Fall 2005 Inge Playwrights began teaching September 20, 2005

Alice Tuan of Los Angeles and Evan Smith of Savannah, GA

 

Two experienced dramatists will make their way from Georgia and Los Angeles to Independence, Kansas, as the Fall Inge House Playwrights-in-Residence at the William Inge Center for the Arts.

 

During their nine-week residency, the pair will have time to work on their new plays and teach at the “Professional Playwriting Certificate Program” at Independence Community College.  Smith and Tuan will also be instructors for the “Playwrights-in-the-Schools” program at Sedan High School.  It is one of the few such programs in the nation to serve rural schools.

 

Evan Smith's plays have been produced in New York by Playwrights Horizons, the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, the New Group, and the Home for Contemporary Theatre at HERE.  Beyond Manhattan, his plays have been at theaters as the Yale Cabaret and 1812 Productions, Philadelphia. He recently worked with Fox TV and a production company on an evening of one-act TV pilots. His plays are published by Grove Press, Dell Books, TCG, Smith & Kraus, the Dramatists Play Service, and Playscripts.com. Smith taught scriptwriting at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and was recently an outside mentor for the Yale Playwrights Festival. He attended Vassar College and the Yale Drama School.

 

Alice Tuan’s plays have been seen at Berkeley Repertory Theater, the East West Players, and theaters at Amherst, MA, New York City and the Melbourne Fringe Festival.   Some of her shorter plays have been at the prestigious Actors Theatre of Louisville, among others. Tuan is the recipient of emerging artist recognition for the year 2000 of the Robert E. Sherwood Award (through Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum) as well as The Colbert Award for Excellence (through New York’s Downtown Arts Project).   She is a graduate of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Brown University.

She has also taught playwriting to teenage wards at the California Youth Authority as well as high schools around Los Angeles and was recently the visiting professor of playwriting at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.

 

Both playwrights will have a developmental reading of a new play, featuring guest professional actors.  The readings are scheduled for Nov. 5.

 

The playwrights will reside in Independence in the historic William Inge family home and live in the same surroundings that inspired Inge to his Pulitzer and Oscar-winning work.

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Spring 2005 Inge Playwrights began teaching March 15, 2005
Brian Davidson of Los Angeles and Lisa Dillman of Chicago

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Fall 2004 Inge House Playwrights began teaching September 2004

Caridad Svich of Los Angeles and Adam Kraar of New York

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Spring 2004 Inge House Playwrights began teaching April 2004

Carson Becker of Chicago and Jeremy Kareken of New York

 

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Winter 2004 Inge House Playwrights began teaching Jan. 12

Richard Broadhurst of Sacramento and Rose Portillo of Los Angeles

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Fall 2003 Inge House Playwrights began teaching September 4th

Anne Phelan of New York and Elaine Romero of Tucson, Arizona

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Spring 2003 Playwrights were David Scott Hay of Chicago and

Melanie Marnich of Minneapolis. 

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Fall 2002 Playwrights began teaching in October

Marcia Cebulska of Topeka and Colin Denby Swanson of Texas

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Professional playwrights from the east and west will leave their homes to reside in Independence, Kansas, as the William Inge Center for the Arts playwrights-in-residence at Independence Community College. While in residence, the playwrights will teach a playwriting class at ICC. The course is titled “Topics in Literature: Playwriting” under the English department. The courses are in the evening and are open to the general public.

The writers will teach playwriting at Independence Community College and also at a local high school as part of the Inge Center's Playwrights-in-the-Schools program.  The playwrights will have time to work on their own plays while living in the historic boyhood home of award-winning writer and Independence native, William Inge.