If these Winship walls could talk.
Rozanne Seelen (BFA 1956) is the owner of New York City’s The Drama Book Shop, recently honored with the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre. Rozanne shares that “our mission is to provide not only a place to buy books but also a place where people can gather and get the help they need for their careers”. Rozanne and her staff will celebrate The Drama Book Shop’s 100th anniversary in 2017.
Kimber Lee (MFA 2011) was recently invited to workshop her play Different Words for the Same Thing in the First Light Discovery Program at Theatre of the First Amendment in Washington, D.C. The workshop reading was offered as part of the Dramatists Guild 1st National Playwrights Conference in June 2011. Different Words for the Same Thing was also selected as a semi-finalist for the 2012 O’Neill Playwrights Conference.
Kimber and her plays have been selected for the 2011-2012 Dramatists Guild Playwriting Fellowship and as a semi-finalist for the 2012 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship. Recently, she was named one of four playwrights chosen for the 2012 Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, a two-week residency culminating in readings on Whidbey Island and in Seattle at ACT Theatre.
Robert Schenkkan’s (BFA 1975) adaptation of the Newbery-Award Winning novel, A Single Shard, premiered February 24 at Seattle Children’s Theatre. Starring UT MFA in Acting candidates Geoffrey Barnes, Jason Ko and Alexis Scott and featuring the lighting design work of associate professor Michelle Habeck with assistance from MFA in Design candidate Cheng-Wei Teng, A Single Shard continues through March 18.
A Single Shard in the news:
Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan talks about world premiere ‘A Single Shard’ at Seattle Children’s Theatre, culturemob.com
‘A Single Shard’ at Seattle Children’s Theatre, Broadway World
‘A Single Shard’ Comes to Seattle Children’s Theatre, CBS Seattle
Robert Schenkkan is the author of The Kentucky Cycle, Tony and Emmy Award nominee and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In addition to his artistic achievements, Schenkkan has been recognized as a UT Distinguished Young Alumnus, and is a member of the Friar Society.
Schenkkan is currently at work on a feature film for Robert Downey, Jr. and Warner Brothers, a mini-series for Harpo/HBO about the American Civil Rights movement, and another feature, The Co, with Academy Award-winning director Aaron Schneider.
Read Robert Schenkkan’s full biography.
Dr. Elizabeth C. Ramirez’s (PhD 1982) La Voz Latina was recently published by the University of Illinois Press. A survey of the Latina theatre movement in the United States since the 1980s, Dr. Ramirez’s collection brings together contemporary plays and performance pieces by innovative playwrights, including Yareli Arizmendi, Josefina Báez, The Colorado Sisters, Migdalia Cruz, Evelina Fernández, Cherríe Moraga, Carmen Pelaez, Carmen Rivera, Celia H. Rodríguez, Diane Rodriguez, and Milcha Sanchez-Scott. A former student of Dr. Oscar Brockett, Dr. Ramirez have been pursuing the study of Latina/Latino performance and criticism for a number of years.
George Brant (MFA 2008) premiered several new plays this season: Grizzly Mama in September 2011 at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland Heights, OH; The Mourners’ Bench in March 2012 at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI; and Salvage in April 2012 at Theatre 4, New Haven, CT.
Jenny Connell’s (MFA ‘09) Chrysalis, developed as part of the UT Department of Theatre and Dance’s “Once Upon a Weekend,” was performed along with fellow MFA Playwright Andrew Hinderaker’s Dry in The Gift Theatre’s “Take Ten” showcase, a celebration of the Chicago’s theatre’s ten-year anniversary. Heralded by The Chicago Sun-Times as “poignant and poetic”, Chrysalis follows five individuals’ memories in the form of paper planes.
Connell’s short piece, Body Language, was performed in February 2011 as part of the Annual Ars Nova Play Group Showcase The Urban Dictionary Plays. In March 2012, There Be Dragons, with development support from Austin’s ScriptWorks, opens with Shrewd Productions at Austin’s Blue Theater. Fatakra, the short film written by Connell and writer, director and fellow alumnus Soham Mehta (BA ’00) was screened last year at SXSW and continues to screen worldwide. If Fatakra comes to your city, be sure to check it out!
Howard Casner’s (BFA ’76) screenplays Rough Trade and Welcome to L.A. were recognized by Chicago’s 2011 Great Gay Screenplay Competition. A dark comedy in the vein of Swimming with the Sharks, Casner’s Welcome to L.A., was a top five finalist of the annual competition and received a staged reading last fall.
Casner moved in 2001 from Chicago to Los Angeles, where he has earned a reputation as a script consultant as well as providing coverage for several screenplay competitions and Here! Networks/ Regent Entertainment. His plays have been seen in Chicago, New York, and L.A. In 2002, he received a GLAAD nomination for best L.A. production for A Cold Coming We Had of It.
