Jaber and Van Dyke in conversation March 18

We hope you'll come join us on Monday!

Alumni news, in brief:

New plays by Lydia Diamond (Smart People) and Melinda Lopez (Becoming Cuba) will be part of the Huntington Theatre Company's 2013-14 season...

Heather Houston’s Supergravity and the Eleventh Dimension has been announced as Vagabond Theatre Group’s next full production, this July…

John Greiner-Ferris’ play Turtles will be read on March 13 at the Provincetown Theater, part of its Winter Reading Series…

Alumni news, in brief:

Kate Snodgrass will be a featured playwright at this year’s Great Plains Theatre Conference in May, where she will respond to work from playwrights all over the country…

Joyce Van Dyke is one of nine area playwrights selected to receive grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council…

MJ Halberstadt’s A Mother’s Heart and Rick Park’s Laissez les bon Temps Roulez are part of Heart & Dagger’s Such Times: A Sex Fest of Short Original Plays, opening this weekend at BPT…

And that’s just part of MJ’s busy week, as his short play there must ALways be A KAren is one of three plays featured in Interim Writers’ Have You Read? new play series on Mar. 3…

Colleen Hughes on punctuation personalities and the conflict between being a playwright and copyeditor…

'Deported' heads to London

Excerpts from Joyce Van Dyke’s Deported/a dream play will be presented as part of Salon Mashup: Perspectives of Armenian Displacement and Regeneration, a collaborative arts + performance festival, in London Jan. 31-Feb. 3. The event is organized by The Armenian Institute, and will take place at Shoreditch Town Hall. Deported will be directed by Bill Barclay (Director of Music, Shakespeare's Globe), and will feature Agni Scott.

Alumni news, in brief:

Mark your calendars for Jan. 5-7! Lots of alums have contributed brand new one-minute plays to debut in the second annual Boston One-Minute Play Festival. In fact, most of the playwrights have some sort of connection to BPT -- take a look: Liz Duffy Adams, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich, Steven Bogart, Michael Bradford, Elisabeth Burdick, Elenor Burgess, Bill Doncaster, Thom Dunn, Stephen Faria, Peter Floyd, Patrick Gabridge, Deirdre Girard, Kirsten Greenidge, David Valdes Greenwood, Israel Horovitz, Colleen M. Hughes, Dan Hunter, Obehi Janice, Lila Rose Kaplan, Ginger Lazarus, Emily Kaye Lazzaro, Christopher Lockheardt, K. Alexa Mavromatis, Grant MacDermott, Walt McGough, James McLindon, Tyler Monroe, Nina Louise Morrison, Mwalim *7, Natalia Naman, Jack Neary, Rick Park, Lindsay Soson, Noah Tobin, Ken Urban, Joyce Van Dyke, and Jaclyn Villano. See you there…

Alumni news, in brief:

Michael S. Parsons -- as though he isn't busy enough this week -- has a reading his play Fire Dance at NYC's Cherry Lane Theatre, part of its Tongues reading series...

Peter M. Floyd's Absence is a finalist in the Alliance Theatre Company's Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition...

Take a look behind the scenes at Werner Trieschmann's Mozart: Revealed, performed by the Fort Wayne Philharmonic last weekend... 

Can't Wait's production of Lydia Diamond's The Inside (adapted by Tasia A. Jones) opens this week...

We blog: Walt Mc Gough on Building vs. Excavation; Karen Zacarías on Outstanding New Plays (from DC Theatre Scene); Kira Obolensky (sister of Masha) on her new play and writing with the audience in mind (from Ten Thousand Things Theatre Company's blog, TTT Talks); and Catherine Trieschmann (cousin of Werner) on Parenting & Playwriting: Having It All on HowlRound...

A great reason to venture south of the border (to Rhode Island): This is the final weekend to catch Cliff Odle in Elemental Theatre Collective's Vacancy...

Coverage of the recent Armenian Genocide commemoration at the Massachusetts State House in The Armenian Mirror-Spectator and Armenian Weekly, at which Joyce Van Dyke was honored for Deported/a dream play. In case you missed it, watch it here...

Whereas...

...the work of Joyce Van Dyke shines light into the deepest corners of the human heart, and by doing so helps to heal the deepest wounds...

Congratulations, Joyce! What a beautiful way to wrap up the week.

[Read more from The Boston Globe about this morning's Armenian Genocide commemoration ceremony at the Massachusetts State House.]

Alumni news, in brief:

Kate Snodgrass will receive this year's Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence at the Elliot Norton Awards ceremony on May 21, joining theatrical luminaries Julie Harris, Christopher Plummer, David Wheeler, Lynn Redgrave, Sir Ian McKellan, and the many other amazing artists who have been honored with this award. Kate will also be this year's playwright laureate at Roxbury Repertory Theatre's 6 Playwrights in Search of a Stage on April 27, where her short play Brickwork will be performed; also on the bill is MJ Halberstadt with The Milkman. (Also, rumor has it that John Grenier-Ferris will grace the stage in one of the plays...)

To honor her work on Deported/a dream play, this Friday joint House/Senate resolutions will be awarded to Joyce Van Dyke during the Armenian community's annual commemoration of the Armenian Genocide at the Massachusetts State House...

MJ Halberstadt received the MFA Creative Writing Global Fellowship in Playwriting. He will live and write in Paris this fall...

Emily Kaye Lazzaro is currently ON the stage at BPT, in Argos Productions' Murph (by Catherine M. O'Neill), which opened last weekend...

Cha Cha, Clem, and Demonio at frequent BTM playwright Kirsten Greenidge's The Luck of the Irish

Doing Justice

Bobbie Steinbach and Jeanine Kane

It is an interesting challenge to be faced with, to portray a character based on the life of an actual living breathing human being. In the case of my character Varter in Joyce Van Dyke's Deported / a dream play, the woman I am portraying happens to be the survivor of many horrors and losses that are unimaginable to most of us. To live through the kidnapping and killing of her husband and the deportation from her home; to watch in horror the deaths of her seven children; to be kidnapped and sold.... how does one bring this kind of experience to the stage? 

I was late coming into the process of the development of Deported. I came on board in August 2011, at which time the script was pretty much completed and the workshops and improvisations had already happened. I participated in a few readings, but other than that I was new to the play when we started rehearsal in February. My primary goal was to create a character who did justice to the spirit of the woman I represent. I had the great pleasure of meeting Varter's son, Martin Deranian, and he was infinitely helpful in providing photos and information about his mother. I wanted to be sure to do justice to her memory, for his sake.

Alumni news, in brief:

Demonio and Cha Cha celebrate Monica Bauer

The world premiere of Becoming Cuba, by Melinda Lopez, will be part of San Diego's North Coast Repertory Theatre's 2012-13 season...

John Kuntz's Miss Price (revisited) will be presented as part of Gloucester Stage Company's Play Reading Series in July...

Check out Molly Smith Metzler at yesterday's "The Scribes Speak" panel at the 36th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville...

Here's a wonderful review of Karmo Sander's short Face It, which played at the Vancouver Women in Film Festival earlier this month...

Now playing at Central Square Theatre: Underground Railway Theater's production of Deborah Lake Fortson's ABIYOYO (based on the story song by Pete Seeger), and next up will be Wesley Savick's Yesterday Happened: Remembering H.M. produced by Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, a science theater collaboration between Underground Railway Theater & MIT...

Gregory Fletcher is directing Shooting Crows, by Jack Rushen, for Davenport Theatrical's Developmental Reading Series on April 2... 

Sinan Ünel's A Mad Person's Chronicle of a Miserable Marriage is part of the lineup of Stage Left Studio's Left Out Festival April 14-25... 

When you see Joyce Van Dyke's Deported/a dream play, don't miss the photo display in the lobby...

74 Sargent Avenue

For fans of Joyce Van Dyke's Deported/a dream play, here is the house at 74 Sargent Avenue, Providence, which is the setting for the opening scenes of the play. If you're a future fan (because you haven't seen it yet), maybe you should check it out this weekend!

I asked Joyce to share a little bit about the house, and this is what she had to say:

I was told the house was built by Harry Boyajian, my grandfather.  He was a carpenter/builder, just as he is in the play. My grandmother wrote the line that she says in the play, that she intended to "live here forever, with the blessing of our heavenly Father."  It didn't work out that way. But for years during her later life in California, she would often refer to "when we lived 74 Sargent Avenue."

The address sounded like a mantra.

How to keep the past alive...

Bobbie Steinbach and Jeanine Kane

We are about to begin the third week of Joyce Van Dyke's intimate and epic Deported/a dream play. Dreams, music, beautiful and terrible memories, nightmares, dances, haunting songs, weddings, lost babies, new babies, violence, stories that can't be told, compassion, traditions and so many more elements are part of this many-layered phantasmagorical flying carpet ride. 

I play Joyce's grandmother Victoria in the play. Deported is Victoria's story and the story of her best friend Varter, played by Jeanine Kane, a wonderful new face in town (she is a long-time company member at the Gamm Theatre in Rhode Island). The amazing ensemble includes Ken Baltin, Marya Lowry, Rob Najarian, Liz Hayes and Marc Cohen, all playing a number of different roles, as well as six students from Suffolk who are the Dreamers and the beautiful Dancers.

Alumni news, in brief:

Demonio at Deported

Great press: Joyce Van Dyke's Deported/a dream play in The Armenian Mirror-Spectator and on The Arts Fuse blog...

Lydia R. Diamond's Stick Fly will be part of Park Square Theatre's 2012-2013 season...

Ginger Lazarus will grace the stage in Theatre@First's Pride and Prejudice, which opens this week...

All hail The Mayor...

Jinxed, by K. Alexa Mavromatis, will be included in Looking Glass Theatre's Writer/Director Forum this spring...

Alumni news, in brief:

It was a sold-out weekend for Joyce Van Dyke's Deported/a dream play! Get your tickets...

M. Lynda Robinson's Wife of Bobbo and Monica Bauer's House Broken are on the bill at Image Theater Company's Femnoire Festival of Women Playwrights, March 30 and 31...

Check out Werner Trieschmann on Tales From the South...

Walt McGough says we playwrights need to make sure the stage directions we include in our scripts belong there in the first place...

Molly Smith Metzler is the recipient of this year's Outstanding Young Alumni Award at SUNY Geneseo...

MJ Halberstadt's one-act w4m will be featured in Boston Actors Theater's Summer Play Festival this July, and his ten-min Peggy's Properties (watch it here) won the "Drunken Judges" Award at StrangeDog Theatre's First Annual Beer Battered Play Festival...

Cliff Odle on Central Square Theater's blog, discussing his latest play Our Girl In Trenton...

K. Alexa Mavromatis' The Quiz will be part of the morning critique group at Our Voices 6 on March 24...

Final adjustments...

Joyce Van Dyke

Deported is about to open on March 8^th and I feel like I’m in a dream state most of the time.  We’ve moved into the Modern and every day more and more of the set appears onstage.  I’m sitting at one of the tables – where the front rows will soon be installed – making notes and cuts and changes as we do a run-through of the play.

And I’m amazed as I always am at the amount of labor going on all around me by the stage management, set builder, director, actors, costume and lighting and sound and set designers, props person, marketing people and producers, those responsible for the venue at Suffolk, and so many others.  I wish the ticket buyers could have even a glimpse of the astonishing number of tasks that have to be accomplished to pull the play together.  I think it’s also amazing how tightly organized the process is, down to the smallest details – how the daily reports and notes and scheduling coordinate so much, how everybody incorporates the changes overnight.  It’s a level of organization that would be impressive in an established business – and here it’s happening with a group that’s just come together for this one voyage.  As I write this, I’m looking forward to tech – which I love because I get to watch everything getting stitched together.  

- Joyce Van Dyke, Playwright

Alumni news, in brief:

A national tour is on the horizon for Lydia Diamond's Stick Fly!... 

M. Lynda Robinson's short play An Egg is an Egg will be on the bill to celebrate SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now) at the 6th annual Our Voices Festival at Regis College on March 24... 

The Provincetown Theatre Company's 16th annual winter reading series will feature John Greiner-Ferris' Highland Center, Indiana on March 28...

Molly Smith Metzler's Carve is part of the Geva Theatre Center's Plays in Progress reading series tonight...

And here's a lovely feature from The Boston Globe about the story behind the story of Joyce Van Dyke's Deported/a dream play, which opens in previews this Thursday!

Old Friends and New in 'Deported'

Artistic Director, Kate Snodgrass

Folks, we're finally at the Modern Theatre over near the Opera House for our upcoming production of Deported / a dream play by Joyce Van Dyke, and directed by Judy Braha.  Marc trucked the set from BPT over to the Modern yesterday, and he is over there now rebuilding, hanging lights, setting up sound equipment, et al., in readiness for the technical rehearsals beginning this coming weekend.  We open next Thursday, March 8, in previews!  I'm so thankful to finally be in the space where we can begin to really explore this important and exciting piece of theatre.  It's our last production in our 30^th anniversary season, and I'm sad to see this season end. However, it's going out with a bang!

We have brought together many old friends and new to celebrate our 30 years of new work, and we’re especially happy to be working again with the lovely and talented Joyce Van Dyke (Love In The Gulf, 1996; A Girl’s War, 2001; The Oil Thief, 2008). I am honored that she has trusted us with this play in particular, founded as it is in her personal family history.  We want to do her proud.

‘Deported’ funded on USA Projects

Great news to share: Joyce Van Dyke’s Deported/a dream play is funded on USA Projects…and then some! Currently, the project is more than 103 percent to goal, with nine days still left to donate if you would like. Thank you to all who continue to support this project financially and otherwise!!!

There will also be a fundraising party on Sunday March 4, 3:00-5:00 p.m. at the Armenian Cultural Foundation, 441 Mystic Street, Lexington.

And, here’s a related article to check out, about Armenian Genocide education in Merrimack Valley. Wilmington High School students plan to be in the audience of Deported! Which brings me to…

Opening is quickly approaching, so go ahead and get your tickets!

'Deported' update

We're pleased to report that -- with only a little more than two weeks to opening night  -- the USA Projects campaign for Deported/a dream play is 70 percent to goal. To those who have already offered a gift of support, thank you. To those who would still like to contribute, you may do so by visiting here. [A very important piece of information from the USA Projects FAQ: If a project reaches its fundraising goal by the deadline, it is funded. If it does not reach its goal, no pledges are processed, and the artist does not receive any funding.]

And (so you may plan ahead and arrange your calendar accordingly) there are a number of special events happening in conjunction with the play, including post-show talk backs, Armenian dance demonstrations, and more.

Be sure to visit the Deported Web site too!

Love-filled alumni news, in brief:

Monica Bauer's Off-Broadway bound My Occasion of Sin was awarded Best New Script at the Omaha Arts and Entertainment Awards, and her Made For Each Other was accepted to the Edinburgh Free Fringe...

Joyce Van Dyke's Deported/a dream play -- which opens on Mar. 8 -- is on the list of The Boston Globe's Critic's Picks...

Great review of Molly Smith Metzler's Elemeno Pea, now playing at South Coast Rep, right here...

Blood Rose Rising (co-written by Steve Barkhimer) opens Feb. 17 at the Davis Square Theatre, and Will Fancher's The River Was Whiskey opens at Middle Tennessee State University on Feb. 16...

Our Girl in Trenton, by Cliff Odle, will be part of Central Square Theatre's PlayPen Readings on Feb. 27...

Richard Snee will appear in the world premiere of Boston Children's Theatre's Reflections of a Rock Lobster Mar. 3-11...

The curtain will come down on the Broadway production of Lydia Diamond's Stick Fly on Feb. 26. Get tickets...

MJ Halberstadt reflects on the KCACTF Region 1 experience on his blog, and you can watch Colleen Hughes' KCACTF entry The Button here...