Thursday, January 22, 2009

Portland Town Hall Meeting, Saturday January 31

Please see below the Press Release for Gary Garrison's visit and the upcoming Town Hall Meeting in Portland, January 31, 2009. David Faux will also give a "Author as CEO" lecture on intellectual property rights.

If you have any questions regarding the area or the event, please contact the new co-reps, Andrea Stolowitz (astolowi@yahoo.com) and Steve Patterson (splatterson@mindspring.com)

I hope some of you might be able to make the drive down there and show support!

Cheers,
Dennis

PRESS RELEASE :

Representatives from the Dramatists Guild of America, including Gary Garrison, Executive Director of Creative Affairs for the Guild, will visit Portland on January 31, 2009, to hold a Dramatists Guild Town Hall Meeting for Oregon's Guild members and other interested playwrights, followed by a Portland Theatre Town Hall Meeting,
inviting Portland's theatre community to discuss development of new plays. Both events are free and open to the public.

Mr. Garrison's visit emphasizes Portland's growing reputation as an incubator of new work and coincides with Portland's innovative, inaugural Fertile Ground City-Wide New Works Festival, which was recently profiled in American Theatre Magazine and the Dramatists Guild's The Dramatist Magazine.

The Dramatists Guild Town Hall Meeting will begin at 1:00 PM, featuring with an information session that will detail an overview of the Dramatists Guild, discuss plans for its future, and then an open Q & A for Guild members. In addition to Gary Garrison, speakers will include David Faux, (Guild Director of Business Affairs), Roland Tec (Guild Director of Membership), and Steve Patterson and Andrea
>Stolowitz, Portland's Regional Guild Representatives. From 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM, David Faux will present "The Author as a CEO": a short lecture, which will review the main points of dealing with a playwright's portfolio of works as intellectual property assets.

After a half-hour break, the afternoon will resume from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM with a Portland Theatre Town Hall Meeting. Moderated by Mead Hunter, Portland Center Stage's Director of Literary Programs, the Town Hall will feature a panel discussion with Mr. Garrison, Lui Douthit of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Michael Rohd of Sojourn Theatre, discussing trends in local and national theatre, playwriting, and dramaturgy. The meeting will then open up as a brainstorming session for the panel, Portland theatre leaders, and the audience to address how to foster development and production of new plays in Portland and Oregon.

The Dramatists Guild Town Hall and Portland Theatre Town Hall will both be held at Portland Center Stage's Ellen Bye Studio Theatre, 128 NW Eleventh Avenue, Portland, Oregon.

For more information on both events, please contact the Dramatists
Guild's new Portland co-representatives: Andrea Stolowitz (astolowi@yahoo.com) and Steve Patterson (splatterson@mindspring.com) >[or contact Steve Patterson at 503-312-6665].

Space Available in DG Member Elizabeth Heffron's Playwriting Class

There's a few spots left in PLAYWRITING II, which begins next Tuesday,
Jan. 27th and runs for 8 exciting weeks, at Freehold!

In this class, we explore elements of playwriting by studying a
variety of theatrical genres. This year's class will feature:

The absurdist/comedic tendencies in
Bertolt Brecht's THE WEDDING

The poetic realism of
Sarah Ruhl's EURYDICE

The well-made-play structure of
Tracy Lett's AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

Aspects of docudrama and solo performance in
Anna Deveare Smith's TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES

During the course, we will work from writing prompts that spring from
our exploration of these plays.

RESULTS OF THE CLASS:
By the end of the quarter, you will have written numerous short scenes
in a variety of genres, and will have worked to complete two original
one-acts that are wildly different from one another..

So wipe the snow from your parka, grab your pen and paper, and get
down to Belltown, quick!

For enrollment information, see www.freeholdtheatre.org, or email
Jenny at info@freeholdtheatre.org.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Theater Begins with the Playwright

"Theater begins here"
Motto of The Playwrights Center


This article, written by Polly Carl who heads up The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, is possibly one of the best articles I've read about how the way new plays are selected is "seriously flawed".

My favorite quote is:

"If we start with the idea that playwrights and artists are what drive the theater--that they are indeed our greatest asset--and work backwards from there, it's amazing to think how this will immediately alter our practices."


I wish every Playwright, Literary Director and Artistic Director in the country could read it.

No, screw that.

I wish every actor, director, stage manager, costume designer, scenic designer, lighting designer, box office manager, board member, donor, congressman, patron and maybe even the plumbers should read it.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The 20th Century, Friday & Saturday @ 8 pm

JANUARY 9 & 10 @ 8:00pm
the
NORTHWEST PLAYWRIGHTS ALLIANCE
presents

THE 20th CENTURY
by
11 original theatrical vignettes by Northwest playwrights:
Scot Augustson, Lenore Bensinger, Nadine Caracciolo, Lee
Strucker, Steven Deitz, Ki Gottberg, Thomas J. Fields-Meyer,
Rick Rankin, Bryan Willis, Y York, Bill Downs, Dan Erickson.
(originally conceived and curated by Dan Fields)

SHOEBOX PERFORMANCE SPACE
1404 18th Avenue
Seattle 98122

TIKS: $15.
thru ww.brownpapertickets.com

or cash at the door

Info. call 425 - 417 - 1964

Short plays by 12 piquant Northwest playwrights that capture the events,
issues, and personalities of the most bizarre, dense, evolved, and involved
century in the history of the world.

The two performances at the Shoebox Performance Space commence the
NW Playwrights Alliance 20th CENTURY production tour that will take the
company to New York City and the United Kingdom later this spring.

Directed by Amalia Larson
Stage Manager - Kati Dawson

featuring
Alex Hodgins
Ashley Johnson
Evan Kubena
James Tweedale
Sarah Waisman
Jessica Young

NORTHWEST PLAYWRIGHTS ALLIANCE provides a home for regional writers to
test their work via our free monthly reading series at Seattle Rep, an anthology of
short plays, international tours, over-night festivals, professional workshops,
and festivals of fully produced plays