Chicago Dramatists Welcomes Six New Resident Playwrights

Chicago Dramatists Welcomes
Six New Resident Playwrights

Chicago Dramatists has appointed six new playwrights to its Resident Playwright program, Artistic Director Russ Tutterow announced today. The new Residents in this 30th anniversary season are Mary RutH Clarke, Cheryl Coons, Christopher De Paola, Sarah Gubbins, David Scott Hay, and Jon Steinhagen.
 
“Chicago Dramatists is proud to include these outstanding writers among the ranks of its Resident Playwrights, which now total forty,” said Tutterow, “We are very excited about their collective excellence and diversity. Through our long-standing Residency program, we seek to nurture accomplished, Chicago-based dramatists who will make significant contributions to The National Theatre.” Since 1979, theatres across the country have looked to Chicago Dramatists for the most promising new plays and playwrights.
 
New Residents’ Showcase, January 10, 2009
The public is invited to join Chicago Dramatists and its playwrights in welcoming and sampling the work of new Residents at the 5th Annual New Resident Playwrights’ Showcase on Saturday, January 10, 2009, at 2:00 PM. The afternoon will feature staged readings of selected scenes from their plays, followed by a discussion with the playwrights and a wine and cheese reception in the theatre lobby. A $5 donation will be requested for admission. Reservations will not be taken.
 
MARY RUTH ClarkE writes for the stage and screen. She co-wrote and starred in the original low-budget “Meet The Parents” and adapted it into the blockbuster “Meet the Parents” starring Robert De Niro, for which she shares story credit with Greg Glienna.  Her play “Suffer The Long Night,” also co-written with Greg Glienna, was produced this summer in Los Angeles at the Meta Theater.  Other productions include: “Zap!” at Live Bait Theater, “Mrs. Lee” at Chicago Dramatists, and “How Are We On Time” at Strawdog (which was the only play ever performed as part of Chicago Public Radio’s Stories On Stage.)  Ms. Clarke is also a dramaturg with the Prop Thtr New Plays Festival.  She has doctored many screenplays, three of which have gone on to be produced.  She is a “trained brain” in product innovation, packaging, and brand positioning.  In short, she has created a new gum, named a Disney theme park, interviewed kids on Ritalin, and endeavored to make coherent sense of American consumers and their needs.  It is not always pretty.  Ms. Clarke has an MFA from Emerson College, a BFA in Theater and a BFA in Art History from Ohio University.
 
Cheryl Coons is a lyricist and playwright. She has written more than a dozen musicals which have received professional productions, including “At Wit’s End,” which received the Carbonell Award for Best New Work for its world premiere at Florida Stage and was produced at Northlight Theatre in 2003.  Her musical “River’s End” received the ASCAP Foundation Harold Arlen Musical Theatre Award and the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Original Script and Original Score for its world premiere production at Marin Theatre Company.  “River’s End” was featured in the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival and received the Theatre for the American Musical Award.  Ms. Coons wrote lyrics for Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s productions of “Merry Wives of Windsor” and “Measure for Measure.”  She was co-lyricist for “Sylvia’s Real Good Advice” (Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work), “Female Problems” (After Dark Award for Best Music and Lyrics), and “Phantom of the Country Opera” (published by Music Theater International).
 
CHRISTOPHER DE PAOLA is a Cuban playwright and actor.  Most recently, his play “The Imagine Man” was presented in the Victory Gardens' festival “Ignition: Emerging Playwrights of Color.”  He spent all of 2007 as head writer and actor on a television series produced and taped in Chicago.  His two plays “Morning Traffic” and “DreamWater” were commissioned and published by Pearson Education/Scott Foresman.  His plays “Streets Come Knocking” and “Recovered” were finalists in Chicago Dramatists 2006 and 2007 Many Voices Project.  Productions include: “What I Knew Then” (Doppelgang Productions, NYC); “The Dialogue Between Men & Women” (Intar Theater & The Theater Studio, NYC).  He also has had various workshops and readings in and around NYC, Chicago, Ohio and Florida.  Mr. De Paola is also an Emmy Award nominated actor.
 
SARAH GUBBINS is a playwright from Chicago.  Her most recent play, “Fair Use,” was produced at the Steppenwolf Garage as part of Steppenwolf’s First Look Series in 2008.  “Fair Use” is a Finalist in the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition and won the Agnes Nixon Playwriting Award at Northwestern University.  Her short plays have been produced as part of Collaboraction’s Sketchbook 5, The Rhino Fest, Estrogen Fest, and Snapshots.  Her play “Out of Order” was a Heideman Award Finalist in the 2007 Actors Theatre of Louisville Ten-Minute Play Contest.  Ms. Gubbins recently completed an M.F.A. in Writing for the Screen and Stage at Northwestern University.
 
David Scott HAY is an award-winning Chicago playwright. The Chicago Sun-Times has called him “a new generation Albee-Mamet-Shepard.”  He is the co-founder and Literary Director for the award-winning Chicago theatre company Visions & Voices, and has twice served as a Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Theatre Festival.  He made his directorial film debut with his adaptation of his play “Hard Scrambled” starring Kurtwood Smith (“That 70s Show,” “RoboCop”).  The film premiered at Cinequest San Jose Film Festival (2006) and went on to win Best Dramatic Feature at the Garden State Film Festival.  Variety called it “Raffishly humorous.”  He is currently developing his follow-up movie “Awol Blues,” and contemplating two new plays:  “Star” and “Basrah Honey.”
 
Jon Steinhagen has received four non-Equity Jeff Awards and six After Dark Awards for (variously) writing, original music, music direction or acting.  His many plays, shorter works and musicals, which have been produced around the country, include “People Like Us,” “Inferno Beach,” “Emma and Company,” “The Applewood Pistols,” “The Arresting Dilemma of Mister K,” “Something More Comfortable,” “Can’t Happen Here,” “The Analytical Engine” and “The Teapot Scandals,” which received a Jeff nomination for Best New Work – Musical in 2007.  He remains an active music director/pianist/arranger and is a member of the Chicago Federation of Musicians.  Onstage, Mr. Steinhagen recently appeared in “Mack & Mabel” (Circle Theatre), “1776” (Signal Ensemble Theatre) and “Plaza Suite” (Eclipse Theatre), and will next appear in “Six Degrees of Separation” (Signal).  He has twice acted as Master of Ceremonies of the non-Equity Jeff Awards and is an Artistic Affiliate at Bohemian Ensemble Theatre and Artistic Associate at Porchlight Music Theatre.
 
HAPPENING NOW:
 
Ten Cent Night by Resident Playwright Marisa Wegrzyn – Open Now!  Thru October 26, 2008
The Saturday Series – every Saturday at 2pm a reading of a new play in progress
Playwrights Studio Classes – Fall session begins October 4, 2008