (R) won the Rosa Parks and the John Cauble Playwriting Awards for his play Homeland and one-act The Lighthouse. All three of these fabulous writers also had short plays in last weekend's Boston Theater Marathon XV (including Lisa's winning play).

Let the party begin: New playwriting opp from CSW and BPT

Big news: Read all about this new opportunity from The Cambridge School of Weston and BPT! Details and full guidelines follow.

The Cambridge School of Weston (CSW) theatre department in cooperation with Boston University/Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (BPT), announced a new playwriting award today for New England playwrights. Once a year, the CSW theatre department seeks to produce a large cast contemporary play dealing with social justice or political themes. In order to generate quality scripts, CSW and BPT created the contest in an effort to encourage playwrights to create works aligned with current high school-aged students living in a globally connected and diverse world. CSW will grant the award of $500 for the chosen play. 

Submissions are blind, and will be accepted through June 30, 2013. The winner will be notified on July 31, 2013.

Swoosh!

Slam dunk: Kate, who was inducted to the Wichita North High School Hall of Fame last week, during halftime at the varsity boys basketball game. (They won, by the way, beating Southeast 76-53.)

Play by Bauer 'TAGged' as outstanding new script

Monica Bauer's My Occasion of Sin won two Theatre Arts Guild Awards, announced at the annual awards banquet on August 7th. The TAG awards are presented each year honoring theater produced in Omaha, Nebraska.

From the TAG Web site: "With over 35 theatre and production companies in the metro area and with more than 250 productions mounted each season, the TAG Awards allow lovers of the live theatre art form to salute the artists who give so much of themselves in entertaining us throughout the season. And for the artists themselves, recognition by peers and theatre lovers alike is a treasured honor."

My Occasion of Sin was honored for Outstanding New Script; and actress Bailey Newman won the Youth Actress Award for her performance as Mary Margaret Irzandowsky. The play was produced in April by the Shelterbelt Theatre, directed by Roxanne Wach.

Monica wrote a guest post for Playwrights' Perspective this spring, about the meandering road to this production.

Congratulations, Monica! Outstanding!

Illegitimi non carborundum

The dust-up regarding this year’s Wasserstein Prize is over – at least for now – but I wanted to share these links, to create a record of the situation for us here. I admit I was a bit behind on this controversy myself.  All of these blog posts are well worth reading:

Recap from The New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog

Reaction from Boston-based playwright Kirsten Greenidge and a follow-up

NYC playwright Callie Kimball on the NPR blog

It seems appropriate, during this week when we pause to reflect on our various gifts over turkey and stuffing, to say that among the many things for which I am grateful as a playwright are colleagues such as Kirsten and Callie – and so many more – who do not shy away from taking a stand in the face of unfairness (and, in this case, absurdity). Those a bit more removed from the front lines (like me) because of other jobs, family obligations, etc., are certainly thankful for it.

[As for my own opinion, I have a one-word response to the notion that not a single play written by a woman under the age of 32 this year was deserving of such an award; however, in the interest of maintaining the family tone here, I won’t actually type the word. Instead, I will just say this: Two syllables, rhymes with “nitwit,” and begins with the letter ‘B’.]

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone.