Ten female playwrights from the U.S. and the U.K. are nominated,
with the winner to be announced Feb. 22.
By American Theatre Editors
WP’s Sarah Burgess, Dominique Morisseau, Lynn Nottage & Suzan-Lori Parks among finalist.
NEW YORK CITY: The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced the finalists for its 2015–16 playwriting award, the oldest and largest prize given to female playwrights. Selected from more than 150 nominated plays, the 10 finalists are Sarah Burgess for Dry Powder; Rachel Cusk for Medea; Sarah DeLappe for The Wolves; Sam Holcroft for Rules for Living; Anna Jordan for Yen; Dominique Morisseau for Skeleton Crew; Lynn Nottage for Sweat; Suzan-Lori Parks for Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3); Bea Roberts for And Then Come the Nightjars; and Noni Stapleton for Charolais.
The judges for the 2015–16 prize are Kate Bassett, Jeremy Herrin, Tanya Moodie, Greta Gerwig, Sam Gold, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
The winner will be announced on Feb. 22 at a presentation at the National Theatre in London. The winner will receive a cash prize of $25,000 and a signed print by artist Willem de Kooning created especially for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. The other finalists will each take home an award of $5,000.
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, a Houston-based organization, reflects the values of American actor and writer Susan Smith Blackburn. She grew up in Houston and lived in London for the last 15 years of her life. Since the award’s inception in 1978, more than 350 playwrights have been honored as finalists.
What is your favorite part of the playmaking process, and why?
Martyna Majok: Workshops. Tom Stoppard likens outside perspectives on his plays to going through customs at the airport. The officer asks you to declare what you have in your luggage. you tell him. “A four character play about a lady at a bus stop in Jersey.” Then he goes rifling through your bags and finds all these things you didn’t realize you’d packed. Like capitalism and the contradictions of modern feminism in certain socioeconomic situations.
DirectorDaniella Topol’s previous WP Theater productions include: Cori Thomas’ When January Feels Like Summer, Jessica Dickey’s Row After Row, Sheila Callaghan’s Lascivious Something, Trista Baldwin’s Sand. Recent productions include: Rachel Bonds’ Five Mile Lake (South Coast Rep), Jessica Dickey’s Charles Ives Take Me Home (Rattlestick Theatre) Rajiv Joseph’s Monster at the Door (Alley Theatre), Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India (Magic Theatre and MaYi Theatre), Carla Ching’s Sugarhouse at the Edge of the Wilderness (MaYi Theatre), Willy Holtzman’s The Morini Strad (City Theatre), Sheila Callaghan’s Dead City (New Georges) and Janet Allard and Niko Tsakalakos’ Pool Boy (Barrington Stage Company), Anna Ziegler’s PHOTOGRAPH 51 (Theatre J), Susan Bernfield’s STRETCH (People’s Light and Theatre Company). She has directed readings and workshops for a number of companies and is currently a member of the board of the Lark Play Development Center, has been a grants review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NY State Council on the Arts and TCG. She is an NYTW Usual Suspect, member of EST, a Women’s Project Lab alumnus, and a New Georges affiliated artist. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.
(Playwright) Martyna Majok (pronounced “my-oak”) was born in Bytom, Poland, and aged in Jersey and Chicago. Her plays have been performed and developed at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Marin Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown Theatre Festival, LAByrinth Theatre Company, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Women’s Project Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The John F. Kennedy Center, Dorset Theatre Festival, New York Stage & Film, Yale Cabaret, The Playwright and Director Center of Moscow, Round House Theatre, Satori Group, Red Tape Theatre, and The LIDA Project, among others. Awards include the inaugural Women’s Invitational Prize at Ashland New Play Festival, Marin Theatre’s David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize, New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project Prize, National New Play Network’s Smith Prize for Political Playwriting, Jane Chambers Student Feminist Playwriting Prize, and The Merage Fellowship for the American Dream. Commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, Marin Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The New Yorker website, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and The Foundry Theatre. Publications by Samuel French and Smith & Kraus. Residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Fuller Road, and Ragdale. BA: University of Chicago; MFA: Yale School of Drama. Martyna is currently part of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwright Program at The Juilliard School. She has taught playwriting at Williams College, Wesleyan University, SUNY Purchase, and as an assistant to Paula Vogel at Yale. Alumna of EST’s Youngblood. Member of Women’s Project Lab, Ars Nova’s Uncharted, The Dramatist Guild, and New York Theatre Workshop’s Usual Suspects. Martyna was the 2012-2013 NNPN playwright-in-residence at NJRep. She is the 2015-2016 PoNY Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center.
For your listening pleasure, Team WP Theater put together a sing along, snap your fingers, swaying playlist of classic holiday songs. Click above, listen, and enjoy the holiday season and new year with these tunes by your side.
The premiere of IRONBOUND by Round House Theatre with the dynamic duo, Martyna Majok and Daniella Topol, at the 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival was met with rave reviews! Here are just a few of the stellar reviews:
Harris Yulin has appeared on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes, and Watch On The Rhine. His off-Broadway credits include Raindance at Signature Theatre; Don Juan In Hell at Symphony Space; Steve Tesich’s Arts And Leisure at Playwrights Horizons; Tina Howe’s Approaching Zanzibar at Second Stage; Hamlet, King John, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York Shakespeare Festival; and Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Hedda Gabler at Roundabout. Regional credits include Finishing the Picture at Goodman Theatre; a recent appearance in the title role of King Lear at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; The Talking Cure at Mark Taper Forum; Tartuffe at the Guthrie and Arena Stage; Henry V at Hartford Stage; and The Tempest at Shakespeare & Co. Mr. Yulin’s directing credits include Horton Foote’s The Prisoner’s Song at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower at Primary Stages; Don Juan In Hell in London (Riverside Studios) and in New York (Symphony Space), Steve Tesich’s Baba Goya (Second Stage), Adele Shank’s Winter Play at Second Stage; Candida at the Shaw Festival; and The Front Page and The Guardsman at Long Wharf. His television credits include “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” “Mister Sterling,” “24,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Frasier” (Emmy Nomination), and “La Femme Nikita” (Emmy Nomination). His film credits include Fur, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Emperor’s Club, Training Day, The Million Dollar Hotel, The Hurricane, Looking for Richard, Murder at 1600, Multiplicity, Clear and Present Danger, and Scarface.
WP Theater presents
New York Premiere DEAR ELIZABETH
Written by Sarah Ruhl & Directed by Kate Whoriskey FINAL WEEK – MUST CLOSE DEC 5!
Starring a rotating cast of LUMINARIES including: BECKY ANN BAKER, DAVID AARON BAKER, KATHLEEN CHALFANT, RINDE ECKERT, CHERRY JONES, MIA KATIGBAK, ELLEN MCLAUGHLIN, POLLY NOONAN, PETER SCOLARI, J. SMITH-CAMERON, JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON & HARRIS YULIN.
NYC: Most recent: Awake & Sing! NAATCO (Obie Award); Washeteria (Soho Rep); A Beautiful Day in November…Great Lakes (New Georges/Women’s Project), Scenes from a Marriage (New York Theater Workshop). Other NYC: Public Theater, Foundry Theater, Civilians, Ma-Yi, Target Margin, Clubbed Thumb, Intar, Pan Asian Rep. Regional: Berkeley Repertory Theater (CA), Swine Palace (LA), Guthrie (MN). International: Manila, Philippines; Abu Dhabi, UAE. Film: I Smile Back, Clutter, Slow Jam King. TV: “Mysteries of Laura,” “Chicago PD,” “Conviction.” Artistic Producing Director and co-founder, NAATCO (National Asian American Theatre Company). Founding director, CAATA (Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists). Other awards: Lucille Lortel, Lee Reynolds Awards (League of Professional Theatre Women); Actors Equity’s Rosetta LeNoire Award, in recognition of her “artistic contribution to the universality of the human experience in the American theater”; New Dramatists’ Charles Bowden Actor Award. BA, Barnard College; MA, Columbia University.
Rinde Eckert is a writer, composer, librettist, musician, performer and director. His Opera / New Music Theatre productions have toured throughout America and to major theater festivals in Europe and Asia. Eckert began his career as a writer and performer in the 1980’s, writing librettos for Paul Dresher (Pioneer, Power Failure, Slow Fire, Ravenshead). He composed dance scores for choreographers Sarah Shelton Mann and Margaret Jenkins, including the evening-length Woman, Window, Square for The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Rinde began composing and performing his own music/theater works in 1992 with The Gardening of Thomas D, an homage to Dante which subsequently toured the United States and France. Staged works for solo performer include Becoming…Unusual: The Education of an Eclectic; three one-act plays: An Idiot Divine, Romeo Sierra Tango and Quit This House; and works for radio including Shoot the Moving Things and Four Songs Lost in a Wall. Writing credits for the theater include Highway Ulysses, Horizon, Orpheus X, And God Created Great Whales, which has been produced three times with the original cast and director, for a total of 227 performances. And God Created Great Whales, Horizon and Orpheus X have run off-Broadway, garnering Drama Desk Nominations and the Lucille Lortel Award. Rinde has received numerous honors and awards for his body of work. In 2012 he was named an inaugural Doris Duke Artist, was honored to receive the 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts for Theatre, a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship, and The American Academy of Arts and Letters 2005 Marc Blitzstein Award. In 2007 Rinde Eckert was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Eckert wrote the text and performed in the multi-media production Slide with composer/guitarist Mackey and the new music ensemble 8th blackbird, which toured to major university campuses and the Ojai Festival. Renamed Lonely Motel by Cedille Records, the project won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance. Eckert and Mackey are members of BIG FARM, a ‘prog-rock’ super group with drummer Jason Treuting (So Percussion) and bassist Mark Haanstra. Rinde Eckert’s own uniquely eclectic music is released on Germany’s Intuition label and through Songline/Tonefield Productions.
Ellen McLaughlin’s acting work includes originating the part of the Angel in Angels in America, playing the role in workshops and regional productions through its Broadway run in 1993-1994. Other favorite work includes the Homebody in Bart Sher’s production of Homebody/Kabul (Intiman, Seattle, WA), Pirate Jenny in A Threepenny Opera (Trinity Rep. Elliot Norton Award), Claire in Albee’s A Delicate Balance, (Arena Stage, Yale Repertory Theater), Margie in Good People (George St. Playhouse. Seattle Rep.) and Rosemary in Outside Mullingar (George St. Playhouse.) New York credits include: String of Pearls (Primary Stages), Blue Window (Manhattan Theater Club), and A Bright Room Called Day (Public Theater). Television work includes several appearances on “Law and Order”. McLaughlin is also a playwright.
To celebrate just a few of the theaters achieving playwright parity on American stages this season, the Kilroys surprised 13 theaters around the country on Thursday, November 19, 2015 with cakes to honor the efforts they are making to produce women and trans* writers. Stealthy playwright allies delivered the cakes, which feature the names of playwrights the theater or festival is producing this season. Pizza and beer were delivered to industry leaders at yours truly, WP THEATER, for “feeding artistic ambitions for nearly four decades!” #CakeDrop
Screen Actors Guild Foundation and Broadway World have partnered for an inaugural filmed Conversations Q&A series to recognize and celebrate the vibrant theatre community in New York City and the union actors who aspire to have a career on the stage and screen. View a featured career Conversations with Cherry Jones moderated by Broadway World’s Richard Ridge of “Backstage with Richard Ridge!”
Cherry Jones starred most recently in the triumphant Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (Tony Nomination), which originated at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is a founding member and where earlier in her career she appeared in more than 25 productions including Twelfth Night, Three Sisters and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Broadway and Off-Broadway: Doubt (Tony, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle and Obie Awards), Lincoln Center Theater’s production of The Heiress (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards); Pride’s Crossing (Drama Desk Award); When We Were Young and Unafraid; The Baltimore Waltz (Obie Award); Faith Healer; Flesh and Blood; Imaginary Friends; A Moon for the Misbegotten (Tony Award nomination); Angels in America; Our Country’s Good (Tony Award nomination); and Roundabout Theatre Company’s productions of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Major Barbara and The Night of the Iguana. Television: President Allison Taylor in “24” (Emmy Award), “What Makes a Family,” “Awake,” the next season of “Transparent” on Amazon, the upcoming series “Mercy Street,” and the upcoming mini-series “11/22/63” starring James Franco. Film: Ocean’s Twelve, Cradle Will Rock, The Horse Whisperer, The Perfect Storm, Erin Brockovich, Signs, The Village, Mother and Child, Swimmers, the upcoming films I Saw the Light, and Fun House opposite Tina Fey.
Photograph of Cherry Jones by Zachary Maxwell Stertz
David Aaron Baker is thrilled to once more share the stage with Cherry Jones after playing her husband in Jon Robin Baitz’s play, The Film Society, directed by the late Roger Rees, at The Williamstown Theater Festival in 1997. David had the great fortune to work with Sarah Ruhl in 2008, when he performed in the Playwrights Horizons production of her play Dead Man’s Cell Phone. He is honored to work again with these extraordinary artists. David attended Illinois State University, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas – Austin and a diploma from The Julliard School.
“RedFarm is indeed groundbreaking” – Time Out New York
Need a reservation at RedFarm in the Upper West Side? Popular restaurant RedFarm doesn’t take reservations but your ticket confirmation for WP’s DEAR ELIZABETH is your ticket in! Email Nina (nina AT redfarmnyc Dot com) to book your after-show seats. You’ll enjoy walking in to your very own table at RedFarm as well as a tasty treat from the kitchen. Enjoy!
Be sure to mention DEAR ELIZABETH when booking and show your confirmation upon arrival. 24 Hour Notice is Required. Red Farm is conveniently located a few doors away from WP Theater at 2170 Broadway (between 76th and 77th Streets). Subject to availability after 9pm. Offer valid until December 5, 2015.
Director Kate Whoriskey most recently directed Lynn Nottage’s Sweat at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Other productions include Ping Pong and Manahatta at the Public through Public Studio, Ruined and Tales from Red Vienna at Manhattan Theatre Club, How I Learned to Drive at Second Stage, The Piano Teacher at the Vineyard Theatre, Oroonoko at Theatre for A New Audience, the world premiere of Fabulation and Inked Baby at Playwrights Horizons, and Massacre by Jose Rivera at the Labyrinth Theatre Company (of which she is a member). Internationally, she directed Magdalena at the Chatelet theatre in Paris and Teatro Muicipal in Sao Paolo. Regionally, she directed Ruined, Vigils, Heartbreak House, The Rose Tattoo and Drowning Crow for The Goodman, The Tempest at Shakespeare Theatre, the world premiere of Intimate Apparel, The Piano Teacher, Life is a Dream, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Antigone, and The Clean House at South Coast Repertory, and Master Builder at the American Repertory Theatre. Nominated for a Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel for her work on Ruined, she has also directed at the Huntington, The Geffen, Baltimore Center Stage, Perseverance Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Sundance Theatre Lab, The Fisher Center and The Eugene O’Neill Center.
Broadway/NY: Hairspray, Sly Fox, Magic Bird, Out of This World, Ziegfeld Follies of 1937 (City Center Encores!), World Premiere of A.R. Gurney’s Family Furniture, Lucky Guy. Regional: World Premieres of Daniel Sullivan’s Inspecting Carol, Ken Ludwig’s Fox on The Fairway at The George Street Playhouse. Winner Best Actor, Berkshire Theater Festival for The Foreigner. VQT Emmy Award Winner for “Newhart,” Three Time Emmy Nominee, Film Critic’s Award Nomination as Best Featured Actor for “Girls” (HBO), recurring on “Gotham,” also “Bosom Buddies,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” “The West Wing,” “E.R.,” “Family Ties,” “White Collar,” “King of Queens,” “Reba,” “Ally McBeal,” “From the Earth to the Moon” (HBO), “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off” (Showtime). Selected Film: That Thing You Do, Polar Express, Suburban Girl, Camp Nowhere, The Ryan White Story, and upcoming Madoff for ABC films.
Becky Ann Baker is most recognized for her mothering skills, or lack thereof, on two Judd Apatow series, “Freaks and Geeks” and “Girls”, where she plays creator Lena Dunham’s mom, and for which she received a Critics Choice nomination. But Becky has appeared on Broadway in both musicals and plays, including Good People, All My Sons, Assassins, Titanic, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Her Off-Broadway credits include: Barbecue at the Public Theater, Suddenly Last Summer for The Roundabout; Comedy of Errors, Othello and Two Gentlemen of Verona for New York Shakespeare Festival; Wonderful Town for City Center Encores; The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told for New York Theatre Workshop; Shanghai Moon and June Moon for Drama Dept.; Durang, Durang for Manhattan Theatre Club; To Whom It May Concern and Laura Dennis at the Signature; The Vagina Monologues at Westside Arts; and more. Becky has performed regionally at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, where she is an artistic associate, the Old Globe, the South Coast Rep, Arena Stage, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey and the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Film credits include “The End of the Tour,” “23 Blast,” “Hope Springs,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Spinning into Butter,” “Stay,” “The Night Listener,” “Gretchen,” “War of the Worlds,” “Two Weeks Notice,” “A Simple Plan,” “Celebrity,” “Men In Black,” “In and Out,” “Sabrina,” “Unstrung Heroes,” “White Squall,” “Lorenzo’s Oil,” and “Come See the Paradise.” Other TV appearances include: “Gotham,” “Madam Secretary,” Person of Interest,” “Elementary,” “The Good Wife,” “Smash,” “Black Box,” “A Gifted Man,” “Kings,” “Nurse Jackie,” “Mercy,” “Storm of the Century,” “Soul Man,” “Ruby Ridge,” “Frasier,” “Star Trek: Voyager,” “Sex and the City,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Oz,” and “Mind Games.” She is a member of the Actor’s Studio, Drama Dept. and Usual Suspects –NYTW. Becky’s best and favorite production: Willa, co-produced with actor/director Dylan Baker.
The premiere of 
