Winning weekend

Current MFAs (and friends!) display their awards on the terrace of the Kennedy Center last weekend. L-R: Lesley University's Cassie M. Seinuk, NYU's Nick Carr, and our own Abbey Fenbert and Stephanie Brownell. Not pictured: Steven Barkhimer and Michael Parsons. Read more.

Congratulations, all! (And thanks for the photo, Steph!)

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!!!

KCACTF Region 1 finalists announced

Work by three of our current MFA playwrights will advance to the national-level award competitions at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) in Washington, D.C.

Line Please by Will Carter and The Sand Beneath the City by Abbey Fenbert will compete for the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play. Stephanie Brownell's Eskimo Pie and Abbey Fenbert's Geniuses are finalists for the KCACTF National Ten-Minute Play Award. Selected plays were announced at the KCACTF Region 1 competition at Cape Cod Community College earlier this month. The national festival will be held in April.

Congratulations, guys!

Alumni news, in brief:

Cliff Odle's Our Girl in Trenton will be produced as part of the CFA's New Play Initiative, opening on Oct. 17. The play is also the School of Theatre's official 2014 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival entry...

The Compass Rose by Ronan Noone was nominated for four awards at Origin Theatre's 1st Irish Festival -- Best Play, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The play will soon be available on Indie Theater Now... 

Lydia Diamond began her year-long residency at the American Voices New Play Institute at D.C.'s Arena Stage on Oct. 1...

The Farm by Walt McGough is onstage at Penguin Rep through Oct. 20...

Weekend festival features plays by Halberstadt, Parsons, and Villano

Forgive me for stating the obvious here, but what an incredible line-up of last season's KCACTF Region I finalists (including Michael S. Parson's Cauble Award-winning play) at KNOW Theatre in Binghamton. Congratulations, guys! Fabulous!

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).

Parsons' 'The Lighthouse' wins John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play

Michael Parsons

Michael Parsons’ The Lighthouse won the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play at last weekend’s Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). The award includes $500, a professional development fellowship, and active membership in The Dramatists Guild.

Last month, Michael’s play Homeland was announced as the winner of this year’s Rosa Parks Playwriting Award for plays on the theme of social justice. Both awards are part of the Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards Program, a series of awards presented annually at KCACTF.

Congratulations Michael! (And on your birthday weekend, no less!)

Alumni news, in brief:

Demonio at Clybourne Park

The CFA’s production of John Shea’s Erin Go Bragh-less has been honored by KCACTF as a Distinguished Production of a New Work; director Hondo Weiss-Richmond was recognized as a Distinguished Director of A New Play; and the cast and crew were honored as a Distinguished Performance and Production Ensemble…

Michael Parsons’ one-act The Lighthouse is a finalist for KCACTF’s John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short play…

Don’t miss Company One’s XXPlayLab Festival this weekend, featuring discussion panels and readings of new work by Lydia Diamond and BPT friends Kirsten Greenidge and Natalia Naman…

Park's 'Gay Guy, Fat Girl' wins Mark Twain Prize

Rick Park

Rick Park’s Gay Guy, Fat Girl is one of two recipients (along with Josh Levine's Homemade) of the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting.

The award is part of the Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards Program, a series of awards presented annually by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, and comes with a $1,000 cash award, an expense-paid invitation to attend the National Festival in D.C. April 16-20, membership in both the Dramatists Guild and the Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis, and a professional development residency – typically two weeks in duration – with an organization/entity to be determined.

Congratulations, Rick!

Parsons' 'Homeland' wins Rosa Parks Playwriting Award

Michael Parsons

Michael Parsons' Homeland is this year’s recipient of the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award for plays on the theme of Civil Rights and Social Justice. The award is part of the Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards Program, a series of awards presented annually by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

This comes with a $1,000 cash award, an expense-paid invitation to attend the National Festival in D.C. April 16-20, membership in the Dramatists Guild and with the Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis, and a professional development residency – typically two weeks in duration – with an organization/entity to be determined.

Congratulations, Michael!

I Heart Stairway to Heaven

When I teach playwriting classes to high school students, one of my favorite plays to share with them is Gregory Fletcher’s Stairway to Heaven, which won the 2004 National Ten-Minute Play Award at the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival.

Students connect to the play – about two teenaged siblings on the morning of their father’s funeral – because the characters are instantly familiar (and their interaction so real) to them. The play’s dialogue is simple, but layered; its structure is very clear; it is funny, sad, sweet, and true – a terrific play to talk about with first-time playwrights. My group at the Academy of the Pacific Rim in Hyde Park, where I am mentoring students for the Massachusetts Young Playwrights’ Project this year, is no exception. They loved it. [Random suggestion: I also like pairing this play with Walt McGough’s Two Socks Discuss Loss, to show students two very different ways of illustrating onstage the ways we move through grief and into the future. Steal this idea!]

Now how's this for some alumni news:

Reunion: At last week's KCACTF Region 1 Festival in Hyannis, BPT classmates (L-R) MJ Halberstadt, Jaclyn Villano, and Michael Parsons. All three have plays (MJ's ten-minute w4m, Jaclyn's one-act The Rain Fell Up, and Michael's one-act The Lighthouse) advancing to the National Festival in April as Region 1 Finalists.

Congratulations, team!

Alumni news, in brief:

One-act plays by Michael Parsons (The Lighthouse) and Jaclyn Villano (The Rain Fell Up), and ten-minute plays by MJ Halberstadt (w4m) and Jaclyn Villano (Ratings Worthy) will be presented at the KCACTF Region 1 Festival. The event will be held in Hyannis in January...

Walt McGough has been announced as one of the Huntington Theatre Company’s 2012-14 cohort of Huntington Playwriting Fellows. Catch a reading of his play The Haberdasher tonight at 7 p.m. at BPT, part of Boston Actors Theater’s Beantown Reading Series…

A very nice review of Fresh Ink’s production of Ginger Lazarus’ The Embryos, which starts its final weekend of performances on Thursday...

Playwriting in the fast lane

Peter M. Floyd spent last week in Washington, D.C., at the Kennedy Center, where he… Gah, I’m totally stealing his whole first paragraph here. I should just let him tell it. Take it away, Peter:

I've just returned from the MFA Playwrights' Weekend at the Kennedy Center in Washington (it's co-sponsored by the National New Play Network) and my head's still a-spinning. I went there with my horror play The Centipede King, which is something like The Turn of the Screw by way of The Glass Menagerie. With centipedes. My first day there, I met my director (Stefan Brun of the Prop Thtr of Chicago) and my dramaturg (Gavin Witt of Centerstage, in Baltimore), both of whom were bubbling with enthusiasm for the play, which was gratifying. We had a week to rehearse, and had at our disposal four actors, an assistant director, two assistant dramaturgs, and a sound designer, who would create the weird and unsettling ambient sounds that would play during the reading.

Floyd's 'Absence' wins Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award

Peter M. Floyd

Peter M. Floyd’s Absence is a co-recipient (along with The Man in the Sukkah by The University of Iowa's Deborah Yarchun) of the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, part of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival's Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards program. 

The Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award is offered for the outstanding student-written script that explores the human experience of living with a disability.

The award will be presented on April 21 in the Kennedy Center Family Theater.

Congratulations, Peter!

Behind the scenes at KCACTF Region 1...

They may not have won any awards this time around -- although it should be said that it's a huge honor to have work selected for regional competition, so congratulations, guys! -- but BPTers had a good time making friends at last week's KCACTF Region 1 competition at Fitchburg State University. Roving photog Kate shared a few pictures...

Colleen Hughes and Lesley University's Angel Nunez

Alumni news, in brief:

El Demonio Rosa and Cha Cha Picante high-five it on their way in to see Walt McGough's Priscilla Dreams the Answer...

One-act plays by Michael Parsons (House Rules) and Peter M. Floyd (Beleaguered), and ten-minute plays by Colleen Hughes (The Button) and MJ Halberstadt (Peggy's Properties) will be presented at KCACTF's Region 1 competition. The event will be held in Fitchburg in January...

Fight the funk *with* the funk

All the right elements: Earth, Wind & Fire

But you really didn’t think it would be possible for me to write about music without actually posting some music, right? (People who know me know better than that.)

As an addendum to the previous post, I think it is *certainly* worthy to note here that it is possible to fight the funk with the funk. Years ago, when I was at the Kennedy Center’s playwriting intensive, playwright Caleen Sinnette Jennings spent time with us, leading writing exercises and talking about “writer stuff”: Taking risks, how discomfort can lead to discovery, being careful not to judge our work too early in the process, etc. She also talked to us a little bit about writer’s block, and about writing as a whole body experience (one suggestion was to take a break from typing and write freehand instead). She was great.

My favorite piece of advice, though – and I wrote it down – was: “Remember, if all else fails, there’s nothing that Earth, Wind & Fire can’t cure.” 

And then we all danced to ‘September’ a la the Soul Train line. As long as I live, I will never, ever hear that song without remembering that day.

Play by Hughes named KCACTF national semi-finalist

BPT alum Colleen Hughes’ ten-minute play The Mouse has been named a national semi-finalist for the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). 

Playwright Colleen Hughes

If selected as a national finalist, The Mouse will be one of four ten-minute plays presented at the national festival in April. National finalist plays are cast with professional actors from the Washington, D.C., area, and compete for a $1,000 cash prize.

Plays by Deirdre Girard (Delivery) and John Zakrosky, Jr. (Ten Hours of Sleep) were also presented in the ten-minute category at the regional festival last month in Fitchburg; Deirdre’s play The End of the Argument also competed there in the one-act category.

There are numerous KCACTF awards categories for all types of student theatre artists. For the uninitiated, here’s how the ten-minute competition works:

Playwrights submit their work each fall. Plays from each KCACTF region (ours, Region I, covers New England and Eastern New York) are read by at least two readers from a different region. The top six choices are invited to Region I’s festival in January. At the festival, each playwright works with an assigned director to rehearse a public reading of his/her play. Two festival respondents respond to each play. 

From those six plays, two are chosen as national semi-finalists; those plays are then held in consideration for the national festival in Washington D.C, as national finalists.