Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group | Primary Stages

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MFA READINGS DOROTHY STRELSIN NEW AMERICAN WRITERS GROUP STUDENT MATINEES PRIMARY VOICES TALKBACK


Now in its 16th year, this program brings together six to eight emerging playwrights each season to create new plays for the American theater. Under the direction of Primary Stages Associate Artistic Director Michelle Bossy, these playwrights attend weekly meetings in the fall and spring, where they bring new pages to each session and receive feedback on their works in progress. At the end of the season, Primary Stages presents the first public reading of these plays in The Dorothy Strelsin Fresh Ink Readings Series. 2012/2013 Members Sofia Alvarez is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights program and a two-time recipient of Lincoln Center Theater's Lecompte du Nouy prize. She is an alumna of the Royal Court Theatre's Young Writer's Program in London where she developed her play Life Drawing. Sofia's play Between Us Chickens was read at the 2010 Pacific Playwrights Festival and subsequently produced as part of South Coast Rep's inaugural Studio Series. The production then transferred to the Atwater Village Tehatre in Los Angeles. Her play The Fish Bowl was workshopped at Juilliard with director Hal Brooks. Sofia is a member of New George's emerging artist group, The JAM, and an artistic associate with Foglight Films where she has directed the work of Keith Hendershot and Blair Singer. She is currently working on a new play commission for South Coast Repertory Theater. She has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. BA, Bennington College. Courtney Baron's productions include A Very Common Procedure (originally written with the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group) produced at MCC (Off Broadway, NY) and under the title Morbidity and Mortality at The Magic Theatre, San Francisco; Consumption, commissioned by and produced at the Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis; Not Our Last Hurrah, produced as part of the Australia Project at the Kraine Theatre, NYC; These Three Here, produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Earlstreetman as part of the Larson Project at New York Theatre Workshop and at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference; John Brown's Body as part of Keen Americana at the Jose Quintero Theatre, NYC; Black Fish as part of the Backstory Project at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville; and The Blue Room, which was awarded a 1999 Heideman Award and nominated for the American Theatre Critics' Association's Osborn Award, premiered at Humana Festival and was remounted as part of Match Games in 2009 at ATL. Courtney holds an MFA from Columbia University. She recently workshopped Leave a new play with original songs by Juliana Nash at Primary Stages. She holds a MFA from Columbia University. Josh Levine’s plays have been produced or developed at Primary Stages, Chicago Dramatists, Blank Theater Company, Bailiwick Repertory, Orlando International Fringe Festival, Raw Impressions, Red Stage Theatre, From The Ground Up, Bakerloo Theatre Project and Mad Cow Theater among others. Most recently, Josh was a 2012 Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference and a 2012 Semi-Finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival for Homemade. Josh was also a 2011 Heideman Award Finalist for Perfect, which will be published by Smith & Krause in December 2012, and he was a 2009 Great Plains Theatre Conference Play Lab Finalist for Lost Persons. Josh served as Playwright in Residence at Northern Stage Theatre Company, and he has been commissioned by Bakerloo Theatre Project and Miles Square Theatre. Josh received his MFA in Playwriting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and his BFA in Playwriting from The Theatre School, DePaul University. He is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild and Primary Stages' Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group. For more information, please visit www.joshlevineonline.com Cheri Magid's plays, which include The Tavern Wench, et al;, Manna, The Reluctant Dragon, and The Ghost of Enoch Charlton, have been seen at The New Group, The Women’s Project, Keen Company, Rattlestick, The Slipper Room, Vital Theatre Company, La Mama, Makor, Abingdon Theatre Company, The Lark and the West Bank Theatre all in New York, M.Y.E Productions in Los Angeles, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, CA, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, The University of Iowa, and Calvin College in Michigan. She is currently writing two musicals The Surreal Housewives of Woodstock with songwriters Jules Shear (All Through The Night for Cindy Lauper, If She Knew What She Wants for The Bangles) and Ed Sanders of The Fugs, and The Christmas Windows of 1937, commissioned by producer/director Jackson Gay. The Keen Company commissioned her children’s play The Ghost of Enoch Charlton, which, along with Manna, has been published by Playscripts. Excerpts of Manna are also included in The Best Stage Scenes of 2009 published by Smith and Kraus. Pretty Things Press published the Cliffs of Moher in 2006. Cheri’s erotic story "She Grinds Her Own Coffee" is published in Cleis Press’ anthology Hide and Seek. Rogelio Martinez's plays include When Tang Met Laika (Sloan Grant/ Denver Center/ Perry Mansfield), All Eyes and Ears (INTAR), Fizz (NEA/ TCG Grant/ Besch Solinger Productions at the Ohio Theatre), Learning Curve (Smith and Krauss New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2005/ Besch Solinger Productions at Theater Row), I Regret She’s Made of Sugar (Princess Grace Award), Arrivals and Departures (Summer Play Festival), and Union City... (E.S.T, winner of the James Hammerstein Award). In addition, his work has been developed and presented at the Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, and the Magic Theater, among others. Mr. Martinez is an alumnus of New Dramatists, and his plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing. He has received commissions from the Atlantic Theater Company, the Arden Theater Company, Denver Center Theater, and South Coast Repertory. Mr. Martinez teaches playwriting at Goddard College, Montclair University, and Primary Stages. In addition, he runs the Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Lab at INTAR, and is a member of the Dorothy Strelsin Writers Group at Primary Stages. Mr. Martinez was born in Sancti-Spiritus, Cuba, and came to the U.S. in 1980 on the Mariel boatlift. Molly Smith Metzler grew up in Kingston, New York. She is the author of Carve, Close Up Space, Training Wisteria and Elemeno Pea, which recently premiered at the 2011 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre in Louisville and will make its West Coast premiere at South Coast Rep in January 2012. Her comedy Close Up Space will make its world premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2011, starring David Hyde Pierce, Rosie Perez & Michael Chernus. Molly’s work has also been produced and developed at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, MTC 7@7, Playwrights Horizons, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Chautauqua Theater Company, Summer Play Festival (SPF), Cherry Lane Mentor Project, Ars Nova, hotINK, London’s Tristan Bates Theatre, and the Kennedy Center, where she was the winner of three KCACTF Awards, including The Kennedy Center National Student Playwriting Award. Molly is a member of EST, Ars Nova Play Group, and Primary Stages Writing Group; she holds degrees from Boston University and NYU Tisch, and is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School, where she was a two-time recipient of the Le Comte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Colin McKenna, and their awesome Boston terrier. Janine Nabers's recent honors include: Sundance @ UCross Residency, The Macdowell Colony Residency and The Sam French New School for Drama Emerging Writer Award and the 2009-2010 Dramatist Guild Playwriting Fellowship. Janine is currently a member of Ars Nova Play Group and the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages and is an alumni of Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Her play West of the Willow Tree was a finalist for: the Princess Grace Award, The Victory Gardens Theater Ignition playwriting Award, The Theodore Ward Playwriting Prize, Bay Area playwrights Festival and the winner of the 2009 New Professional Theater Playwriting Award. Other plays include: Welcome to Jesus (Soho Rep), When the Levee Broke (Workshop Theater Company), Juniper; Jubilee (Samuel French Festival Winner 08), and Generation Graffiti (Samuel French Festival finalist 09). Her play Annie Bosh Is Missing will be developed at the TLC emerging writing program this fall. Janine is published by Sam French. MFA: The New School for Drama. Matthew Paul Olmos was awarded the 2012 Princess Grace Award in Playwriting and recently named, by Sam Shepard, as the inaugural recipient of the La MaMa e.t.c.'s Ellen Stewart Emerging Playwright Award. He is a 2012-13 New York Theatre Workshop Fellow, was a Sundance Institute Time Warner Storytelling Fellow, and a two-time Resident Artist at Mabou Mines/Suite. He received the BBC International Playwriting Top Prize of the Americas and is an Ensemble Studio Theatre lifetime member. www.matthewpaulolmos.com Mat Smart is a Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, where he was a McKnight Advancement Grant and two-time Jerome Fellowship recipient. His play, Samuel J. and K., premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival and featured Owiso Odera and Justin Long (subsequent productions include Steppenwolf for Young Adults and Passage Theatre). Other plays: The Hopper Collection (Magic Theatre and Huntington Theatre Company), The 13th of Paris (City Theatre, Seattle Public Theatre, Horizon Theatre, Public Theatre of Maine, Warehouse Theatre and LiveWire in Chicago) and The Bebop Heard in Okinawa (O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference). Current works-in-progress include Tinker to Evers to Chance (PlayLabs) and The Steadfast (workshops at Asolo Rep and ATC in Chicago), which is a commission from the painter Steve Alpert. Previous commissions include South Coast Rep and Huntington. Co-founder of Slant Theatre Project in NYC. MFA: UCSD. After three years in Minneapolis and a stint working as a janitor at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, Mat recently moved back to NYC. Past Members David Lindsay Abaire Joshua Allen Tanya Barfield Neena Beber Alex Beech Brooke Berman Bekah Brunstetter Darren Canady Andrew Case David Caudle Cusi Cram Janis Astor del Valle Bruce Faulk Josh Fox Jessica Goldberg Daniel Goldfarb Rinne Groff Stephen Adly Guirgis Katori Hall Jerome Hairston Rolin Jones Julia Jordan Dan O’Brien Brian Pracht Edwin Sanchez Julian Sheppard Tommy Smith Adam Szymkowicz Lucy Thurber Sheri Wilner		The Call by Tanya Barfield March 22 - ~~May 19, 2013~~ NOW EXTENDED THROUGH MAY 26!