(Pictured Left to right:  LPTW Board Member/LPTW Networking Committee Co-Chair/Actress/Playwright Richarda Abrams, Playwright Fengar Gael, Playwright Lee Hunkins, LPTW Co-President/Dramaturg/Playwright/Moderator Maxine Kern, Playwright Caridad Svich, Playwright Kara Lee Corthron, Playwright/Performer Dael Orlandersmith, Playwright Jenny Lyn Bader, LPTW Board Member/LPTW Networking Committee Co-Chair/Actress/Playwright Romy Nordlinger)

(Richarda Abrams, Fengar Gael, Lee Hunkins, Maxine Kern, Caridad Svich, Dael Orlandersmith, Jenny Lyn Bader, Romy Nordlinger)

 

(Dael Orlandersmith, Audience Member)

(Richarda Abrams, Lizzy Bryce, Romy Nordlinger, June Rachelson-Ospa)

 

(Richarda Abrams, Melanie Sutherland, Cheryl King)

 

(Fengar Gael, Maxine Kern, Lee Hunkins, Dael Orlandersmith)

 

(View from audience and panelists Jenny Lyn Bader, Kara Lee Corthron, Fengar Gael, Moderator Maxine Kern, Lee Hunkins Dael Orlandersmith, Caridad Svich)

 

(Penny Jackson (in audience), Fengar Gael, Kara Lee Corthron, Jenny Lyn Bader)

 

(Lee Hunkins,  Dael Orlandersmith, Caridad Svich)

 

(Amongst audience Karen Eterovich)

League of Professional Theatre Women, Quarterly Networking Mondays: 

“Roundtable Discussion: Writing Plays By, For, or About Women”

Panelists:

Jenny Lyn Bader

Kara Lee Corthron

Fengar Gael

Lee Hunkins

Dael Orlandersmith

Caridad Svich

Tracey Scott Wilson

Moderator: Maxine Kern, LPTW Co-President

* * *

Event Was Held Monday, March 23, 2015, 6:00-8:00PM at:

TheaterLab

357 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor

(Between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue)

New York, NY 10018

Brought to you by your LPTW Networking Committee:

Richarda Abrams and Romy Nordlinger, Co-Chairs

COMMITTEE MEMBERS: IVY AUSTIN, ROSEMARY CAMAS, KATHERINE ELLIOT, LORNA LABLE, DOROTHY LEEDS, FRANCES MCGARRY, MARY MCGINLEY, WENDY PEACE, JUNE RACHELSON-OSPA, AMIE SPONZA . WITH ASSISTANCE FROM LPTW ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR: LIZZY BRYCE AND LPTW APPRENTICE: DANIELLE BURBY

* * *

Panelists and Moderator Bios:

Jenny Lyn Bader

Plays include None of the Above (New Georges), Manhattan Casanova (Hudson Stage), winner of the Edith Oliver Award (O’Neill Center); and Mona Lisa Speaks (Core Ensemble). One-acts include Miss America (NY Int’l Fringe Festival, “Best of Fringe” selection) and Worldness (Humana Festival). Ten of her one-acts are published in Smith & Kraus’ Best 10-Minute Play series. She co-founded Theatre 167, where she co-authored The Jackson Heights Trilogy, I Like to Be Here (New Ohio Theatre), and The Church of Why Not; and wrote History of Communication for Queens Theatre’s World’s Fair Play Festival (NY Times Critics’ Pick). She co-authored How We Are Connected (Museo Del Barrio; Brooklyn Museum) and has been the featured playwright in NYMadness (Cherry Lane) and a Lark Playwriting Fellow. A Harvard graduate, she is a member of the Dramatists Guild and LPTW. Her verse play In Flight will premiere at Turn to Flesh Productions in May. http://www.jennylynbader.com/

Kara Lee Corthron

Kara Lee Corthron’s plays include JULIUS BY DESIGN (Fulcrum), ETCHED IN SKIN ON A SUNLIT NIGHT (InterAct), ALICEGRACEANON (New Georges), HOLLY DOWN IN HEAVEN (Forum Theatre, DC), LISTEN FOR THE LIGHT, and WELCOME TO FEAR CITY. She’s the 2014-2015 Naked Angels Issues Project Resident Playwright. Awards include the Boomerang Fund for Artists Grant, 2012-2014 Women’s Project Lab Time Warner Fellowship, Vineyard’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, Princess Grace Award, Helen Merrill Award, three MacDowell fellowships, residencies at Skriðuklaustur (Iceland), Djerassi, Hawthornden (Scotland), and the Millay Colony. Development: Ars Nova, Berkeley Rep, CenterStage (Baltimore), E.S.T., Haulbowline Theatre Group (Ireland), New Dramatists, New Georges, Orchard Project, P73, PlayPenn, Seven Devils (Guest Artist, 2012), South Coast Rep, the Vineyard, and the Women’s Project. TV: KINGS (NBC-Universal, 2008-2009).  Kara is also the author of the young adult novel, THE DISTANCE FROM ME TO YOU, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster/Aladdin, 2016. Juilliard alumna. http://www.karaleecorthron.com/

Fengar Gael

Fengar Gael has had workshops and/or productions at the Sundance Theatre Lab, New York Stage and Film, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the InterAct Theatre of Philadelphia, New Jersey Repertory, the Salt Lake Acting Company, the Moxie Theatre of San Diego, The Kitchen Dog Theatre of Dallas, The Seanachai Theatre of Chicago, and in New York: Urban Stages, the Resonance Ensemble, CAP 21 and MultiStages. She is a recipient of the Craig Noel Award, the Playwrights First Award, and commissions from South Coast Repertory, the National New Play Network, and a fellowship from the California Arts Council. Most recently, The Gallerist was performed at the Rorschach Theatre; Gift of Forgotten Tongues at the Venus Theatre; The Island of No Tomorrows by MultiStages in New York; Devil Dog Six at the Landing Theatre of Houston and The Last Lot was given a reading at the Manhattan Theatre Works Newborn Festival.  Fengar is a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women and the Playwrights Circle, The Dramatists Guild, and Playwrights Gallery. http://fengar.com/

Lee Hunkins

Stage works include: Freedom Is My Middle Name, Cinnamon & Nutmeg, The Best of Strangers, The Keeper, Anybody I want To Be, Just One Step, Revival, The Dolls, Sequestered, and 26501. The works have been produced in New York, Canada and San Francisco.  Television credits include: For the PBS Reading Rainbow Series: The Sign Painter’s Dream, Uncle Jed’s Barbershop, and Always My Dad. Teleplay titled, Hollow Image was an ABC production and later repeated on the Showtime Channel. Awards and Fellowships are as follows: 2 Emmy nominations for Outstanding Writing in a Children’s Series, The Theodore Ward Prize in Playwriting, a recipient of a New York Foundation For The Arts Fellowship, nominated by the New York Women In Film & Television for the New York Women’s Agenda 2013 “Galaxy Award”.  The teleplay, Hollow Image was selected for the National Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, CT. and in connection with the conference; the teleplay won the ABC Theatre Award. Published works: The Best of Strangers-Facing Forward Anthology-Broadway Play Publishing, Freedom Is My Middle Name-Dramatic Play Publishing Co. Anybody I Want To Be and Just One Step-published by Plays For Living, Revival in Center Stage Anthology-Sea Urchin Press. Member of The Writer’s Guild of America, East, The Dramatists Guild, The League of Professional Theater Women, New York Women In Film & Television, and New York Women’s Agenda. Lee was a guest speaker at John Jay College of Criminal Justice & Special Education Schools – New York City.

Dael Orlandersmith

PLAYWRIGHT/PERFORMER

Major work

• 2015 May 4 will start Performances of FOREVER@nytw

• 2014 dec-Feb 2 2015 Performed FOREVER@ longwharf theatre

• 2014 sept- October acted in FOREVER @the kirk Douglas theatre

• 2013/2014; FOREVER; Commission from the Mark taper forum currently working on. FOREVER is slated to be done at Portland Center Stage and New York theatre workshop 2015/16

• 2012 Black n Blue boys/ Broken men ( co production Berkley Repertory theater and Goodman theatre)

• 2011 HORSEDREAMS( Opening at Rattlestick theatre 2011)

• 2010; Bones ( opening at Mark Taper forum/Kirk Douglas theatre

• 2010Stoop stories ( opening at Mark taper /Kirk Douglas theatre

• 2009: Character (memoir-in-process)

• 2009: Suicide Girlz (commissioned by The Atlantic Theatre for 2009/10)

• 2008: 2008: Stoop Stories (work-in-progress, The Public Theater)

• 2007: Bones ( a new commission completed for the Mark Taper Forum)

• The Blue Album (a new work in collaboration with David Cale at Long Wharf)

• 2002: wrote and appeared in Yellowman (commissioned in 2000 by and premiered at the McCarter and later, in 2002, at the Manhattan Theatre Club; published by Vintage Books and Dramatists Play Service as part of a collection of earlier work)

• 1997: The Gimmick (commissioned by the McCarter Theatre, premiered on their Second Stage on Stage and went on to great acclaim at the Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop)

• 1996: Beauty’s Daughter

• 1996: Monster (premiered at New York Theater Workshop)

• Early 90s: toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Café (Real Live Poetry) throughout the US, Europe and Australia

Awards and Fellowships

• 2008: Whiting Award

• 2006: Lucille Lortel Playwrights Fellowship

• 2005 Pen/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a playwright in mid-career

• 2003: Guggenheim Award

• 2002: Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for Yellowman; Pulitzer Prize Award finalist and Drama Desk Award Nominee

• 2001: Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award

• 1998, 1999, 2001 (summers): attended Sundance Theatre Festival Lab

• 1997: Susan Smith Blackburn Award Finalist for The Gimmick

• 1997: NYFA Grant

• 1996: Obie Award for writing and starring in Beauty’s Daughter

Teaching

• Teach writing and acting for solo and non-solo work as a freelancer

• Sarah Lawrence College, Writing for Solo Performance (2008-2013/14)

• Playwrights Foundation In San Francisco ( playwriting summer 2013)

• Berkeley Children’s theatre School (playwriting summer 2013)

• Berkeley Children’s theatre school (playwriting summer 2012)

• HB Studio writing for Solo Performance ( 2008-2012/2013)

• Princeton University (artist in residence, 2009), Writing for Solo Performance

• Yale University (2008), Introduction to Play Writing (with Adam Rapp)

• Voice and Vision Theater (2007), Writing for Solo Performance

Caridad Svich

Caridad Svich received the 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement, the 2013 National Latino Playwriting Award, and the 2011 Primus Prize from the American Theatre Critics Association, and she has been short-listed for the PEN USA West Award in Drama four times. 2009 received LPTW’s Lee Reynolds Award.  Among her key plays are 12 OPHELIAS, IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS…, and THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS (based on the Isabel Allende novel). She is alumna of New Dramatists, founder of No Passport Theatre Alliance & Press, and associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review for Routledge UK. She has edited several books on theatre and performance. Her work is published by TCG, Smith & Kraus, Seagull Books, Eyecorner Press, Manchester University Press and more.  Caridad is an affiliated artist and/or member artist with New Georges, Lark Play Development Center and Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Visit her at http://www.caridadsvich.com/  and http://www.nopassport.org/

Tracey Scott Wilson

Maxine Kern

Current Co-President LPTW, Dramaturg, Playwright

Most recent dramaturgy includes Dying to Love Picasso by Terry D’Olfonso, Final Analysis by Ortho Eskins, As It Is In Heaven by Arlene Hutton, Savannah Black and Blue by Raymond Jones, The Book of Lambert by Leslie Lee, For the Time Being by W.H.Auden. She is working on a play about the social activist Emma Goldman. She has been a Symposium Speaker for The Seventeenth Annual Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre, in Cairo Egypt, and dramaturg for The Heart of Prague at the Prague Quadrennial 2003, Czech Republic. As part of the Artistic staff of several theaters: she was the Artistic Director for Company One Theater, a literary manager for a number of theatre companies, and Producing Associate for the McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ. She has served on the boards of LMDA, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, The Judith Shakespeare Theatre Company and The League of Professional Theatre Women where she is presently Co-President. She has been a lecturer and a part time faculty member at SUNY Stonybrook and, most recently, a lecturer at Columbia University in the Narrative Medicine Program.