Deneen Reynolds-Knott Awarded The Farm Theater's 2022/23 College Collaboration Project Commission

Now in its ninth season of supporting emerging writers The Farm Theater has awarded their 2022/23 College Collaboration Project Commission to playwright Deneen Reynolds-Knott (Antepartum at The Fire This Time Festival; Shoebox Picnic Road Side: Route One with Alabama Shakespeare Festival).

Ms. Reynolds-Knott will collaborate with Oklahoma City University in Oklahoma City, OK, Centre College in Danville, KY, and Furman University in Greenville, SC. This will be Oklahoma City University's first time participating in The Farm Theater's College Collaboration Project. Furman University and Centre College will be joining the project for the second and fifth time, respectively.

The 2022/23 College Collaboration Project will commence at the beginning of the spring semester when Deneen Reynolds-Knott will have the opportunity to converse with groups of students from each of the partner schools via video conference, to discuss the theme of the play and to include their input on shaping the direction of the piece. Each of the schools will produce the play in-person during the academic year and the playwright will continue to rewrite throughout the process. Oklahoma City University will produce the play in November, Centre College in February of 2023, and Furman University in April 2023. The project will culminate in a reading in June of 2023 in New York City, with a cast consisting of both professional actors and students from each of the partner schools.

The College Collaboration Project has multiple schools commission an early career playwright to write a play that each school will independently produce throughout the academic year. The faculty, students, and playwright collaborate throughout the year in the development of the text. The script will be a full-length play with a minimum of five characters. The majority of the characters will be under thirty years of age so that undergraduate actors can successfully play the roles. The play will reflect the students' thoughts on the theme suggested by the playwright. This will be The Farm Theater's tenth installment of the College Collaboration Project. Past seasons have featured playwrights Lindsay Joy, Micheline Auger, Morgan McGuire, Jan Rosenberg, Kimberly Belflower, Erin Mallon, Judith Leora, Lia Romeo, and Jake Brasch. Lindsay Joy's In The Event of My Death, which was developed in the first year of the program, was produced Off-Broadway by Stable Cable and had a sold out run. The 2017/18 collaboration commission, In the Cotton by Morgan McGuire was awarded the Mark David Cohen National Playwriting Award by the Kennedy Center. Kimberly Belflower's play John Proctor is the Villain was featured on The Kilroy's List and will receive its World Premiere in March 2022 with Studio Theatre in D.C.

Deneen Reynolds-Knott (Playwright) Deneen's outdoor play, Shoebox Picnic Road Side: Route One, had its World Premiere at Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Fall 2021. Her play, Babes in Ho-Land, was featured at Playwrights Foundation's 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and will have a workshop production at Shotgun Players in Winter 2022. Other plays include Flashes & Floaters (2020 Playfest at Orlando Shakespeare Theater), Baton (2018 Premiere Play Festival and workshop reading at Premiere Stages; San Diego Rep's 2021 Black Voices Reading Series; Orlando Shakes' 2017 Playfest; finalist for the 2017 PlayPenn and Bay Area Playwrights conferences) and Antepartum (2020 The Fire This Time Festival). Deneen was a member of Clubbed Thumb's 2019-2020 Early-Career Writers' Group and received the 2021 Clubbed Thumb Constitution Commission. She also received a finalist grant from Clubbed Thumb's 2018 Open-Application Commission. She has developed work with Liberation Theatre Company's Writing Residency, Project Y's Playwrights Group, Rising Circle's INKtank Development Lab and Frank Silvera Workshop's 3in3 Playwright Residency. She received her MFA in film from Columbia University.

The Farm Theater The name is inspired by the "farm" system of baseball whose role is to provide experience and training for developing players. The Farm Theater develops early career artists that may not have the support system afforded others, through workshops, productions, and mentoring. The centerpiece of our programming is The College Collaboration Project. This program is in its ninth year and has so far commissioned ten playwrights, worked in collaboration with twenty colleges, and been featured in American Theatre Magazine and Howl Round. The Farm Theater has produced numerous solo shows including Artistic Director Padraic Lillis' show on suicide awareness Hope You Get To Eleven or What are we going to do about Sally? which was awarded Best Solo Show and Planet Advocate Award at the Planet Connections Theatre Festival. In 2017 The Farm Theater partnered with Planet Connections Theatre Festival to produce Alex Riad's The Floor Is Lava. The play was awarded Best New Play and Best Production of a New Play and The Farm Theater was awarded The Planet Advocate Award for raising money and awareness for Girls Who Code. The Farm Theater also hosts a popular podcast, The Bullpen Sessions, which features working artists talking about how they built their careers. www.thefarmtheater.org

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