Announcing
Our 2021 Visionary PlaywrightS!
LAUREN YEE was the second most produced playwright in America for the 2019/20 theatrical season (as per American Theatre Magazine). Her plays include Cambodian Rock Band (South Coast Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, City Theatre, Merrimack Rep) and The Great Leap (Denver Center, Seattle Repertory, Atlantic Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Arts Club, InterAct Theatre, Steppenwolf). Honors: Doris Duke Artists Award, Steinberg Playwright Award, Whiting Award, Steinberg/ATCA Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters literature award, Horton Foote Prize, Kesselring Prize, Primus Prize, Hodder Fellowship, #1 and #2 plays on 2017 Kilroys List. New Dramatists, Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab, Playwrights Realm alum. TV: Pachinko (Apple), Soundtrack (Netflix). BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD. www.laurenyee.com
Theater Masters is honored to announce Lauren Yee as one of our 2021 Visionary Playwright Award winners!
I feel privileged to have seen Lauren Yee’s brilliant and moving Cambodian Rock Band during it’s sold-out run at Signature Theatre- just before the pandemic changed everything.
Dubbed “fierce, gorgeous and heartwarming” by The Los Angeles Times, Cambodian Rock Band tells the story of a woman trying to piece together her family history thirty years after her father fled Cambodia. Through innovative storytelling that's part play, part rock concert (with phenomenal music by Dengue Fever), Yee shows us the Cambodian rock scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s, a movement cut short by the Khmer Rouge’s brutal attempt to erase the music and musicians.
Yee (a TAKE TEN alum) and I connected this month to talk theater and the future.
-Vicky Hansen,Theater Masters
I feel privileged to have seen Lauren Yee’s brilliant and moving Cambodian Rock Band during it’s sold-out run at Signature Theatre- just before the pandemic changed everything.
Dubbed “fierce, gorgeous and heartwarming” by The Los Angeles Times, Cambodian Rock Band tells the story of a woman trying to piece together her family history thirty years after her father fled Cambodia. Through innovative storytelling that's part play, part rock concert (with phenomenal music by Dengue Fever), Yee shows us the Cambodian rock scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s, a movement cut short by the Khmer Rouge’s brutal attempt to erase the music and musicians.
Yee (a TAKE TEN alum) and I connected this month to talk theater and the future.
-Vicky Hansen,Theater Masters
CHecking in with Lauren Yee
What are you looking forward to?
Strangely, I get nostalgic not so much for the performances themselves as what comes before or after. The thrill when the lights go down. Drinks after a show. Conversations about what the play really meant on the ride home. Also very much looking forward to the ways in which that theater marks time spent together. I've gotten to go to a lot of different places over the course of my career, and it's been a joy to see how the arts function in different communities and how community members support one another. I miss that.
Do the things you love end up in your work?
I've realized that I metabolize things slowly. It actually takes about four years for something I've experienced or witnessed to make it into my writing. (I can point to specific examples that prove the four-year digesting period!) More than things I love, it's things that haunt me. Things I (for better or worse) may not necessarily understand at first glance and become obsessed with.
Strangely, I get nostalgic not so much for the performances themselves as what comes before or after. The thrill when the lights go down. Drinks after a show. Conversations about what the play really meant on the ride home. Also very much looking forward to the ways in which that theater marks time spent together. I've gotten to go to a lot of different places over the course of my career, and it's been a joy to see how the arts function in different communities and how community members support one another. I miss that.
Do the things you love end up in your work?
I've realized that I metabolize things slowly. It actually takes about four years for something I've experienced or witnessed to make it into my writing. (I can point to specific examples that prove the four-year digesting period!) More than things I love, it's things that haunt me. Things I (for better or worse) may not necessarily understand at first glance and become obsessed with.
SP O'BRIEN: Hailing from the smallest state in the country, SP has also lived in Vermont, New York, Arizona, California, and France. He was a 2016 Core Apprentice at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, a 2016 Best of Fringe Winner in the FringeNYC, and a 2017 Honorable Mention for the Relentless Award. He was a 2019 recipient of Theater Masters’ Take Ten Play Lab where his short play SUCKERS was workshopped and subsequently produced. It was published by Samuel French in 2020. SP holds an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. He’s so excited to have another opportunity to work with Theater Masters.
CHecking in with SP O'BRIEN
Is there a specific emotion that you find fuels your writing?
I don't know that I've ever thought about this before. I think the act of writing is so uncomfortable and I often find discomfort a useful feeling to magnify in my writing. I think it's so important, for me, to face uncomfortable situations and to sit in them long enough so that it becomes, even if only slightly, something tolerable. Long enough so that being uncomfortable can be something I can be okay with. But it's also extremely scary. I think fear, perhaps, is at the root of this discomfort. Finding peace in fear and discomfort. I don't know.
Your TAKE TEN play centered on three female teachers. Do you write about women often?
In general, it's hard for me to say if I write about anything specifically often. A lot of my plays do have women in them. When I write characters, I often just hear their voice in my head and don't see anything. When I write characters, it is almost like I'm seeing them in my peripheral vision, so I always approach my characters with uncertainty. I feel that I do, though, have a proclivity for writing characters that identify as women. The majority of the people I interact with in my life -- family, friends, colleagues -- are women. I've always been mostly surrounded by women my entire life. I also am striving to give space to those that identify as non-binary in my writing. There are so few roles for non-binary people. Yet there are so many non-binary people. This paucity of roles needs to change.
Your plays are so irreverent and funny. What about comedy excites you?
I truly never intend to be funny. I was watching an interview with Jocelyn Bioh recently and she said, "Comedy is just a funny way of being serious." I think that says it all. I think when we try to be serious that the comedy of something comes to the surface.
The word irreverent, I think, has a bad reputation. I think irreverence can actually be showing the truth of something, and the truth is often absurd or funny or crass and base and dirty. "Irreverent" comes from Latin meaning "not revering". Yet, I think that sometimes "irreverent" can also be something that is showing respect or admiration to someone or something. Words can sometimes mean the opposite of what they appear to mean; the word "inflammable" means "able to catch fire", the word "unthaw" means "to thaw". Words are strange. I'm glad you used the word irreverent in this question, and I think you're right! I think I strive to highlight people that are strange or weird or crass or disgusting or deeply flawed, and I think making them characters is a way of showing them respect. Giving them words to say, things to do, on a stage-- allowing them to be who they are. Flaws and dirt and all. I think the humor that comes out of exposing the dirty flaws of people is something that excites me. We're all dirty and flawed. We're all, maybe, scumbags. We're all, to at least someone, an objectionable person. I find that idea funny. I come from beautifully strange people that, maybe to some, would be "unworthy" of being portrayed in a play, and that is just so not true. I think it's important to focus on people with flaws... since we all have them. In José Rivera's 36 Assumptions about Writing Plays, the seventh assumption is: "7. If you're not prepared to risk your entire reputation every time you write, then it's not worth your audience's time." I find this assumption of José Rivera's so important. I think about it often.
What have you been reading or watching lately?
I'm reading so much lately, due to grad school. I've been reading Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Artaud. We just finished talking about Artaud's The Theater and Its Double. I also just finished teaching in a word, by Lauren Yee, for a playwriting class I teach at the University of Iowa. In terms of what I've been watching lately, I am and always will be a game show fiend. Currently, I've been watching a lot of To Tell The Truth and Match Game.
What is your favorite sandwich?
A traditional grilled cheese. 🙂
I don't know that I've ever thought about this before. I think the act of writing is so uncomfortable and I often find discomfort a useful feeling to magnify in my writing. I think it's so important, for me, to face uncomfortable situations and to sit in them long enough so that it becomes, even if only slightly, something tolerable. Long enough so that being uncomfortable can be something I can be okay with. But it's also extremely scary. I think fear, perhaps, is at the root of this discomfort. Finding peace in fear and discomfort. I don't know.
Your TAKE TEN play centered on three female teachers. Do you write about women often?
In general, it's hard for me to say if I write about anything specifically often. A lot of my plays do have women in them. When I write characters, I often just hear their voice in my head and don't see anything. When I write characters, it is almost like I'm seeing them in my peripheral vision, so I always approach my characters with uncertainty. I feel that I do, though, have a proclivity for writing characters that identify as women. The majority of the people I interact with in my life -- family, friends, colleagues -- are women. I've always been mostly surrounded by women my entire life. I also am striving to give space to those that identify as non-binary in my writing. There are so few roles for non-binary people. Yet there are so many non-binary people. This paucity of roles needs to change.
Your plays are so irreverent and funny. What about comedy excites you?
I truly never intend to be funny. I was watching an interview with Jocelyn Bioh recently and she said, "Comedy is just a funny way of being serious." I think that says it all. I think when we try to be serious that the comedy of something comes to the surface.
The word irreverent, I think, has a bad reputation. I think irreverence can actually be showing the truth of something, and the truth is often absurd or funny or crass and base and dirty. "Irreverent" comes from Latin meaning "not revering". Yet, I think that sometimes "irreverent" can also be something that is showing respect or admiration to someone or something. Words can sometimes mean the opposite of what they appear to mean; the word "inflammable" means "able to catch fire", the word "unthaw" means "to thaw". Words are strange. I'm glad you used the word irreverent in this question, and I think you're right! I think I strive to highlight people that are strange or weird or crass or disgusting or deeply flawed, and I think making them characters is a way of showing them respect. Giving them words to say, things to do, on a stage-- allowing them to be who they are. Flaws and dirt and all. I think the humor that comes out of exposing the dirty flaws of people is something that excites me. We're all dirty and flawed. We're all, maybe, scumbags. We're all, to at least someone, an objectionable person. I find that idea funny. I come from beautifully strange people that, maybe to some, would be "unworthy" of being portrayed in a play, and that is just so not true. I think it's important to focus on people with flaws... since we all have them. In José Rivera's 36 Assumptions about Writing Plays, the seventh assumption is: "7. If you're not prepared to risk your entire reputation every time you write, then it's not worth your audience's time." I find this assumption of José Rivera's so important. I think about it often.
What have you been reading or watching lately?
I'm reading so much lately, due to grad school. I've been reading Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Artaud. We just finished talking about Artaud's The Theater and Its Double. I also just finished teaching in a word, by Lauren Yee, for a playwriting class I teach at the University of Iowa. In terms of what I've been watching lately, I am and always will be a game show fiend. Currently, I've been watching a lot of To Tell The Truth and Match Game.
What is your favorite sandwich?
A traditional grilled cheese. 🙂
MAY TREUHAFT-ALI is a playwright and new-play dramaturg. After graduating from Wesleyan University, she completed an M.Phil in Theatre and Performance Studies at Trinity College Dublin on a George J. Mitchell Scholarship. She is a Writing Fellow at The Playwrights Realm, an alumna of Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writers’ Group, and a recipient of two commissions from Adventure Theatre MTC. She has worked as a dramaturg at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Ars Nova ANT Fest, and Haven Theatre Chicago. Her dramaturgical essays have been published in Playwrights Horizons’ Almanac and Table Work Press’ Two Plays. May is currently the Literary Fellow at Playwrights Horizons.
CHecking in with MAY TREUHAFT-ALI
What play or memorable theatrical experience got you hooked?
My parents took me to plays and musicals from a very young age, and they always took me to the stage door after the show to meet the actors. I remember always feeling like the people who came out of those stage doors were my kindred spirits, and I wanted to be in their world. As a teen, I started hanging out at the Drama Book Shop and reading plays, which got me excited about playwriting.
Is there a specific emotion that you find fuels your writing?
I write from a place of feeling conflicted about something. I'm drawn to stories that feel ethically thorny and characters who have hyphenated or diasporic identities. I try to craft characters who strive to do the right thing, but end up causing harm in the process and have to reckon with it.
As an audience member what do you love to see on stage?
I love a play that's site-specific or uses its physical space in an innovative way. Puppets are really exciting to me. I am always moved by stories that include forgiveness.
What have you been reading or watching lately?
Two favorite books for me this year were Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion and The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery. In different ways, these books gave me some much-needed perspective and filled me with curiosity, wanderlust, and joy.
What is your favorite sandwich?
Oh man, my favorite sandwich that I make for myself is an avocado and hummus grilled cheese. But my favorite sandwich that I can't make for myself is probably a pita stuffed with falafel, baba ghanoush, and tabouleh from Mamoun's (my Egyptian family's favorite spot in New York).
My parents took me to plays and musicals from a very young age, and they always took me to the stage door after the show to meet the actors. I remember always feeling like the people who came out of those stage doors were my kindred spirits, and I wanted to be in their world. As a teen, I started hanging out at the Drama Book Shop and reading plays, which got me excited about playwriting.
Is there a specific emotion that you find fuels your writing?
I write from a place of feeling conflicted about something. I'm drawn to stories that feel ethically thorny and characters who have hyphenated or diasporic identities. I try to craft characters who strive to do the right thing, but end up causing harm in the process and have to reckon with it.
As an audience member what do you love to see on stage?
I love a play that's site-specific or uses its physical space in an innovative way. Puppets are really exciting to me. I am always moved by stories that include forgiveness.
What have you been reading or watching lately?
Two favorite books for me this year were Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion and The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery. In different ways, these books gave me some much-needed perspective and filled me with curiosity, wanderlust, and joy.
What is your favorite sandwich?
Oh man, my favorite sandwich that I make for myself is an avocado and hummus grilled cheese. But my favorite sandwich that I can't make for myself is probably a pita stuffed with falafel, baba ghanoush, and tabouleh from Mamoun's (my Egyptian family's favorite spot in New York).
Meet the 2020 Visionary Playwrights:
AVA GEYER received her BA from Princeton University in 2015 and MFA in playwriting from UC San Diego in 2019. Geyer is currently the Shank Resident Playwright at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, a member of EST/Youngblood, and under commission by La Jolla Playhouse. Her play Monster was a finalist for the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition. She was a finalist for the 2019/2020 Jerome Fellowship and semi-finalist for the Ingram New Works Lab. Her play Fruit Snacks appeared in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as part of the Hopeful Decade event celebrating new work by female playwrights. Past plays include SERE (Wagner New Play Festival 2018) and Baby Teeth (WNPF '17).
PHILLIP HOWZE is a theater maker whose work includes Self Portraits (BRIC-Arts Media) and Frontieres Sans Frontieres (Bushwick Starr). He is currently a Lucas Artist Fellow at Montalvo Arts Center and a Resident Writer at Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3. He was recently named the Lecturer in Playwriting at Harvard University’s new Theater, Dance & Media program.
Meet the 2019 Visionary Playwrights:
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JESSICA HUANG is a playwright and producer from Minneapolis, based in New York City. Jessica’s work has been developed, commissioned, and/or produced by New York Theatre Workshop, The New Group, Atlantic Theater Company, Mixed Blood Theatre, TimeLine Theatre Company, History Theatre, Theater Mu, and many more. Jessica is a MacDowell Fellow; two-time Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow; and Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow; and has received awards from the Sloan Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council/McKnight.
Jessica cofounded and co-directs Other Tiger Productions, a theatrical production company with a mission to pursue multidisciplinary collaborations, intentional inclusivity and a re-examination of traditional theater practices. She is a member of the Civilians R&D Group, Ars Nova Play Group, Page 73's Interstate 73, and she is a resident playwright at Chance Theater. She attends the Playwrights Program at Juilliard. |
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EMILY ZEMBA is a Brooklyn-based playwright, screenwriter, and creative producer. Her work has been seen and developed with places like The Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Poland, Exquisite Corpse Company, Williamstown Theater Festival's Professional Training Company, First Floor Theater (Chicago). Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Playwrights’ Center, Great Plains Theater Conference, The Party Line, GUIDED TOUR, and the Yale Cabaret. Emily holds an MFA in playwriting from Yale School of Drama, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is an Affiliated Writer with The Playwrights Center, affiliated artist with New Georges, co-founder of The Party Line, and founding member of Middle Voice at Rattlestick. She has worked with MCC Theater Youth Company’s Playwrights Lab as a mentor and director. Emily has taught playwriting with Tres Artis studio in NYC and at Wesleyan University.
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HARMON. is a queer multiply neurodivergent writer/performer/visual artist. Harmon.’s works for the theatre include: Minden (The Tank, TBA); People Like Us, a musical autofiction (written with Lisbeth Scott, in development); No Land to Land In (Dixon Place, Director: Craig Lucas); Goodbye, Kansas, a new musical (KC Fringe Fest); Disability Romp (Folly Theatre, KCMO, a dance); M. (Bete Noire Online Theatre Festival, 2021); Visionary, a musical biography of Buddha (Elgin Theatre, Toronto, Director: Craig Lucas); True Blood musical (workshop 2017/18, Director: Pam McKinnon). Harmon. is a fellow at the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat in Englewood, Florida. As a performer, Harmon. has toured the country as a stand up and in sketch comedy and solo shows. Harmon.’s performative work explores trauma, sexual violence, mental illness, alter personalities and humor as a way to open up space for truth-telling and to build resilience/reduce fear among those who have survived abuse and to inform those who live in ignorance of the toll humanity’s hidden epidemic takes on victims and their communities. Over the past ten years, Harmon.’s paintings, videos and embroidered sculptures have been sought after by private collectors across the U.S. Harmon. is based in Hudson Valley, NY.
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Professional Play Development Programs
In 2008, Theater Masters initiated the Visionary Playwrights Award, in partnership with the Aspen Institute and three of America's top regional theaters: Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, La Jolla Playhouse in California, and Playwrights Horizons in NYC. One playwright from each theater, was chosen jointly by Theater Masters and the participating theater, received a pass to attend the Aspen Ideas Festival and was commissioned to write a new full-length play. The playwrights were to draw inspiration from the Festival and reflect the Institute's philosophy of timeless values and powerful issues.
As this program has evolved, we now instead draw from Theater Masters' own pool of alumni, choosing two of our own playwrights each year to receive this prestigious Award, participate in The Aspen Ideas Festival, and receive a full-length play commission.
Since 2014, we have been able to add the additional commitment to this Award that Theater Masters will either do a developmental workshop and reading of the playwrights Visionary Play or will connect them with a theater able to so. This added commitment is meaningful to the playwrights as it gives them additional support to develop the play to the point of being ready for a production.
This program can boast an impressive list of alumni. Among the many Visionary Plays that have been written through this program, our first commissioned play, Milk Like Sugar, by Kirsten Greenidge, ran at La Jolla Playhouse, then at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway where it won the Obie for Best Play. Another commissioned play, Marjorie Prime, by Jordan Harrison ran at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway in November 2015 and was a Finalist for the Pulitzer.
As this program has evolved, we now instead draw from Theater Masters' own pool of alumni, choosing two of our own playwrights each year to receive this prestigious Award, participate in The Aspen Ideas Festival, and receive a full-length play commission.
Since 2014, we have been able to add the additional commitment to this Award that Theater Masters will either do a developmental workshop and reading of the playwrights Visionary Play or will connect them with a theater able to so. This added commitment is meaningful to the playwrights as it gives them additional support to develop the play to the point of being ready for a production.
This program can boast an impressive list of alumni. Among the many Visionary Plays that have been written through this program, our first commissioned play, Milk Like Sugar, by Kirsten Greenidge, ran at La Jolla Playhouse, then at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway where it won the Obie for Best Play. Another commissioned play, Marjorie Prime, by Jordan Harrison ran at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway in November 2015 and was a Finalist for the Pulitzer.
New Play Development
Our New Play Development series invites a director, playwright, and cast to Aspen, New York, or Palm Beach, where workshops of a new play-in-progress culminate in a reading for the community and/or industry. In 2015 Theater Masters additionally launched a partnership with the O'Neill Playwrights Center for them to offer a residency to a Theater Masters playwright in the Fall. Plays and musicals developed have received a 1st Place in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the honor of being the critics choice as one of the 10 best plays of the year, Off-Broadway productions and a production at the Berkshire Theater Festival.
Talkabouts
As part of Theater Masters' education for audiences, our Talkabout programs feature world-renowned artists in a series of lectures and theatrical readings on a variety of topics. Past Talkabouts have included director Richard Digby Day and actress Dana Ivey discussing what theatre's great characters reveal about political ambition; Denver Center Theater's Kent Thompson on what it takes to be an artistic director; and Cheers' star Shelley Long on mastering stage, film, and television.
Theater Masters Presents
Theater Masters presents distinguished professional productions for Aspen/Roaring Fork audiences. These popular events have included Gareth Armstrong's Shylock, Frank Barrie's Playing Shakespeare, and the provocative plays Dearborn Heights and Open Admissions.
Our School Outreach program uses a Theater Masters production as a springboard to bring arts education to the high schools in the Roaring Fork Valley. A study guide is produced for students and teachers. The Theatre professionals visit classrooms to discuss the play Theater Masters is presenting, with a focus on how the themes relate to the students' studies and their own lives. This is followed by a trip to the theater where the students see the play for themselves and deepen their discussion.
Our School Outreach program uses a Theater Masters production as a springboard to bring arts education to the high schools in the Roaring Fork Valley. A study guide is produced for students and teachers. The Theatre professionals visit classrooms to discuss the play Theater Masters is presenting, with a focus on how the themes relate to the students' studies and their own lives. This is followed by a trip to the theater where the students see the play for themselves and deepen their discussion.
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