PROGRAMS — WOMEN'S WORK PROJECT

WOMEN’S WORK PLAYWRIGHTS LAB

Women’s Work sculpture commissioned for A Week of Women's Work, 2003 and created by Sabrina Stenswold.

Read about OFF THE PAGE, a new series of bare bones productions

Stay tuned for information on BY POPULAR DEMAND, the second festival of short plays created by this season's group of writers, coming up in August!

ABOUT THE LAB

Since its creation in 1994, NPT and Women’s Work has had the goal of not only helping to develop specific plays, but to support residents’ growth as accomplished and skilled playwrights—to give writers added tools in the practice of their craft and to strengthen their individual voices.  Our focus has always been on bringing scripts to production quality.  And that won’t change.

The new WOMEN’S WORK LAB retains all of the supportive features of the residency program—it extends the same nurturing environment to emerging and mid-career women playwrights and continues to provide one-on-one guidance in the development of new works.  But this format allows us to serve more writers each year (6-8 members), and creates a larger collaborative group from which members can draw inspiration and energy. 

The LAB meets monthly (Sundays, 4-7pm), allowing for time in between sessions for writers to continue to develop and revise their work in response to feedback.  Members are expected to bring work to each session—excerpts, scenes, one-acts, etc., but they will also follow a schedule for presenting longer completed works and rough drafts.  In this way, the LAB retains NPT’s desire to develop full length scripts by women writers while still allowing for continuous creativity.

New works are presented in two public forums. .  The first, in August, features short works developed around a specific theme. The second, Off the Page! are individual "bare-Bones" productions of full-length scripts that are deemed ready for public performances off-book.  Artistic Director Melody Brooks leads the LAB and is assisted by guest directors and dramaturges, who attend on a regular basis as active collaborators with the writers. 

Writers interested in being selected for membership in the WOMEN’S WORK LAB should send a resume, a 10-15 page writing sample, and a paragraph explaining why they wish to be a part of the LAB, including goals for their own development if selected.  (Please note that ALL 3 items are required to be considered.) 

Application Deadline:  December 20, 2009   Apply via email to contact@newperspectivestheatre.org with subject line: Women’s Work Application or by post to New Perspectives Theatre Company, 456 West 37th Street, New York, NY  10018.  A panel of NPT playwrights and directors will review the applications.  Finalists will be contacted for an interview on or about February 1, 2009 with new members notified shortly thereafter.  The first session of the new LAB will begin March 7, 2010.

NOTE:  NPT has a 17-year history of dedication to the development of writers-of-color and the Women’s Work Project is no exception.  We strongly encourage women from all backgrounds to apply.

MEET THE 2009-2010 WRITERS!

JUDY CHICUREL is a writer whose work has appeared in a number of national and regional publications, including The New York Times, Newsday, YM, and TakeCharge.  Her screenplays, The Endless Summer of Miss Ursula Groves and A Better Place, have been part of the Nuyorican Café’s Fifth Night Reading Series and won awards in various film festivals, including Best Dramatic Screenplay at the Brooklyn Film Festival.  Her play, Damon and Debra, was part of the New York Women in Film and Television reading series, and had a reading starring Lorraine Bracco and Jas Anderson at the Sage Theater in Manhattan’s Time Square. Judy has a master’s degree in Urban Education, and has taught all facets of writing in alternative high school settings, including a detention center for incarcerated young men.   As a member of the New York Writers Coalition, she has conducted writing workshops for teens in Coney Island and for cognitively disabled adults in central Brooklyn.  Her current projects include the stage play, Tales from Beautiful Pearl’s, which had a reading at the BOA Bar in January, 2008, a short story collection entitled, We Want Them to Love Us, which was a finalist in the Dzanc Books 2008 Short Story Collection Contest, and the novel, River Girls.  She belongs to the New York Writers Coalition, the New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts and The Drama League. Judy divides her time between Brooklyn and upstate New York.

JACQUELINE GOLDFINGER is a dramaturg and award-winning playwright from Tallahassee, Florida. She is the Literary Associate at Philadelphia Theatre Company and holds a M.F.A. from the University of Southern California.  She recently moved to Philadelphia from San Diego where she was the Artistic Assistant at La Jolla Playhouse for Tony Award-winning director Des McAnuff. Her plays have been developed and produced around the country and in Sydney, Australia. Her Southern Gothic play, The Oath was produced in New York this spring. Visit her online at:  www.jacquelinegoldfinger.com

NANDITA SHENOY is a playwright hailing from Buffalo, NY, and currently residing in New York City.  Her one-act play Marrying Nandini received a full production as part of the Green Light One-Act Festival in 2007 after a developmental reading through Salaam Theatre at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.  She is a member of the Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab and developed her full-length play LymePark: An Austonian Romance of an Indian Nature in conjunction with Ma-Yi Theatre’s LabFest 2008.  Nandita also participates in other theatrical endeavors as an actor and director.  She most recently directed a tour of Junie B. Jones for Theatreworks/USA and was last seen on stage in the John Engeman Theater’s production of Man of La Mancha.  She is on the Board of Directors for Rising Circle Theater Collective. Nandita holds a Bachelors Degree in English literature with a distinction in the major from YaleUniversity.

PIA N. WILSON received a 2009 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.  She is a member of the 2009 Project Footlight team of composers and librettists and a member of the 2008 inaugural Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater.  Her full-length drama, Tree of Life, received a 2007 workshop production at The Red Room Theater. The River Pure for Healing was part of the 2008 Resilience of the Spirit play festival.  Short plays and one-acts:  Dressed In Your Dreams (Stagecrafter's New Works Play Festival); Do You Proud (Eclectic Theater Company's "Got a Minute?" play festival); Whatever and Delicately (Groove Mama Ink; The Looking Glass Theatre's Spring 2008 Writer/Director Forum);  The Rooster Never Crows (OneHeart Productions). 

MEET OUR 2008-09 LAB MEMBERS!

GUEST DIRECTORS/DRAMATURGES

ELENA ARAOZ is an opera and theatre director and an actress. This season, Elena directed the Off-Broadway production and American premier of Carl Djerassi's Three on a Couch at the Soho Playhouse, Arthur Miller's The Price at Northern Stage in Vermont (LORT) and the premier production of Monika Bustamonte's rock musical Io: A Myth About You in Austin, Texas, which has received four nominations for the 2008 Austin Critics' Awards, including Best Production of a Musical. Recently, Elena directed the Off-Broadway production of Djerassi's Phallacy starring Lisa Harrow and Simon Jones; the new play The Power by Li Tong Chen in Beijing, China, the first English language play commercially produced in Beijing; Titus Androniucus for Austin Shakespeare Festival which won a B. Iden Payne Award; the semi-staged concerts of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte and Verdi's Falstaff, starring Sir Thomas Allen with Maestro Robert Spano, both for the Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM. Her adaptation and direction of Christopher Logue's poetic retelling of The Iliad, titled War Music has played for the 2005 First Works Providence Festival, the NY Institute for the Humanities, the Chicago Humanities Festival, as well as toured through New England. She has also been commissioned to write and direct adaptations of Goethe's Faust for the First Works Providence Festival and stories by Jorge Luis Borges titled Labyrinths/Laberintos for the Chekhov Theater Ensemble. She has staged readings for numerous companies such as the Pearl Theatre and, most recently, Don DeLillo's play The Word for Snow with Kathleen Chalfont for the NY Institute for the Humanities and CUNY. Elena serves as a regular Associate and Assistant Director to Sir Jonathan Miller, having worked on his Broadway production of King Lear starring Christopher Plummer and his operas at Seattle Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center and, upcoming, Portland Opera. She also just served on a panel titled "Tempest Tossed", discussing The Tempest along with playwright John Guare. Elena holds her MFA in Acting from the University of Texas at Austin and has perfomed for such companies as the Pearl Theatre, American Globe Theatre and New York Classical Theatre. www.elenaaraoz.com

ELYSA MARDEN directs in New York City, regionally, and internationally. Off-Broadway, she directed the world premieres Esoterica, written and performed by Eric Walton (DR2), and I Hear (Oigo). Other NYC credits include The Sugar Mile (92nd Street Y), The Forever Waltz, June Moon, Rattlesnake, Iphigenia, No Exit, Christopher Logue's The Husbands, Goethe's Persephone with A Phoenix Too Frequent, and The Cocktail Party. She has developed new plays with Liz Amberly, P. Seth Bauer, Mariana Carreno, Steven Fechter, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Henry Guzmán, Arlene Hutton, and Glyn Maxwell at such venues as New Dramatists, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, Verse Theatre Manhattan, Mabou Mines, Women’s Project, York Theatre Co, and the A-Train Plays. She was a member of the Women’s Project Directors Forum (2001-2003) and the coordinator for the Ford Foundation funded Women’s Project Artistic Leadership Program. Her undergraduate studies at Brown University focused on Anthropology, and she also holds a Certificate in Film from NYU/SCPS. She participated in the LaMaMa Third International Symposium for Directors, and served as Co-Artistic Director of the WorkShop Theater Company 2003-2006. Member, WorkShop and New Shoe Theater Companies. SSDC.

MELISSA MAXWELL's directing credits: productions at NYC’s landmark National Black Theatre, Theatre at the Riverside Church, New Perspectives Theatre Company, Sounding Theatre Company and the NY International Fringe Festival. She staged a presentation of The Octoroon for The Pearl Theatre Company, as well as several events for The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, including a presentation at the International Emmy Awards. A member of the Dramatist Guild, Melissa is an award-winning playwright whose scripts include: Salt In A Wound (Julie Harris Playwright Competition finalist), produced by Chicago’s eta Creative Arts Foundation (5 Black Theater Alliance Award nominations, including Best Play and Best Writer, “Production of the Year” nomination: African American Arts Alliance of Chicago); Unrequited Love, produced by New Perspectives Theatre Company (Audelco Award nomination, New Professional Theatre’s Our Words Award for excellence in playwriting); and the one-act, Fetus Envy (NYC Fringe Festival and Manhattan Theatre Source’s EstroGenius Festival.)  A graduate of Boston University (BFA, Theatre Performance), Melissa’s acting credits include: The Thomas Crown Affair, Never Again, Law & Order, The Sopranos, Third Watch, Oz, Special Victims Unit, As The World Turns, All My Children, numerous regional performances and countless TV commercials.

For more information contact New Perspectives Theatre Company at 212-630-9945; contact@newperspectivestheatre.org