Page 73 Announces Self-Designed and Self-Directed Retreats for Playwrights

Page 73 today announced a new playwright-supporting initiative: self-directed retreats, tailored to writers' individual needs and preferences. In lieu of the organization's usual Summer Residency, this year Page 73 offers four playwrights in its community-current Page 73 Fellows Bleu Beckford-Burrell and Emma Goidel, two-time Interstate 73 member Amina Henry, and 2019 Interstate 73 member Jessica Huang-the opportunity to design their own week-long professional writing retreats, with Page 73 covering expenses for housing, travel, and food, with an additional $1,000 stipend.

Across their respective retreats, the playwrights will have regular check-ins with the Page 73 artistic team and document moments of their trip to share upon their return. In August, Page 73 will hold a public Zoom event, bringing the four playwrights together to recount their writing experiences, with Page 73 Artistic Director Michael Walkup and Page 73 Associate Producer Kari Olmon.

The writing retreats are a direct response to Page 73's many conversations with playwrights across the pandemic. Says Michael Walkup, "We were hearing frustrations that being creative, generating new ideas and new pages, was often hampered by living circumstances-being 24/7 in the same small apartment, in constant proximity to loved ones or roommates. We always emphasize our communal Summer Residency as 'time out of time,' for a playwright to step away from daily responsibilities and make serious progress on a project. These individual retreats aim to recreate that in a way that is safe during the pandemic." It is one of many ways the organization has reconsidered its approach to fostering writers' careers amidst the obstacles the theater world-and those who seek to make a living within it-have faced in the last year.

Not long after two recent Page 73 productions-Michael R. Jackson's Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop (co-produced with and presented at Playwrights Horizons) and Zora Howard's STEW-garnered immense critical and audience acclaim, the pandemic struck; continuing on the same course became, for all of theater, an impossibility. Staying true to their mission despite disruption, Page 73 decided to focus on their fundamental aim of supporting groundbreaking playwrights whose voices the New York theater community at large has yet to hear. Through programs including Interstate 73, the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship-which the company also doubled this year to include two playwrights (Bleu Beckford-Burell and Emma Goidel, returning for another year following her 2020 fellowship)-its ongoing series of 11-day playwright virtual residencies and New Play Conversations, and now these writing retreats, Page 73 aims to help playwrights ready work for a time when audiences return to theaters. The organization last year launched their Time Capsule, a collective journaling project drawing on the keen observation of playwrights to create a virtual record of experiences from this moment that will be unlocked in five, and again in ten, years.

About the Writers

Bleu Beckford-Burrell is a first-generation Jamaican-American actor/playwright. Born and raised in New York City, she also works for non-profit organizations where she teaches acting to teens. Her plays include: P.S.365 (2019 O'Neill Finalist), showcased at EST (Youngblood Workshop Series) and The National Black Theatre (Keep the Soul Alive reading series); Lyons Pride (2018 BAPF, Princess Grace Award Finalist, 2019 The Kilroy's Honorable Mention, and Yale Drama Series Runner Up), showcased at Playwrights Realm (Ink'd Festival of New Plays) and EST (Bloodwork Reading Series); La Race (2020 Normal Ave Finalist and O'Neill, BAPF Semi-finalist,) upcoming showcases at Faultline Theatre (Irons in the Fire) and Page 73 (Virtual Residency). She is the 2021 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow, a member of the 2020-2021 Interstate 73 writers group, and a Colt Coeur resident. She received the Playwrights Horizons Jody Falco & Jeffrey Steinman Commission for Emerging Playwrights (2020) and has been nominated for South Coast Repertory Elizabeth George Emerging Writer Commission (2021). M.F.A. Rutgers University. BleuBeckford.com

Emma Goidel's plays include Women and Children (Page 73 residency), The Gap (Barrymore Award, Kilroys List 2019), A Knee That Can Bend (Nominee, ATCA/Steinberg Award & Lanford Wilson Award), Local Girls (Finalist, Princess Grace Award), and We Can All Agree To Pretend This Never Happened (EST, Òran Mór, Tiny Dynamite/InterAct). She is the 2020 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow and a member of the 2020-2021 Interstate 73 writers group. Her work has also been presented by Ars Nova, Clubbed Thumb, InterAct, LAByrinth, Playwrights Realm, Playwrights' Center, NYSAF, and PlayPenn's the Foundry. She is a co-founder of Orbiter 3, and a Kilroy.

Amina Henry is a Brooklyn-based a??playwright. Productions include:a?? The Johnsons, Hunter John and Jane,a?? Ducklings a??and a??The Animals a??at JACK, New Light Theater'sa?? The Great Novela?? ata?? The Flea,a?? Bullya?? at Interrobang Theater, SUNY Purchase and Clubbed Thumb's 2019 WinterWorks Festival, and HERO Theater's a??Troy a??(Los Angeles, CA). a??Her work has been developed and/ora??produced by: a??The New Group, Project Y Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Kitchen Dog Theater, among others. She is a New Georges Affiliate Artist.a??

Jessica Huang is a playwright based in New York, from Minnesota. She is the inaugural recipient of the 4 Seasons Residency; the 2019 resident playwright at Chance Theater; a 2018 MacDowell Fellow; and a three-time Playwrights' Center Fellow. Her work includes The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin (2018 Barry and Bernice Stavis Award, 2017 Kilroy's List), Mother of Exiles (2020 Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, 2020 Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award, 2020 Kendeda Prize Finalist), Transmissions in Advance of the Second Great Dying, and Purple Cloud. She has commissions with Manhattan Theatre Club, TimeLine Theatre Company, Audible, Theater Masters, History Theatre, and Theater Mu. Her work has been seen or read at New York Stage and Film, The New Group, Atlantic Theater Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Old Globe, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, The Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Minnesota Museum of American Art, Yellow Earth Theatre and more. She has received awards from the Sloan Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Jessica co-founded and co-directs Other Tiger Productions, a theatrical production company with a mission to pursue multidisciplinary collaborations, intentional inclusivity and a re-examination of traditional theater practices. She has been a member of The Civilians R&D Group, Page 73's Interstate 73 and Ars Nova Play Group. She is a graduate of the Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

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