The Workshop Theater to Host Honor Roll! At Their Winter 2022 Workshop Intensive

The Workshop Theater has dedicated a session of their Winter 2022 Workshop Intensive to HONOR ROLL!, an advocacy group for women+ playwrights over 40. The participants for this inaugural cycle are Kimberly Fraher, Mildred Inez Lewis, Dana Schwartz, and Jane Denitz Smith with facilitators Leslie Kincaid Burby and Stephanie Kane.

Inclusion in The Workshop's Winter Intensive represents a strategic alliance that HONOR ROLL! has forged within the New York Theater community. By spearheading this initiative, The Workshop Theater pioneers recognition of the oft overlooked ageism/sexism bias, putting them at the forefront of amplifying HONOR ROLL!'s mission.

When asked about the decision to feature HONOR ROLL!, Artistic Director, Thomas Coté said: "The Workshop Theater is thrilled to partner with HONOR ROLL! in supporting the development of new writing by women+ playwrights over 40. Given the stellar HONOR ROLL! roster, it is no surprise that the four selected playwrights in our current Writers Intensive are talented and dedicated, with diverse and inspiring perspectives to bring to the writers' room. We are big fans of the mission, and it is truly OUR honor to join forces with HONOR ROLL!"

The Workshop Theater's mission is the rigorous development and production of new American plays and musicals that transport, challenge, and surprise both artists and audiences. https://www.workshoptheater.org/

HONOR ROLL! is an advocacy and action group of women+ playwrights over 40 as well as our women+ over 40 allies. The term "women+" refers to a spectrum of gender identification that includes women, non-binary identifiers, and trans. https://bit.ly/3jzIj8k

HONOR ROLL! Playwrights:

Kym Fraher is a playwright who also spends her time helping children develop their language in Early Intervention. She has participated in the Writing lab for Women's Theater Alliance, New Colony's Writer's Room program, SPARK Creative Works virtual showcase, and The Magnetic Theatre's One Act Play Festival 2021. She is eager to continue to explore the human condition through narrative and hopes that her plays help bring new perspectives to others. She thanks her family and especially Clarence, who has encouraged her since the beginning.

Mildred Inez Lewis writes and directs for theater, screen, and the digital space. A Dramatists Guild member, she writes with the Antaeus Theatre Company, Company of Angels, Ensemble Studio Theatre-Los Angeles, PlayGround-LA, and Towne Street Theatres. Recent productions include JAB, CROSS, HOOK which appeared in the 2022 Fade to Black festival. In 2021, GHOSTS OF BLACKNESS, a hybrid production was commissioned by the Lucille Lortel Foundation, National Black Theatre and Harlem9. Audio work includes MEETS PRINCE, LOVES FROG for the 2022 Feminist Fairytales series. $10 AND A TAMBOURINE was featured in Antaeus' Zip Code 2021 podcast series. Recent publications include THE GIFT with Broadway Play Publishing and ECLOSION with NextStage Press. Mildred is from NYC and a graduate of Stuyvesant High School.

Dana Schwartz is a Los Angeles writer, director, producer, and actress. Her play "Playaz" was a 2019 O'Neill Finalist and had its World Premiere in November 2021 at the Atwater Playhouse produced by Moving Arts. Her award-winning play "Early Birds" had its World Premiere in 2019, and is published by Next Stage Press . "Perspective" enjoyed its World Premiere at Theater at the Museum at LACMA. "The PTA" and "That Time She Proposed" were in several productions of the internationally renowned Car Plays, notably at REDcat LA, Disney Hall, Segerstrom Arts and Costa Mesa. "Undead" was produced at Theater Roulette in Cleveland in 2021, "Magical Roots $20" will be part of the Women in the Arts and Media Collection in 2021, and "O My Days" is published by Montag Press. She is co-creator, writer, and stars in the 9 episode Zoom series "Isolation Inn", currently airing online. As an actress she has performed all around the world. She is the co-creator and Producer of Theater at the Museum at LACMA and is currently the Producer of the MADlab New Play Development Program at Moving Arts, where she is a company member.

Jane Denitz Smith (she/her) is an artist living in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts. Most recently, her one-act Our Lady of Broad Street was part of the Road Theatre's Summer 2021 Playwrights Festival. She looks forward to a Winter 2022 reading of her new full-length play Our Own Flesh and Blood in Hudson, New York. Full-length play I Am, You Are, We Were saw a staged reading at Berkshire Voices/ Berkshire Playwrights Lab, and her one-act musical, The Marrow in the Bone, workshopped at Barn Arts Collective (Tremont, ME). Our Lady of Broad Street premiered at New Perspectives Theater (NYC) and was also selected for performance at Festival de Teatro Alternativo in Bogotá, Colombia. A partial list of additional credits includes: Capital Region 24-Hour Theatre Project at the University at Albany, Boston Theatre Marathon, Philadelphia Primary Stages, Curio Theatre (Philadelphia), and Made in the Berkshires Festival. Jane has also published three YA novels with HarperCollins and a board book for Workman Publishers. Since 2013, she has been a Playwright-in-Residence for Barrington Stage Company's Playwright Mentoring Project, a collaboration of theater artists and under-served teens.

Workshop Intensive Facilitators:

Leslie Kincaid Burby is a director, dramaturge, and performer dedicated to developing new theatrical work in the New York City area. She has received the New York Innovative Theatre outstanding director award for her Drama Desk nominated production The Navigator by Eddie Antar at The Workshop Theater (New York Times Critic Pick). She also received the New York International Fringe Festival Overall Excellence Award for her direction of Sean-Patrick O'Brien's Zamboni. Leslie recently directed a critically acclaimed production of The Chekhov Dreams by John McKinney at the Beckett Theatre. She is a frequent director for Dephi, Pied Piper, and UP Theatre companies, and is proud to serve as an Associate Artistic Director at The Workshop Theater.

Stephanie Kane (she/her) is a professional theatre artist and educator. In addition to the Workshop, her theatrical homes past and present include Center Theatre Group, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, and The Public Theater. Outside of her theatrical endeavors, Stephanie has worked as Jewish educator for kids of all ages and abilities at Camp Ramah in California, JCC Pittsburgh, Lab/Shul, and the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. Stephanie holds a BFA in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University and currently lives in Brooklyn on sovereign Munsee Lenape and Canarsie land, although she was born and raised in Los Angeles, a fact that shocks people because she's pale, walks fast, and hates the beach.