Playwright Jan Rosenberg to Take Part in The Farm Theater's 2017/18 College Collaboration Project

The Farm Theater will present their 2017/18 College Collaboration Project with playwright Jan Rosenberg in collaboration with students and faculty at Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama (Professor of Theatre, Alan Litsey) and West Chester University in West Chester, PA (Associate Professor, Len Kelley).

The 2017/18 Project will commence on February of 2017 with the playwright Jan Rosenberg interviewing students of the participating schools on the topic she will be exploring through the development of the play. This year's theme deals with addictive behavior around food and body image. The play will be workshopped in NYC in August with professional actors. The schools will each produce the play independently during the 2017/18 academic year. The playwright will be in residence for part of the rehearsal process for rewrites and will attend the productions. The project culminates in a public reading of the play in NYC with a cast made up of professional actors and student actors from each of the 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 fourth College Collaboration Project. The first Project, Lindsay Joy's In The Event of My Death, was developed by Ashland University, Centre College, and Clark University and was produced by Stable Cable Lab Co. to a sold out run in NYC, August 2016.

Micheline Auger's play Love 95 Times was developed by SUNY Brockport, University of West Florida, and Centre College and is currently nominated for the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award.

Morgan McGuire's play The Tanner and the Cotton is currently in development with Carroll, Prince George, and Howard Community Colleges in partnership with MACCPAC (Maryland Area Community College Performing Arts Collective).

Jan Rosenberg (Playwright) is a two-time Eugene O'Neill semi-finalist for her plays How To Destroy An American Girl Doll and What's Wrong With You. Other plays include Do Not Leave Unattended (Primary Stages ESPA*Drills Finalist), The Discarded, The Preservation of Mythical Creatures, Nice Monsters, Sweet, TACT, Pets, and Penny. She is also the screenwriter of an original TV pilot titled Treat Yourself, which takes place in an eating disorder treatment facility. Her plays have been produced and performed in collaboration with Barefoot Theatre Company, LAByrinth Theater Company, Vertigo Theater, Wide Eyed Productions, The One Minute Theater Festival, Tangent Theater, and several others. She received her B.A in Playwriting and Fiction from The New School. She is a contributing writer and blogger for Book Riot and a founding member of the female playwright group The Beehive Collective. She is honored to be collaborating with The Farm Theater, having been mentored by Padraic Lillis since writing her first play at age 19 (almost a decade ago)!

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. The Farm Theater since its inception has hosted Bullpen Sessions, which are free bi-monthly conversations between special guests and early career artists. Special Guests for the Bullpen Sessions have included Rajiv Joseph, Lucas Hnath, Anne Washburn, Paul Schnee, and Halley Feiffer. The Farm Theater also offers skill-building workshops throughout the year. The Farm Theater was inspired from Founding Artistic Director Padraic Lillis' twenty-five years of experience working directly with over 2,000 early career artists, developing multiple award winning new plays, and collaborating with artists working at the highest level in their field. For more information, visit www.thefarmtheater.org.

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