Keen Company Announces the Participants in the 2017 Keen Playwrights Lab
By: Rebecca Russo Feb. 24, 2017
Each season, the Keen Playwrights Lab brings together three mid-career playwrights to develop new full-length plays inspired by Keen Company's mission. Under the leadership of Jeremy Stoller, Keen's Director of New Work, writers meet throughout the year to create new plays that provoke identification, reflection, and emotional connection. The Playwrights Lab culminates with a reading of each new play in the spring, attended by the Keen community, the theater industry, and the general public. Keen's fourth season of the Playwrights Lab will allow Julia Jordan, Andrea Thome and Stefanie Zadravec to develop new plays.
"As we approach first performances for Courtney Baron's When It's You, which was originally developed in last year's Keen Playwrights Lab, it seems the perfect time to welcome three new writers. The Lab has become a unique community for mid career-writers who are too often overlooked in new play development, as well an integral part of Keen itself, by demonstrating the depth and breadth our mission inspires as interpreted by these talented contemporary writers. I am excited to see what beautiful work Julia, Andrea, and Stefanie will develop throughout their time with us. I am also thrilled to welcome Jeremy Stoller on board as Keen's Director of New Work. Jeremy brings a wealth of experience as well as superb taste in great writers. I look forward to working with Jeremy to grow Keen's work with new writers in the years to come," said Jonathan Silverstein, Keen Artistic Director.
"Julia, Andrea, and Stefanie have all shown tremendous insight, heart, and artistry in their plays. As Jonathan and I talked about this year's Lab, it was these writers whose voices and perspectives we felt were necessary, inspiring, and embodying of a "Keen" spirit. I'm eager to support to them as they pursue new projects." added Jeremy Stoller, Director of New Work.
Julia Jordan Musicals; Murder Ballad (book and lyrics - Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics nominations, opening in London this fall with Ramin Karimloo and Kerry Ellis.) Sarah Plain and Tall (book - Kleban Award, Jonathan Larson Award , AT&T Onstage Award.) Upcoming: The Ladykillers Ballad (book and lyrics, with Nathan Larson, composer of TV's Girls" and film Velvet Goldmine). Plays include Boy (Susan Smith Blackburn Honorable Mention) Tatjana In Color (Francesca Primus Prize, Blackburn shortlist), Dark Yellow (Blackburn shortlist.) Film: The Hat (Sundance Film Festival, Bravo Channel) Tell Me Something I Don't Know (starring John Hawkes, Best Short Jackson Hole Film Fest.) Lucille Lortel, Manhattan Theater Club and Juilliard Fellowships. Vice President of The Lilly Awards. Treasurer of the Dramatists Guild.
ANDREA THOME. A bilingual Chilean-Costa Rican, Wisconsin-born mutt, Andrea grew up navigating the multiple landscapes and languages that inhabit her plays. Andrea Thome's play Pinkolandia was awarded the Lark Play Development Center's Launching New Plays program fellowship and received a rolling world premiere in 2013-14 at INTAR Theater in New York, Austin's Salvage Vanguard Theater, Two River Theater in Red Bank, NJ, and Chicago's 16th Street Theater. For The Public Theater, she recently created the community-based play Troy in collaboration with director Laurie Woolery and Public Works' ACTivate Ensemble. She is currently 'translating' Shakespeare's Cymbeline into modern English for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and developing her music-theater work in progress The Necklace of the Dove through New Georges' Audrey residency. Other plays include Undone (Whitman Award for best unproduced play; Kilroys list 2014; presented at Queens College Theater, Victory Gardens' Ignition Festival, INTAR New Works lab, Lark BareBones), Worm Girl (Cherry Red Productions, Washington DC), various short plays and many collaborative projects. Andrea co-directs Fulana, a New York-based, all-Latina satire collective that creates cutting-edge political & cultural parodies online and beyond. Andrea co-created and has directed the Lark's Mexico-US Playwright Exchange Program since 2006, and was a resident playwright at New Dramatists from 2009-2016.
Stefanie Zadravec is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, a playwright-in-residence at The Women's Project Her plays include: Colony Collapse (Theatre@Boston Court: Kilroys List; LA Times Critics Choice); The Electric Baby (Two River Theater, Quantum Theatre, Rorschach Theater); Honey Brown Eyes (Theater J, Working Theatre, SF Playhouse); and currently - The Boat (The Working Theater Commission) and Tiny Houses. Honors include a 2015 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, The Francesca Primus Prize, Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, Women in Arts & Media Collaboration Award, as well as fellowships from NYFA, The Lark, Playwrights Realm, Dramatists Guild, and Sewanee Writers Conference. She has received support for her work through residencies, grants, and commissions from NYSCA, The Edgerton Foundation, The Ford Foundation, SPACE at Ryder Farm, NEA, The LARK, The Mellon Foundation, The Lilly Awards, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Kennedy Center, Play Penn, The Women's Project, Epic Theatre Ensemble, The Barrow Group, and New Dramatists. Her plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and featured in Best Women's Stage Monologues (Smith & Kraus) and The Kilroys: 97 Scenes & Monologues by Women & Trans Writers Volume I (TCG) www.szadravec.com
For more information about the Playwrights Lab and other programs of Keen Company, go to www.keencompany.org
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