Our CAA classes are an opportunity for students at all levels of experience to bring their imaginations to life, while practicing basic performance and writing skills. Students will work collaboratively with their peers, creating characters and telling stories while building the confidence needed to enjoy creative freedom.
Our classes are taught by trained professional theatre educators who have years of experience as working actors, writers and directors. Since new skills are presented each session, the classes are designed to be taken multiple times. At the end of each kids and teen session, there is a "sharing" of class work for family and friends.
Classes for Pre-K & K (ages 4 & 5)
Creative Play
Fun drama exercises, storytelling and other activities use body, voice and imagination to develop students' creative expression. Build self-esteem and communication skills.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-11:30am, Tuition $225 per session
Session A (June 25 - July 6) - Registration deadline June 18
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session D (August 6 - August 17) - Registration deadline July 30
Click here to register
Classes for Grades 1-3 
Playmakers
Theatre games, pantomime and improvisation provide exciting means for learning basic performance skills in movement, voice and imagination. An engaging and nurturing environment for children to create and express themselves.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-12:30pm, Tuition $275 per session ($250 for returning students)
Session A (June 25 - July 6) - Registration deadline June 18
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Session D (August 6 - August 17) - Registration deadline July 30
Session E (August 20 - August 31) - Registration deadline August 13
Click here to register
Classes for Grades 4-6
Acting Lab
Act, play and create in a supportive, process-oriented class with an emphasis on play building skills through improvisation, theatre exercises and group collaboration.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-12:30pm, Tuition $275 per session ($250 for returning students)
Session A (June 25 - July 6) - Registration deadline June 18
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Session D (August 6 - August 17) - Registration deadline July 30
Session E (August 20 - August 31) - Registration deadline August 13
Click here to register
Musical Performance (Grades 4-5/Grades 6-8)
Build skills in using the "actor's instruments" in an energized and encouraging environment. While exploring sound and movement through singing, dancing and acting, students learn about breathing, rhythm, projection and timing. Students create their own short musical for presentation to parents and friends on the last day of class.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-12:30pm, Tuition $275 per session ($250 for returning students)
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Session D (August 6 - August 17) - Registration deadline July 30
Session E (August 20 - August 31) - Registration deadline August 13
Click here to register
Full Day Theatre Academy (Grades 4-6)
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-4:30pm
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Students work with a team of artists and alternate daily through classes in acting, musical performance, playwriting and play production. 
This summer, Playwrights Theatre is offering an Early Enrollment rate plan for the Full Day Camp classes in the Summer Theatre Camp. These special rates can be secured by enrolling students in a Full Day Camp session prior to the dates listed below. No other discounts apply.
Tuition $525 • When Enrolled BEFORE Jan 31 • With a deposit of $262.50
Tuition $550 • When Enrolled BEFORE Feb 28 • With a deposit of $275.00
Tuition $575 • When Enrolled BEFORE Mar 31 • With a deposit of $287.50
After March 31, Full Day Camp registration will return to the regular fee of $595.00 (a deposit of $297.50 is required at the time of enrollment). A deposit in the amount of ½ of the tuition due is required at time of registration. The remaining balance must be paid no later than May 30.
All Full Day Camp enrollments, whether made during the reduced enrollment period, or after, include a $100.00 non-refundable enrollment fee that will not be refunded unless Playwrights Theatre initiates a class cancellation of the session in which the student is enrolled.
To secure this reduced rate, enrollments must be made by phone ONLY. Please contact the Education Office at 973-514-1787, ext. 21. Leave a message if no one is available to take your call. Your call will be returned promptly.
Classes for Grades 7-9
Acting Workshop
Through exercises in voice, movement, and improvisation, students familiarize themselves with the fundamentals of acting. This class leads to further study in monologue and scene work.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-12:30pm, Tuition $275 per session ($250 for returning students)
Session A (June 25 - July 6) - Registration deadline
June 18 Session E (August 20 - August 31) - Registration deadline August 13
Click here to register
Full Day Theatre Academy (Grades 7-9)
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-4:30pm
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Students work with a team of artists and alternate daily through classes in acting, musical performance, playwriting and play production.
This summer, Playwrights Theatre is offering an Early Enrollment rate plan for the Full Day Camp classes in the Summer Theatre Camp. These special rates can be secured by enrolling students in a Full Day Camp session prior to the dates listed below. No other discounts apply.
Tuition $525 • When Enrolled BEFORE Jan 31 • With a deposit of $262.50
Tuition $550 • When Enrolled BEFORE Feb 28 • With a deposit of $275.00
Tuition $575 • When Enrolled BEFORE Mar 31 • With a deposit of $287.50
After March 31, Full Day Camp registration will return to the regular fee of $595.00 (a deposit of $297.50 is required at the time of enrollment). A deposit in the amount of ½ of the tuition due is required at time of registration. The remaining balance must be paid no later than May 30.
All Full Day Camp enrollments, whether made during the reduced enrollment period, or after, include a $100.00 non-refundable enrollment fee that will not be refunded unless Playwrights Theatre initiates a class cancellation of the session in which the student is enrolled.
To secure this reduced rate, enrollments must be made by phone ONLY. Please contact the Education Office at 973-514-1787, ext. 21. Leave a message if no one is available to take your call. Your call will be returned promptly.
Get Ready To Audition - High School 
Auditioning for high school, college or community theatre? This is the class for you. Call the education department to schedule your dates and times 973-514-1787 X21.
Whether you’re auditioning for college theatre programs, professional theatres, high school or community theatre productions, good audition skills are a must, and practice with good guidance is the only way to get there. This four-session intensive will improve your ability to select and present monologues and songs that will show you off at your best. The final class will consist of a simulated audition and subsequent critique session.
Playwriting Workshop for Adults
Winter Class
January 9 - March 12
Mondays, 7:00pm-10:00pm
Tuition $275 ($250 for returning students) • Pro-rate options are available for late starts for this class only.
Spring Class
March 19 - May 21
Mondays, 7:00pm-10:00pm
Tuition $275 ($250 for returning students) • Pro-rate options are available for late starts for this class only
Summer Classes
June 11 - August 13
Mondays, 7:00pm-10:00pm
Tuition $275 ($250 for returning students) • Pro-rate options are available for late starts for this class only.
Click here to register for any of the Adult Playwriting Classes
Our final reading of the FORUM series for 2011 is SOVEREIGN BODY by Emilie Beck. This reading will be held on Sunday, December 18, 7:00pm, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Emilie Beck’s play, Sovereign Body, was a finalist for National New Play Network’s Smith Prize and Ashland New Plays Festival, and was seen in Road Theatre’s Summer Playwrights Festival. Number of People was in Playwrights Theatre’s 2010 Forum Series, with Len Cariou, having been previously developed at Pasadena Playhouse and Hartford Stage with Edward Asner. It received its world premiere at the Piven Theatre. As a director, Emilie directed the Jeff-Award winning production of Because They Have No Words in Chicago and LA, and won LA Weekly awards for Best Director and Production for Block Nine at the Elephant Theatre.
1. What inspired you to write Sovereign Body?
My aunt has been living with advanced Parkinson's Disease for about 30 years. She started getting symptoms when her second child was just a baby. The feelings and responses it brought up within our family were surprising and varied. For myself, I found that I was so angry on her behalf, with no one to whom I could direct that anger. I'd been wanting to write about it for a long time, but I knew I needed a portal that took me to a more layered place than writing about a woman who gets sick. I started to read literature that had been written by Parkinson's patients, and, to a person, they all wrote about the feeling of being invaded. They would use some form of that word, "invaded" or "invasion." And it got me thinking on a larger level about what that means and how that feels in all its nuances. And, of course, during this time, we Americans have been invaders. We have attacked people, their homes, their families, and we have done it in a way that's politically justified by our government. And people, nations, clans have done it throughout history. I became fascinated by the way we feel in control of our bodies (this is a recurring theme for me) , and by extension, our homes, our countries, and resentful of any "foreign invader." So Sovereign Body became a political play to me, even though on the surface it's about a woman and her family and an illness.
2. You are also a director, do you prefer one over the other?
I enjoy both writing and directing. I think they speak to the different sides of my personality. As a director, I love the collaboration involved. I love the process of discovery, and the interdependence of all the artists working to bring dimension to a script. It's an exciting journey, and I get a lot of fulfillment in seeing what the designers and the actors are able to mine, and then figuring out how all of it lives in one cohesive vision. It piques the social, gregarious side of me. On the other side, I love the process of squirreling myself away with a million books, researching, soaking up ideas, and then allowing those to play out in characters and a story that speak from within me. I am not a fast writer. Or rather, I start out of the gate with speed, and as I go along I realize how much I don't yet know, and the journey becomes sort-of like going through a maze, where you actually want to hit the dead-ends because you learn so much from going there. You want to explore the whole maze, even though 9 out of 10 of those paths take you in the wrong direction. It's only by going there that I find the story I actually want to tell. So it's solitary and slow, and allows me to feed the side of myself that craves isolation. I find that balancing the work of a director with that of a writer is actually healthier for me than leaning more one way or another. It gives me sort-of a heavy pendulum experience, where I can take a break from the challenges of one approach by diving into the complete opposite.
3. What was your first job? Did you learn any valuable lessons from it?
My first job of any substance was as a waitress in a local diner when I was 15. I had been a pretty shy kid, pretty down on myself most of the time. There was something romantic about being a waitress to me at that point. (I've now had enough experience with it that I don't remember why I ever felt that way.) And it was hard at first. I had a lot of trouble balancing my time and remembering what dressing someone asked for. But I would work the counter, and these characters would come in from a nearby halfway house, and I remember one guy in particular who you couldn't understand; there was no way to decipher his speech. At first he was really annoyed with me that I didn't know his order, and we had to go back and forth until I finally figured it out. But then I realized he came in every week at the same time, and I would have his order ready for him. We couldn't speak, but we could communicate, and I got that you could effectively change a relationship based on how much effort you were willing to put in. It took me a long time to take that lesson out of the restaurant, but it's something that I carry with me. That not all people are good communicators, and sometimes you just need to show some good faith to let them know that you'll listen until you get it.
4. Who was your childhood hero and why?
I could answer with Maria Tallchief, or Gene Kelly, and both of those would be true. But my constant hero -- someone I still admire -- is and was my next-door neighbor growing up: Liz Wittner. She's two years older than I am, so I think I was alternately a friend and a pest in her eyes, at least before we were adults. But to me she was the nicest, smartest, most beautiful person I knew. I wanted to be just like her. She had a way of making everyone around her feel comfortable. She was funny and warm and empathic. If a little bit of her has rubbed off on me in any way, I'm pretty happy about that. I know that I'm not nearly as nice as she is, and despite my best efforts I seem to have a much more threatening presence, but every once in a while my husband will say to me, "You sound just like Liz," and I'll feel really proud. She's still my dearest friend, and one of the best people I know.
5. What movie always makes you laugh out loud?
Sleeper. I actually haven't seen it in ages, but I have a really wonderful memory of my little brother and I, late one night, having dragged a tiny little black-and-white TV into his room, sitting with our pillows on our laps so that we could smother our laughs and not wake our parents up while we watched it. I'm also a big fan of Buster Keaton, and I think Woody Allen's work in Sleeper was reminiscent of Keaton's work. These days my laughs come mostly from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Eddie Izzard and Louis CK can also make me gasp for air.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see SOVEREIGN BODY at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
Our next to last reading of the 2011 FORUM series is TILL DEATH DO US PARTLY by Frank Deford. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Frank Deford is author of seventeen books, ten of them novels, two filmed screenplays, hundreds of magazine articles. NPR commentator, Wednesdays on Morning Edition; senior correspondent on HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. Winner: Peabody Award, National Magazine Award, Emmy; member of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Former chairman, now chairman emeritus: Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. As they say in sports: out of Westport, Connecticut. Lovely wife: Carol. Two children: Christian and Scarlet. One grandchild: Annabel. Writes: right-handed. 6'4", 180. Huguenot-American.
1. What inspired you to write Till Death Do Us Partly?
I suspect "inspired" is too high-falutin' a word for what prompted me to write Till Death Do Us Partly. Without giving the ending away, let me just say that I read how somebody did something for posterity like what my hero pulls off in secret. Besides, I'm a romantic, and I love love stories and good old-fashioned drawing-room comedies (although I guess, with concessions to the modern: a "family-room" comedy).
2. You say you write right-handed. Do you also only type with your right?
No, I use both hands to type, but I probably use my right index finger for about three-quarters of the board (over to the "r" on the top row) and the left index finger the rest (including a;; those e's and s's). Unfortunately, I have terrible hand-eye coordination and almost no left-hand dexterity (or I would've been a much better basketball player as a kid).
3. In addition to being a playwright, you are also a book author, a screenwriter and a magazine article writer. Do you have the same process for each? If not, how does your process differ?
Process: pretty much the same for whatever I'm working on. Fiction, be it novel, movie, play, requires a more dedicated time. Because you need to get so immersed in the characters and the story you're creating, you can't just lay down fiction and pick it up again a few days later the way you can non-fiction. You have to stay in the story. When I'm writing a commentary for NPR or a script for HBO that I'll be speaking myself, then I'm more conscious of writing for the ear than the eye. Then I write as I talk –– which is very much how I write fictional dialogue, but, of course, then it will be someone else saying my words. Still, I don't just write out dialogue, but read it out loud to myself to hear how it sounds.
4. Who is your favorite sports team?
I grew up in Baltimore, so, hard as it is, I still stick with my Orioles. In Till Death To Us Partly, the two brothers want to own a small racing stable together. I wish I had the money for that. I did have a thoroughbred named after he once, but Frank Deford, the horse, was a loser.
5. What would people be surprised to know about you?
I don't play golf.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see TILL DEATH DO US PARTLY at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 21st reading in our FORUM series is A HUMAN EQUATION by Peter Bonilla. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Peter Bonilla was literary manager of Philadelphia's InterAct Theatre Company from 2005 to 2008. Originally from Washington, D.C., Peter received his undergraduate degrees in theater arts and economics from the University of Pennsylvania. For A Human Equation, his first play, Peter received a 2008 playwriting fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. A Human Equation was developed at PlayPenn in 2008, with Academy Award-nominated actor David Strathairn reading the role of Kenneth Feinberg. A Human Equation was also a finalist for the National New Play Network's Smith Prize, and received its world premiere in September 2011 in an acclaimed production by the Winding Road Theatre Ensemble (Tucson, AZ).
1. What inspired you to write A HUMAN EQUATION?
September 11 happened on my third or fourth day of college, and very soon after I worked on a college production of the first part of Angels in America, which was my first taste of theatre's potential to be a mirror of society at a particular moment in time. So for years after September 11 I would casually wonder about how the playwriting community would respond to the tragedy, but it never really did. I think this is for a number or reasons. Firstly, I think that things in America just moved exceptionally quickly after 9/11, and from having worked as a literary manager, I can attest to the fact that playwrights became far more interested in the post 9/11 American experience, writing plays about Homeland Security, the War on Terror, and especially about the Iraq war. We largely skipped September 11, though not out of any ill-intent; I think it was a confounding topic from a playwriting perspective, how to get something that could get at the scale of the tragedy without being cliched and obvious, and telling a story people already think they know.
The story of the September 11 compensation fund, when I learned about it, seemed to provide the perfect window into America's 9/11 experience, with the experiences of thousands filtered through the lens of one person having to try and make some sense of it all. Better, it was something that I think most Americans were only minimally aware of, and I know I wasn't aware of it at all, so it had the potential to be a genuine learning experience. I remember exactly when I had the idea for it--it was September 11, 2005, when I caught a retrospective of the fund and of Kenneth Feinberg's experience as special master on 60 Minutes. This was incredibly naive to think at the time, given that I had never written a play, but it never occurred to me that anyone else would write it.
2. This is your first play. Do you plan to write more?
I am in the very beginning stages of conceptualizing a new play, which I think is my favorite part. The working idea is that the next play I want to write will be on one level about the political and economic forces involved in getting a history textbook approved by a state school board, but on a deeper level about the politicization of history and the enormous (and largely unseen) struggle just to decide how it should be presented, and how we compromise our standards in the process. I have ideas for a couple of others, but this is what's on my mind now. We'll see if I'm actually able to articulate all the thoughts on it that in my head seem so promising.
3. You have undergraduate degrees in theatre arts and economics, does this make you both right and left brained?
Maybe it does, though I guess you'd be better off asking someone who has known me a long time. In high school I was more oriented in the classroom towards math and science-related subjects. I started doing theater at my parents' suggestion, because I was pretty shy and very introverted then (I'm marginally less shy now, and every bit as introverted still) and it seemed like a good way to meet people. It took, and I ended up doing theater through college. Economics I added later because I missed exercising my quantitative side and wanted to push myself a little harder.
When it comes to a fundamentally creative activity like playwriting, I'm not sure from only having written one play which side of my brain is the driving force. I sketch out everything longhand on notepads because I've found that to be more organic and conducive to bursts of creativity and general free-association (that blinking cursor on the screen is just the loneliest thing on Earth), but I also know that to a great extent with A Human Equation I had to be very analytic (especially later in the process) when writing it, because it has so many small parts and short scenes and each of them has to work just right with all of the others. At many times it certainly didn't feel like a very creative process; it was a lot more like problem-solving, and seeing how changing certain variables affected the whole piece.
4. What is your favorite website?
The Onion, whose satire I think has more content than almost any other news site there is. The quality of much print journalism and nearly all television news not produced by the BBC is so appalling, dishonest, and content-free that I don't generally make much time for it, though somehow through osmosis I manage to stay decently informed. There are some good sites I do read regularly (Slate, The Atlantic, The Economist, and Reason, namely) but no question The Onion tops my list; it simultaneously captures the zeitgeist and is great escapism.
5. If you could tour with any band, who would that be?
I became a huge fan of the band Boston when I was younger, and saw them perform live in 2003. I'd have to say them. I would love to be on the keyboards for one of their epic organ solos. This would require me to learn to acquire some musical talent, though. Otherwise I'd do some relatively low-skills backup work for the alt-country/folk singer Neko Case, just to be able to listen to her every night. Great songwriter, great musician, unforgettable voice, and a lover of greyhounds. If I ran the Catholic Church, she'd have been a saint yesterday just on that last point.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see A HUMAN EQUATION at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 20th reading in our FORUM series is EGYPTIAN SONG by James Christy. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
James’ full length plays include Never Tell (published by Playscripts in 2007), Love and Communication (Playpenn Conference, produced by Passage Theatre in 2010), A Great War (reading at Luna Stage in 2010). His short play Creep won the Actors Theater of Louisville's Heideman Award for best short play in 2001. A reading of Egyptian Song was part of the Premiere Stages festival in June 2011.
1. What inspired you to write Egyptian Song?
I can’t point my finger at one thing that inspired Egyptian Song. My best friend growing up was from Lebanon, so I grew up around this house that had a middle eastern influence. Eventually I read about the singer Omm Kulthum, and I was fascinated with the idea of a female figure that loomed so large in a culture in which men hold most of the external power. I read more about her childhood and this story emerged, not about her life at all, but about a young girl with a similar gift whose life goes in another direction. 2. What do you enjoy most about playwriting?
Well, you’re sort of playing God when you write plays. You can create these little alternative worlds based on whatever you have kicking around in your head. But the fun part is when you get into a story and it takes on a life of its own, the characters start to surprise you and take you in different directions then where you expected.
3. What is your favorite play and why?
I’m a big fan of Stoppard and recently re-read Arcadia. I just really appreciate how deeply he gets into a subject, he’s unafraid of big ideas, but always theatrical. The way he uses spaces is pretty brilliant too.
4. What movie could you watch over and over?
Raising Arizona. Know that movie way too well.
5. What is the best new gadget you recently tried?
Playwrights can’t afford new gadgets. We buy other peoples 2nd hand gadgets on craigslist.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see EGYPTIAN SONG at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 19th reading in our FORUM series is Suzanne Bradbeer's SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Suzanne’s work has been developed and produced at theatres around the country, including Barrington Stage Company, the New Harmony Project, Stamford Center for the Arts, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Lark, and City Theatre of Miami. Current projects include Devil In The Details, God In The Game: an election year drama about the intersection of faith and politics; and Naked Influence, recently workshopped at the Dorset Theatre Festival. Her play Okoboji will shortly be published in a new Smith & Kraus anthology. Suzanne is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Actors Studio P/D Unit, the BMI Workshop, and the Dramatists Guild.
1. What inspired you to write Shakespeare in Vegas?
I was commissioned to write a short play with the theme of ‘theft’ for The Drilling Company in New York City. In thinking about theft, I decided to write about one actor stealing a scene from another and I felt that it should be an actor with a small role stealing a scene from the lead. Cleopatra and her handmaiden seemed like good candidates for this. That short play (FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE NILE) is now the second scene in SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS, and I so loved the characters in that original play that I decided to expand it to a full length.
2. What is your favorite Shakespeare play and why?
I think my favorite Shakespeare play is MACBETH – at least that’s the one that I go back and reread the most often. It’s a great play to learn from – a fast moving story with great stakes; it’s theatrical, exciting, there’s even a little humor, and it has some of the most gorgeous, gorgeous language. That said, I have seen about five different productions of MACBETH and none of them have quite lived up to what I imagine it could be. Someday.
My favorite Shakespeare that I’ve actually seen is probably Fiasco Theater’s CYMBELINE, currently being produced by Theatre for a New Audience. Go see it! It’s magical and surprising, and full of playful energy. Also, there was a fantastic production of TROILUS AND CRESSIDA at the Royal Shakespeare Company that I saw about 20 years ago: it was both desperately sad and side-splittingly funny. I still think about it sometimes.
3. What do you enjoy most about being a playwright?
A good day of writing is satisfying like almost nothing else I’ve ever known.
4. Have you been to Vegas? Did you win big?
I have been to Vegas and I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t even gamble. Okay, my friend Cat and I put one penny in a slot machine just as we were leaving. I meant to gamble, I really did! But we were so busy just exploring downtown and the Strip and finding places for cocktails…that we forgot to gamble. One of my favorite parts of Vegas is the Old Sign Graveyard – which is exactly what it sounds like.
Incidentally, Cat and I were in Vegas Easter weekend, which, that year, also happened to be the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. So Easter morning, April 4, we sat in our room at the Trump Hotel (thank you, Priceline) and played and replayed U2’s Pride (In The Name Of Love) and talked about MLK, and God, and loss and hope. It turned out to be an unusual but very moving and memorable way to spend Easter.
5. Do you prefer coffee or tea? Is it part of your creative process?
I PREFER COFFEE!!!! It is definitely part of my creative process. It’s the first thing I do in the morning and that first sip of the day never fails to make me happy. I love coffee so much, I’m going to go have some more right now.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 18th reading in our FORUM series is SAFE by Dominique Cieri which will be presented on Tuesday, December 13, beginning at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.
Domnique Cieri is the recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Playwriting Fellowship 2003, and 2009. A graduate of Rose Bruford College, England, and recipient of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Medal of Excellence for Scholarship and Creative Activities. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College, Vermont. Ms. Cieri’s plays have been produced and developed in New Jersey, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Pitz & Joe is currently under contract with Warner Brothers. Her newest play, Safe will have its first reading at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey where she is also developing a new play in New Jersey Women’s Playwrights Project.
1. What inspired you to write Safe?
The question of Nature verses Nurture and working with boys who struggle against all odds- are they going to make it?
2. You are also a teaching artist. What do you think is the most valuable lesson you can teach your students?
To fully realize their potential.
3. Pitz & Joe is currently under contract with Warner Brothers. What plans are underway for developing this?
The script has been penned and Josh Brolin will be directing and starring.
4. What is your favorite book and why?
This is the most difficult question because there are far too many. I love Julia Alvarez, Mikal Gilmore's Shot in the Heart. I just finished reading Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks - (The Sweet Hereafter - a great book and screenplay) his sentences move like a freight train and when reading his work you're on that train and you're not getting off- he portrays parts of America and its outcasts that nobody else will touch.
5. What is the oldest thing in your refrigerator?
Definitely the ices cubes.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see SAFE at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 17th reading is our FORUM series is CONNECTED by Lia Romeo. The reading will be held tonight, December 12, 7pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ.
Lia Romeo is a playwright, novelist, and humor book author. She earned her B.A. from Princeton University and her M.F.A in playwriting from Rutgers, ending up with staggering quantities of student loans and no marketable skills whatsoever. She managed to secure a part-time job writing standardized test questions, and spends the rest of her time writing plays and novels and daydreaming about pretty shoes.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see CONNECTED at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
Our night of one-act plays on December 11, 2011, includes a new play from Nicky Glossman. His play DEVIL, the 16th in our FORUM reading series, will be held 7pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.
Nicky Glossman’s first full-length play, What About Waldorf?, was performed in workshop at Luna Stage, as was his play The Professional, with casts including Edward Asner & Jay O. Sanders; Legion, about a high-school student organization in crisis, will be performed at Luna in March 2012. He recently co-wrote his first film, and appeared as Tim in Eric Bogosian’s SubUrbia. He appeared at Playwrights in a reading of Orwell in Utica opposite Tony-award-winner Len Cariou. Devil won First Place in Samuel French Inc’s national young playwriting competition, and will be published this fall by Baker’s Plays, a division of Samuel French.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see DEVIL at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
On Sunday, December 11, 2011, we will have an evening of one-act plays. Two of those plays will be by Yasmine Rana. The 14th play in our FORUM reading series is HOW I THOUGHT THE MILONGA WOULD SAVE ME and the 15th is BLASPHEME. These plays will be presented on Sunday, December 11, 7:00pm, at Fairleigh Dickinson, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.
Yasmine's book The War Zone is My Bed and Other Plays was published this year by Seagull Books and University of Chicago Press. Other publications include Blackbird, The Kenyon Review, and TDR The Drama Review. The title play of the book, The War Zone is My Bed was recently produced in Los Angeles at Write Act Repertory Theater.
1. What inspired you to write How I Thought the Milonga Would Save Me & Blaspheme?
I studied Argentinian tango several years ago, enjoyed it, but later quit due to the time constraints life presents. Last year, I returned to tango with what I hoped would be a deeper commitment to learning this dance. I would attend milongas to practice and met many interesting partners, dance partners of course. The experience began to resemble personal relationships, particularly the idea of revealing a different side of oneself for a different partner; some preferred the close embrace while others the open one, though the close embracers were the majority of dance partners I had. Sadly, I have quit tango again and have now taken up boxing, perhaps as a result of tangoing. Maybe my next play will be about a boxer who also does the tango.
I wrote Blaspheme after Milonga. Though I do love the comedy discovered in romantic entanglements, my home base as a writer is human rights issues. I wanted to explore an interrogation and was intrigued by the notion of single word as the source of a blasphemous charge.
On further reflection I saw both plays as a dance: the former a dance of pleasure and a quest in seeking the "ideal" partner, and the latter being a dance for survival.
2. Can you tell us a little about your job as a registered drama therapist?
In addition to being a creative arts therapist, I am an English as a Second Language teacher, and it's been wonderful incorporating creative drama into language learning. The joy has been hearing my students respond to a piece of literature we read in class; there's a sense of gratitude in having read a particular work that is now part of their history as learners. As a writer, I've meditated on the meaning of gratitude and how it is a part of my craft and being: I am grateful to theater companies, directors, actors, publishers, and audience members for having given me their time and sometimes their trust.
3. How has working with refugees in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republic of Georgia and Switzerland played a role in your writing?
Although it's been twelve years since my time in Sarajevo, I know my experience practicing drama therapy in that environment is embedded in my writing. What I took away from that journey was a profound respect for resiliency and for the desire to uphold human dignity even in the most calamitous circumstances.
4. What do you enjoy most about being a playwright?
What I enjoy most about being a playwright is hearing and seeing the different interpretations of my work. I've heard actors and directors from the United States and Europe present my plays and each production or reading is a bit of an epiphany for me
5. If you could have a superpower what would it be and why?
I have just finished teaching my high school ESL students Ernest J. Gaines' quiet masterpiece A Lesson Before Dying. To me, Gaines' work is a meditation on equality and justice, with basic humanity at the core of everything. If I possessed superpowers I would eradicate injustice.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see HOW I THOUGHT THE MILONGA WOULD SAVE ME and BLASPHEME at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 13th reading in the FORUM series is THE GRASSHOPPER WAY by Judah Skoff. The reading will take place on Saturday, December 10, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. The reading will begin at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Judah Skoff graduated from Brown University where he studied English and playwriting. He won the National Playwriting Competition, two New Jersey Governor's Awards in the Arts, the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest, and has been a finalist in numerous competitions. His plays have been performed at theatres and festivals around the country, including Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey, the Abingdon Theatre, the State Theatre of New Jersey, the Salon, the Theatre-Studio, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, New York University, and Pace University. Judah's writing has been published in Red Ochre Lit and Red River Review.
1. What inspired you to write The Grasshopper Way?
The Grasshopper Way is about the abyss which opens up when loved ones leave. It begins after a mother, Lily, has inexplicably abandoned her young adult daughters. They must decide whether to look for her and try to repair their family, or move off on their own. But it’s also about the occult and the forbidden allure of ancient ritual. It features a rabbi who has lost his faith and a young woman who has psychic visions. Ultimately it’s about spiritual anxiety and the choices we must make in a cold and indifferent world.
In this respect I wanted to write a horror play, which is very hard to do. But it is not horror in the exploitative sense. Rather, I hope it has more in common with classic writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James, where the overwhelming feeling a reader walks away with is unspecifiable dread, along with fear and awe towards the vast, sometimes cruel unknown.
2. You are a former New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest winner, what was your play about that you entered into the contest?
Having won the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest, sponsored by Playwrights Theatre, and now all these years later coming full circle by having my third play performed at FORUM, is tremendously gratifying. I have to thank my great friend and mentor, Playwrights Theatre’s artistic director John Pietrowski, for that unique opportunity.
My winning play, a one-act called Two Boxes, was an absurdist piece about a man guarding an undefined space (for reasons he can’t remember), from another man who seeks to cross that space (for reasons he does not know). It was heavily influenced by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, two writers I read compulsively during high school. They were a kind of religion for me, and I studied their work as a rabbi studies the Talmud.
The play I am currently working on is called The Man From Box. It is an expansion and development of the themes and story of Two Boxes. It is set in the suburban house of a young couple. One day a stranger knocks on the door, claiming to have lived in their home and seeking to stay with them. I hope to bring The Man From Box to Playwrights Theatre when it is complete. I think that would really bring us full circle!
3. How many full length plays have you written? How many one-acts?
I have written four full-length plays and am about halfway through a fifth (the above noted The Man From Box). I’m pleased to say that three of the four have had (or will have) readings at Playwrights Theatre. Without anyone looking, Playwrights Theatre has become my artistic home. This is something that every playwright hopes to find. It’s a testament to how encouraging Playwrights Theatre is to new writers.
I can’t remember how many one-acts I’ve written, since I began writing them at age fifteen. But it was my success with one-act plays---their winning contests and getting produced at various theatres---that gave me the encouragement and confidence to continue playwriting.
4. What do you enjoy most about playwriting?
Enjoy is not a word I generally use to describe playwriting, but seeing a play up on stage in front of an audience is most satisfying.
5. What is the last book that you read?
I can’t name only one when so many recent books are still buzzing in my head. I’m a longtime student of theology, and so I recently read Rabbi Arthur Green’s marvelously heterodoxical Radical Judaism. Although I disagree with many of Green’s conclusions, his learned and insightful book is a powerful argument for religion in the scientific, modern world. It also has the best description of “religious experience” I’ve ever read. I also just finished Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. Count me among those who believe this book to be, perhaps, the finest English-language novel of the last twenty-five years. I am currently reading British playwright Mark Ravenill’s Collected Plays: Volume 2. Ravenhill came to prominence in the middle nineties amidst an explosion and revitalization of British theatre. This second collection of plays cements his reputation and supports the argument that he is filling the theatrical void left by Pinter. What can I say? He is, quite simply, one of the best.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see THE GRASSHOPPER WAY at at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)
The 12th reading in our FORUM series is ROOM 30 by Dania Ramos who has worked with Playwrights Theatre as a teaching artist, an actor and a director in the Madison Young Playwrights Festival and New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival.
The reading will take place on Friday, December 9, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. The reading will begin at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Dania’s plays have been featured in the Rose City Project at PTNJ, the Playwrights Summer Institute at NJCU and Luna Stage's On the Road educational series. She’s a current participant in the NJ Emerging Women’s Playwriting Project at PTNJ. Dania received a 2003 NJSCA Playwriting Fellowship and a 2011 Norman Mailer Center Young Adult Fiction Workshop Scholarship. She’s a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, and Actors Equity Association. Dania holds an MA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University and a BFA in Theatre Performance from Montclair State University.
1. What inspired you to write Room 30?
I’ve stayed at several old-fashioned inns and I’ve always felt as if each guestroom held stories of others who had spent time there. I started picturing unexpected characters in these quaint settings—desperate misfits seeking refuge for various reasons. Eventually three connected storylines emerged, each set in a different decade, with characters reaching across time to affect one another.
2. Being a teaching artist, what do you think is the most valuable attribute you bring to the students that you teach?
Validation of their creativity. I find it fascinating to see where their imaginations lead them—often my students are surprised at how excited I get about some wild idea or a wacky character they’ve created.
3. You also direct and act. Do you think when you are writing that you come at it from a writer’s perspective, an actor’s or a director’s?
I think having a background in other areas of theatre informs my writing but I don’t deliberately approach playwriting with an actor’s or director’s perspective. I’ve found that being concerned with interpretation and production elements too early in the process can hinder the development of a play. When I’m drafting a script, the story and characters rule.
4. What is the worst advice you ever received?
Just wing it.
5. When you were 10, what did you want to be?
Olympic gold-medalist in gymnastics and an astronaut.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see ROOM 30 at at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
Our 11th FORUM reading playwright is no stranger to fans of StrangeDog. Theatre Company, a small group of award-winning young theater artists intent on developing and performing original, diverse work in a variety of genres and mediums, drawing new audiences throughout the New Jersey and New York areas.
THE BLAIRSBURG FAMILY PICNIC by Ben Clawson will be presented on Thursday, December 8, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. The reading will begin at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Ben Clawson received his B.F.A. in Theater from Montclair State University, NJ in May of 2007. He is the author of numerous full length and one act plays that have had professional productions, readings and workshops in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. and New Orleans. He has been an evening winner and finalist in the Samuel French Short Play festival, finalist for the Princess Grace Award in playwriting, and recipient of the Kennedy Center's David Mark Cohen award. He is a founding member of the StrangeDog. Theater Company, with whom he has produced many of his plays.
1. What inspired you to write Blairsburg Family Picnic?
The town of Blairsburg depicted in the play is very loosely based on where my grandparents live in Western Pennsylvania. I spent a lot of time there as a kid, so that area has a very particular and unique feeling for me. It seemed the match well with the story of the play.
2. You are a founding member of StrangeDog.Theatre Company. What are the advantages/disadvantages of working with friends and fellow Montclair State University graduates?
The advantage is that we've really grown to having a specific style of how we work together, and everyone trusts in each other very much. It's of course a lot of of fun to go to work with your friends, and when you make as little money as we do at StrangeDog it's important to be having fun. While I wouldn't quite call it a disadvantage, it's also nice to have opportunies to branch out and work with other people and theatre companies, to keep everything fresh.
3. What is your favorite play or book and why?
That's a tough one. No way I could name a single play. I really like American Buffalo by David Mamet. And Becket's Godot. And the plays of Martin McDonagh, Jez Butterworth. Tennessee Williams. And the book Jurassic Park is awesome.
4. What advice would you give to young playwrights?
Uh. Write. Write, write, write, write, write. Once you do it enough you start to figure out what exactly that means to you and how you want to go about it.
5. What is the App that you wish you could invent?
I can sometimes be a bit of a Luddite, so by "app" I'm going to choose that you mean appetizer. And I'd like to invent an appetizer that kind of combined buffalo wings and jalapeno poppers. Maybe the jalapeno popper is inside the buffalo wing? Could some one work that out? Or french fries filled with mashed potatoes and gravy. That'd be pretty brilliant too.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see BLAIRSBURG FAMILY PICNIC at at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
The 10th reading in the FORUM reading series is DESPERATE LOVE by Richard Reiss.
This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ on Wednesday, December 7 at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).
Richard Reiss is the Senior Vice President for University Advancement at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His writing has been published in the New York Times, ADDitude Magazine, Perigee Literary Journal, and in the anthology, Upstart Crows II: True Stories, published by Wide Array Press. In 2008 Reiss collaborated with director and lyricist, Martin Charnin, to create the musical revue Love is Love. In the 1990’s his column, Reiss’s Pieces, for Forbes Newspapers, was recognized by the New Jersey Press Association. Desperate Love, the play, is based on the memoir of the same name and will be published by Serving House Books in fall 2011.
1. What inspired you to write Desperate Love?
I wanted to tell my story so that people could understand what it was like to live with an oppositionally defiant child. And I wanted the parents of a child like mine to know that they are not alone. As parents we struggle as much as our children. We confront love and faith and God, and there isn’t always an answer or even resolution. It’s a subject that’s not really talked about a lot, and I wanted to confront it head on.
2. You collaborated with director and lyricist, Martin, Charnin, to create the musical review Love is Love, can you tell us a little about how that collaboration process worked?
Martin had seen a piece I had written in the Modern Love column of the New York Times about my son called Sending a Lost Boy to the Wilderness to Find Himself. He approached several writers of his favorite Modern Love columns and asked some of us to write new pieces for a new musical revue he was creating. I was in the middle of working on my memoir and sent him some chapters that I thought might work once he described the concept of the show to me, which was a combination of songs and soliloquies about different aspects of love. So we edited one of the chapters I had written from the memoir and it became a very moving soliloquy in the show, paired with a very beautiful song.
3. What compelled you to become a playwright?
It was actually Martin Charnin, who had read an early draft of my memoir of the same name, that suggested I write a play. I told him I knew nothing about play writing, and he told me that I should just start writing and he would help me with the structure. I floated a lot by Martin once I conceptualized the play in my head. I really enjoyed writing the play. Everything in the book is 100% true, but the play is a fictionalized version of events so I could play with the characters and the dialogue. And, of course, I learned that prose does not always or easily translate into interesting dialog. I’m still learning.
4. What was your column about in the Piscataway Dunellen Review?
The Piscataway Dunellen Review was a small town newspaper owned by Forbes. At the time, Forbes owned more than twenty local newspapers in New Jersey. I don’t believe that’s still the case. I wrote a humor column called Reiss’s Pieces. It often appeared in all of the papers so after a while I had a nice following in Central New Jersey. It was a great experience and taught me how to be disciplined as a writer. It not so easy writing a 750 word humor column every week.
5. What is the best play or musical you have ever seen?
I still love West Side Story. I think I was ten when I first saw it. If only all gangs could sing and dance?
Click here to purchase a ticket to see DESPERATE LOVE at at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
The 9th reading in our FORUM series is LSD by Carrie Louise Nutt which will be presented on Tuesday, December 6, beginning at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.
Carrie Louise Nutt’s play Agua was a 2010 O’Neill semi-finalist. It was developed during her NNPN Emerging Playwright Residency at PNTJ. When Gods Walk the Earth was part of the Great Plains Theatre Conference PlayLabs, received Tulsa University’s “Best New Works for Young Women” award, and was recently produced at Manhattan Rep. Carrie is published in One on One: The Best Men’s Monologues for the 21st Century by Applause. She is a member of DGA and PWC. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers. Recently, she received a new play commission from MCTVS. http://web.me.com/carrienutt/Site/About_Me.html
1. What inspired you to write LSD?
I became interested in government drug experimentation while I was researching for a different play. I ended up stumbling across two stories in particular that jumped out at me. One was centered around a young scientist who died under unclear circumstances and the other story was about a patient admitted to a psychiatric hospital who reported being experimented on. I began to get a picture of a time where Cold War paranoia drove people to do things to others that they should not have. It set up a dynamic where anything was permissible for the greater good. I felt that had resonance for us today.
2. Can you tell us a little about your new play commission from MCTVS?
MCTVS has commissioned me to write a one-act play for their theatre students. I was asked to come onboard for this school year as a Guest Artist. I will teach as well as put together a play for the students to perform. This play will go up in March alongside several other commissions and a handful of student plays in a festival that MCTVS is producing.
3. What is your favorite play or book and why?
My favorite book is Blindness because Jose Saramago understand the difference between civility and savagery. The only difference between the civilized and the uncivilized is the availability of resources. You take that away and it is surprising what people will do.
4. How long have you been writing?
Since I was in elementary school. I used to read Nancy Drew, and then stay up late writing my own mystery novels.
5. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
The Hunger Games. It's a great trilogy. It's total pop culture, adrenaline junkie trash, but I love it for how well it wraps the reader into the action and the love triangle.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see LSD at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
THEATRE FOR YOUR MOTHER: THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SHOW is appropriate for the entire family.
This FORUM reading will be held at The Growing Stage on Sunday, December 4 at 1:00pm and later that day at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Russell Davis' plays have been produced at various theatres, including People's Light & Theatre, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Yale Repertory, Long Wharf and Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. He was resident playwright at People's Light for the Theatre Residency Program of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group. He was a recipient of a 2008-10 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and has received playwright fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, McKnight Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He is also a juggler.
1. What inspired you to write Theatre For Your Mother: The Little Red Riding Hood Show?
People's Light & Theatre Company produced an English Pantomime some years ago and I loved how the actors talked and argued with the audience. This seemed to fit nicely with the Little Red Riding Hood story, where the Wolf, Little Red, the Mother and Grandmother could all have contesting versions of the same story. It seemed an excellent opportunity to tell a tale for children and also to question it as an adult.
2. Can you tell our audience what it means to be a resident playwright?
It means that rehearsal space is available when I need it as a playwright or juggler. It means that once in awhile they'll produce a play of mine, or certainly think about it. It's a tremendous resource actually in terms of having folks, such as actors, designers, directors, to talk with about the various projects we're each working on.
3. How does your juggling help your playwriting process?
I would not be a functioning playwright if I had not learned to juggle. It sounds silly but juggling taught me how to be disciplined. It taught me how to work on something, and to keep at it over and over. You can't kid, or lie to, yourself as a juggler. Either you're learning and progressing or you're not and, either way, it's plainly visible.
4. What do you love most about being a playwright?
I love how never ending it is. The more you think you know the more you realize actually you don't know.
5. Which do you prefer chips or pretzels?
Neither, actually. But if I were in prison and had to choose, I'd choose pretzels.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see THEATRE FOR YOUR MOTHER: THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SHOW at The Growing Stage.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see THEATRE FOR YOUR MOTHER: THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SHOW at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
Children attend free (with a paying adult) to the December 4 reading at Fairleigh Dickinson.
THEATRE FOR YOUR MOTHER: THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SHOW is appropriate for the entire family.
The family friendly FORUM series of readings continues with Anne Negri's WITH TWO WINGS.
This reading will be held at The Growing Stage in Netcong, NJ on Saturday, December 3 at 1:00pm and again on that same day at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Anne Negri is currently living in Evanston, Illinois working as a full-time drama teacher in the Evanston/Skokie School District 65, teaching 4th-8th grade students. She is a graduate of Arizona State University’s M.F.A. Theatre for Youth program. With Two Wings is her first full-length play, but other works include The Dancing Dog! and Faithful Adaptation. In addition to teaching and playwriting, Anne is a dramaturg, film buff, and puppet enthusiast.
1. What inspired you to write With Two Wings?
The original idea for With Two Wings came from realistic relationships in my immediate family. However, the world of the play, with humans who have wings and the ability to fly, came to me in a dream. I remember waking up and running to find a piece of paper to write down the ideas. I was also inspired by one of my favorite Greek myths, Icarus and Daedalus.
2. What do you love most about being a playwright?
There are two things that I really love about being a playwright. The first is that I love writing creatively, thinking of new stories that have never been told before. Second, I love collaborating with a creative team who have a passionate vision of how my plays can come to life.
3. What advice would you give to young playwrights?
Don’t stop writing creatively! At a certain point in high school and college, I was writing so many academic papers that I completely lost sight of the creative writer in me until my late 20s. My advice is to embrace and share your creative stories with others and to seek out local organization that might support your work.
4. What is your favorite play or book and why?
This is a really difficult question because I have so many favorites. One of my favorite books is The Little Prince. I’ve read, studied, and taught it in English and in French. I love the Prince as our protagonist and the strange journey he embarks upon. I think the story appeals to both adults and children in equal measure.
5. Given the choice between cake, cookies or candy, which would you choose?
Unfortunately for my teeth, I love candy. I love chocolate, licorice, caramel, and Lemonheads most of all!
Click here to purchase a ticket to see WITH TWO WINGS at The Growing Stage.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see WITH TWO WINGS at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
Children attend free (with a paying adult) to the December 3 reading at Fairleigh Dickinson.
WITH TWO WINGS is appropriate for the entire family.
Our FORUM series this year features three plays which are appropriate for the entire family. Joan Cushing's LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY kicks it off.
You can catch the reading of this play at The Growing Stage in Netcong, NJ, at 7:00pm on Thursday, December 1 or at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ at 7:00pm on Friday, December 2.
Joan Cushing is best known for writing and performing political satire in Wash, DC, more recently Cushing is adapting children's books as musicals, receiving over 350 productions. Works include Miss Nelson Is Missing! (winner, Nat’l Children’s Theatre Festival), Field Day, Junie B. Jones, Petite Rouge (NY Musical Theatre Festival), George and Martha, all commissioned by Imagination Stage, and Diary of a Worm, A Spider & a Fly, commissioned by Oregon Children’s Theatre. Others: The Christmas Doll, Nat’l Youth Theatre Award for Outstanding New Musical, Tussaud, based on Madame Tussaud’s bloody pursuit of art, and Breast In Show, a brand new musical about breast cancer. Representation by The Susan Gurman Agency. See http://www.joancushing.com/.
1. What inspired you to write Lizzie Bright And The Buckminster Boy?
The book had a really interesting title, it had won several prizes, and the synopsis was intriguing, including the fact that it was based on a true event. At the time, I was adapting “hot” children’s books as musicals for young kids. I was also raising a son and we listened to tons of audio books in the car. The books for young adults were the ones that grabbed us the most. After reading this book, I couldn’t get the story out of my head. At first, I didn’t see the book as a candidate for the musical stage. How would I capture the gorgeous descriptive language? And the main characters didn’t seem to me like characters who would sing. But over several months, I decided to try my hand at adapting it as a play.
2. What is your process for adapting children’s books as musicals?
In the early days, we worked by the seat of our pants. I just wrote the show, with some help from the theatre, in terms of plot synopsis, character development, the journey of the characters, cast size, and what we wanted to accomplish. Now I am commissioned two years out, and we always do a 4 to 5 day workshop a year in advance. That way we can work out the problems and make every line work. I develop most of my scripts with Imagination Stage. Janet Stanford (art. dir/playwright) and Kate Bryer (assoc. prod. dir.) are masters of development.
3. You have written and performed political satire in Washington, DC,do you prefer one over the other?
I never meant to stop writing satire, but my director (of 13 years) died and I was commissioned by Imagination Stage to write my first children’s musical, based on a popular children’s book, Miss Nelson Is Missing. To my great surprise, it was a huge hit. Then I adapted Junie B. Jones, which was an even bigger hit. Since then I have had nonstop commissons to write new musicals, but mostly for young kids. I keep meaning to get back to the satire, and occasionally perform, but mostly political roasts.
4. Tell us a little about your new musical about breast cancer?
A local woman interviewed 200 hundred breast cancer survivors and asked a playwright to write a script from the material, and me to write music and lyrics. Several months into the project, my husband Paul was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I dropped everything to take care him. The producer put off the project for a year to keep me on board, and after my husband died – 4 months later – I had something to say. I brought in Kate Bryer from Imagination Stage to direct and dramaturg. We mounted an initial production with sets, costumes, and orchestra for 2 nights. It got an overwhelming response, and requests for productions are multiplying. It was very healing for me, as I was able to take my husband’s death and turn it into something positive which will touch a lot of people.
5. Do you prefer coffee, tea or soda for your caffeine fix?
I go to Starbucks every day and order a tall skim no water chai. No coffee for me.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY at The Growing Stage.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.
$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
Children attend free (with a paying adult) to the December 2 reading at Fairleigh Dickinson
LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY is appropriate for the entire family.
Our CAA classes are an opportunity for students at all levels of experience to bring their imaginations to life, while practicing basic performance and writing skills. Students will work collaboratively with their peers, creating characters and telling stories while building the confidence needed to enjoy creative freedom.
