Congratulations Deneen Reynolds-Knott! Your play, BABES IN HO-LLAND has been selected for the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival!

Playwrights Foundation, the West Coast’s premiere launchpad for exceptional plays and playwrights announces the lineup for the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF), featuring playwrights Tyler English-Beckwith, Stefani Kuo, Jordan Ramirez Puckett, Deneen Reynolds-Knott, and Noelle Viñas. The 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival runs July 17-26, 2020 in an online format worldwide . The Festival offers public readings in addition to panel discussions and surrounding online events on Facebook Live. Pay What You Can tickets will go on sale starting June 1st.

The 43rd Annual festival is Playwrights Foundation’s Executive Artistic Director Jessica Bird Beza’s first. “The move to an all online experience for both artists and audience is in a way a paradigm shift,” says Bird Beza, ” I am excited for the opportunities this moment presents to create a wider access and platform for these much needed stories of love, perseverance, and self discovery to be heard.” As the nature of theater and theatricality changes, Playwrights Foundation continues to be dedicated to emerging playwrights and the development of new work. Selected out of 735 submissions, this year’s lineup consists of an all female group of playwrights whose voices have a platform.

Deneen Reynolds-Knott is a member of Clubbed Thumb‘s 2019-2020 Early-Career Writers’ Group and received a finalist grant from their 2018 Open-Application Commission. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and has developed work with Liberation Theatre Company’s Writing Residency, Project Y’s Playwrights Group, Rising Circle’s INKtank Development Lab and Frank Silvera Workshop’s 3in3 Playwright Residency. Her full-length play, BATON, was selected for the 2018 Premiere Play Festival and received a workshop reading at Premiere Stages, the 2017 Playfest at the Orlando Shakespeare Company, and was a finalist for the 2017 PlayPenn and Bay Area Playwrights conferences. Deneen’s play, ANTEPARTUM, was presented at the 2020 Fire This Time Festival as part of their signature ten-minute play program. She received her MFA in film from Columbia University.

Read the full article from Broadway World San Francisco here.

Studio Theatre to Collaborate with Artist-in-Residence Psalmayene 24 after Receiving Doris Duke Grant

Psalmayene 24

Studio Theatre is one of eight theatres across the country, and the only arts organization in Washington, DC, to receive an 18-month capacity building grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s (DDCF) Building Demand for the Arts program, the Foundation announced this week. The program funds artists and arts institutions working to forge long-lasting relationships with diverse audiences.

Of the nearly $1.3 million awarded by DDCF, Studio received $82,500 to invest in connecting with African American millennial audiences in DC, in collaboration with director and playwright Psalmayene 24 (Psalm). He joins Studio as Artist-in-Residence during the grant period, which extends through the 2020-2021 Season.

Studio’s work with Psalm begins around its production of Antoinette Nwandu’s explosive breakthrough play Pass Over, directed by Psalm. Engagement efforts include the Pass Over Community Tour, which will bring readings of the play to five sites throughout the DC-area this spring: Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Howard University, the Anacostia and Shaw branches of the DC Public Library, and Joe’s Movement Emporium. Readings will be accompanied by talkbacks, panels, and other activities created in partnership with host venues to help process and spark discussion about this important contemporary work.

Studio and Psalm will continue to collaborate on ways to engage African American millennials through social events, talkbacks, workshops, and residencies tailored to specific Studio Productions.

Read the full article from Broadway World here.

Regina Taylor, Distinguished Writer to be Inducted into the The Texas Institute of Letters 2020

TEXAS INSTITUTE OF LETTERS ANNOUNCES NINETEEN DISTINGUISHED WRITERS

TO BE INDUCTED

For the 84th year,members of the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL) have decided on the induction of new members to join the ranks of the distinguished honor society founded in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature and to recognize distinctive literary achievement.

The TIL’s membership consists of the state’s most respected writers – including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, Academy Award, Americas Award, International Latino Book Award, and the MacArthur “Genius” grant. Membership is based on ongoing and exceptional literary accomplishment.  Members of the Texas Institute of Letters have overwhelmingly approved nineteen writers to join the ranks of the TIL. 

The 2020 honorees include poets Cyrus Cassells, ir’ene lara silva, Emmy Pérez, and Loretta Diane Walker; award-winning playwrights Octavio Solis and Regina Taylor (also a Golden Globe winner); novelists Glenn Blake, Kathleen Kent, and Natalia Sylvester; bestselling journalists/editors/publishers Nate Blakeslee, Dan Goodgame, and Dan Williams; award-winning songwriters James McMurtry and Robert Earl Keen; environmental writer and editor Andrew Sansom; scholars Andrew R. Graybill and Emma M. Pérez; children’s and YA author J.B. (Jessica) Powers; and photo-historian of award-winning Southwestern cultural histories Bill Wright.

Dr. Carmen Tafolla, President of the Texas Institute of Letters states, “The move to diversify and include a wide variety of literary genres in our analysis of literary accomplishment has continued to bring us a rich base of outstanding word-crafters. We are extremely proud of the exceptional work these individuals represent. These nineteen literary masters and innovators span the creative gamut from stage plays to song lyrics and from novels to poetry, journalism, short stories, publishing, children’s works, and scholarly books.”  

New members will be inducted at the upcoming TIL annual meeting, to be held in Georgetown, Texas March 27-29.  The Annual TIL Literary Awards will also be presented at the weekend’s events. For more information, please visit the TIL website: www.texasinstituteofletters.org or email Carmen Tafolla, president@texasinstituteofletters.org.

From: TIL President, Dr. Carmen Tafolla

David Sumner Nominated for the 2019 Gregory Awards for Outstanding Scenic Design

For the production of I Do! I Do! at the Village Theatre in the Puget Sound, David Sumner has been nominated for Outstanding Scenic Design. The award ceremony will be held at the Marion Oliver McCa Hall on OCtober 28, 2019, hosted by Alexandria J. Henderson and Jimmy Shields.

This season, over 130 productions were submitted for Gregory Awards consideration – 10 Nominators are randomly assigned to each production to provide scores on all eligible elements.  For more details on the Nomination process, go to http://nominate.gregoryawards.org

The Kilroys’ 2019 List Name Audrey Cefaly and Jacqueline Goldfinger, While Others Make Honorable Mentions

Audrey Cefaly‘s ALABASTER, and Jacqueline Goldfinger’s BABEL make the Kilroy’s 2019 List of un- and underproduced plays  un- and underproduced new plays by woman, trans, and non-binary authors per our survey results. Each play received between 5 and 19 nominations. .

ALABASTER: A darkly comic southern drama about love, art, and the power of women. This heart-wrenching story of a reclusive Alabama folk artist won the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize. After a tornado barrels through town leaving nothing but death and destruction, only June and her pet goat Weezy live to tell the tale. When a prominent photographer visits to take pictures of June’s scars, both are forced to reconcile the pain of loss and recovery. This all-female drama explores the meaning and purpose of art and the struggle of the lost and tortured souls that seek to create it.

BABEL: What would you do if you had the power to build your own baby? In this version of a near future society, prospective parents learn within the first weeks of conception which genetic traits their child will have, and what behaviors they are likely to exhibit. Based on these test results, the parent(s) are either issued a PRE certification which legally guarantees the baby will be a “good” person or not. Without the certification, the child will be limited in what it is allowed to do. Two couples collide over what to do with their PRE certification test results. With rapid advances in reproductive technology, modern eugenics is science’s Wild West. What will we do to “civilize” it and ourselves? How far will we go when playing God? If you like Booker’s “Black Mirror,” Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go,” or Haley’s “The Nether,” then this play is for you.

Honorable Mentions include:
FRANCE-LUCE BENSON – Deux Femmes on the Edge de la Revolution
PATRICIA COTTER – The Daughters
JACQUELINE GOLDFINGER – Click
TIRA PALMQUIST – The Way North