Fall 2003 Inge House Playwrights
Arrive September 4thProfessional
playwrights from the east and west will leave their homes to reside
in Independence, Kansas, as the Fall 2003 William Inge Theatre
Festival playwrights-in-residence at Independence Community College.
The playwrights are
Anne Phelan, of New York City, and Elaine Romero, of
Tucson, Arizona. Their residency is from Sept. 4th
through November 7th.
The course is titled “Topics in Literature:
Playwriting” under the English department.
The writers will teach playwriting at
Independence Community College and also at Independence High School
as part of the Inge Festival’s Playwrights-in-the-Schools program.
Phelan and Romero will also have time to work on their own plays
while living in the historic
boyhood home of award-winning
writer and Independence native, William Inge.
The ICC playwriting courses are in the evening and
registration is open to the general public.
Phelan is a member of The Dramatists Guild in
New York. Her one-act play “Mushroom in Her Hands” was produced at
the Lincoln Center Directors Lab/American Living Series in
New York City in 2001. Also, as an Edward F. Albee
Foundation Fellow, Phelan’s “The New York Play” was workshopped at
The Juilliard School. The play, an adaptation of the Wakefield
Cycle plays based on Bible stories, is scheduled for the Jean
Cocteau Repertory Theatre Classic Reading Series.
Among her numerous honors are finalist in the
Roy W. Dean Screenwriting Grant; the Robert J. Pickering Award for
Playwriting Excellence; and the Writers’ Digest Competition.
Phelan graduated from Trinity Rep Conservatory
in Providence, Rhode Island, in
the acting, playwriting and directing program. She is
a graduate of Hampshire College, Amherst Mass., with a double major
in Theatre and Irish literature.
Since 1998, Romero has been a
Playwright-in-Residence at the Arizona Theatre Company as part of the
Theatre Communications Group/Pew National Theatre Artists in Residency
program. She has developed two new full-length works with ATC,
“Before Death Comes for the Archbishop” and “Secret Things.”
Her awards include the Lab Scholarship from the
National Association of Latino Independent Producers, the Arizona
Commission on the Arts Project Playwriting Grant, and the 2002 New
History play contest of the Sprenger-Lang Foundation of Washington,
D.C.
Romero holds an MFA in playwriting from the
University of California-Davis and
a BA in English and Creative Writing, from Linfield
College, Ore. She is an adjunct instructor in playwriting at the
University of Arizona.
Romero and Phelan are the third set of
professional playwrights to visit Independence through the Inge
Festival’s Playwright Residency program. The program is funded in
part by the Kansas Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the
Arts.
For more information on the playwriting course at
Independence Community College and the Inge House Playwrights in
Residence, call (620) 331-4100, ext. 4216, or (800) 842-6063, ext.
4216.
Spring 2003 Inge House
Playwrights Take Up Residence
The
William Inge Theatre Festival at Independence Community College has
named its two latest Playwrights-in-Residence, who will bring to
Independence an array of theatrical experience overseas as well as in
the United States.
The
playwrights are Melanie Marnich, of Minneapolis, and David Scott Hay,
of Chicago, who begin their residence at the Inge’s boyhood home at
the start of March. They will teach playwriting courses as well work
on their new projects while living in the historic home of
award-winning native Independence playwright William Inge.
The
playwrights will teach a class in playwriting at Independence
Community College, which is open to the public, and at Independence
High School, as part of the Festival’s Playwrights-in-the-Schools
program. The ICC playwriting classes begin March 4 and the high
school courses begin that week.
Plays
by Marnich have been seen at leading theaters in the U.S.A. and Great
Britain. Her comedy “Blur” was produced at major regional companies,
including the Dallas Theater Center and the Manhattan Theater Club.
In 2001, her work “Quake” was produced at the Humana Festival of New
Plays in Louisville, Kentucky, America’s most prestigious event for
the debut of new stage shows. The Royal Court Theater in London, one
of Britain’s most respected counterparts, produced the same play a
year earlier.
She
has won numerous awards, including two Jerome Fellowships, a McKnight
Advancement Grant, two Samuel Goldwyn awards, and an Ohio Arts Council
grant. Marnich earned her MFA in playwriting at the University of
California-San Diego. She writes and teaches in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, and is a member of the Playwright’s Center there.
Hay, a
native of Oklahoma City and a graduate of Oklahoma University’s
Writing Program, is a resident playwright at the Chicago Dramatists.
His play “Celeste” is the 2002 Illinois Arts Council Finalists Award
honoree and will be work shopped at the Raven Theatre this year. He is
also author of the award-wining play “Hard Scrambled,” the screenplay
of which was Creative Screenwriting Magazine’s New Visions Filmmaking
Fellowship selection. Hay will direct the film in Los Angeles later
this year.
Hay is
also the Literary Manager of Visions and Voices theater company of
Chicago and co-founder of the New Playwrights Theatre of San Antonio.
He resides now in Chicago with his wife, Ellen, a stage manager at the
Goodman Theatre. |
