The Workshop Theater Hosts Honor Roll! At Their Spring 2023 Workshop Intensive

The Workshop Theater has, once again, dedicated a session of their Spring 2023 Workshop Intensive to HONOR ROLL!, an advocacy group for women+ playwrights over 40. The participants for this cycle are Diane Davis, Donna Hoke, Hortense Gerardo and Serena Norr with facilitators Leslie Kincaid Burby and Stephanie Kane.

Inclusion in The Workshop's Intensive represents a continued strategic alliance that HONOR ROLL! has forged within the New York Theater community. By spearheading this initiative, The Workshop Theater pioneers recognition of the oft overlooked ageism/sexism bias, putting them at the forefront of amplifying HONOR ROLL!'s mission.

When asked about the decision to feature HONOR ROLL!, Artistic Director, Thomas Coté said: "The Workshop Theater is thrilled to partner with HONOR ROLL! once again in supporting the development of new writing by women+ playwrights over 40. Our first experience gave us a first-hand look at the stellar HONOR ROLL! roster, and the diverse and inspiring perspectives the playwrights brought to the writers' room. The four selected playwrights in our current Spring Intensive are talented and dedicated, and their participation will enrich The Workshop. We are big fans of the mission, and it is truly OUR honor to join forces with HONOR ROLL!"

The Workshop Theater's mission is the rigorous development and production of new American plays and musicals that transport, challenge, and surprise both artists and audiences.https://www.workshoptheater.org/

HONOR ROLL! is an advocacy and action group of women+ playwrights over 40 as well as our women+ over 40 allies. The term "women+" refers to a spectrum of gender identification that includes women, non-binary identifiers, and trans. https://bit.ly/3jzIj8k

HONOR ROLL! Playwrights:

Diane Davis is a playwright and Artistic Director for Eden Theater Company (ETC). She is currently a Writer-in-Resident at Theatre East, and facilitator for the ETC PlayLab. Her plays were developed at The New Ohio Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Primary Stages, Eden Theater Company, HOWL Playwrights, AMIOS, the Barrow Group, HB Studios, and Goddard College. Her play Complicity received an HB Studio Residency Award. Diane's recent work includes Broken Arpeggio, Girls Play Bass, The Memorial Tree, What's What and The Night Becomes Morning with staged readings/workshops. Diane also produced and directed The Room Series (ETC) - with apartment rooms as the theme for an evening of three short plays (zoom). Prior, she produced Scrambled Porn (Flea Theater), and FlipSide (Flea Theater). Diane earned a BA from Bennington College and is currently working on an MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University. She served as a Board Director for the Amoralist Theatre Company, and currently for the League of Professional Theater Women.

Donna Hoke's work has been seen in 48 states and on five continents, including at Barrington Stage, Barrow Group, Celebration Theatre, Queens Theatre, SilCo Theatre, Theatre Aspen, The Road, Phoenix Theatre, Purple Rose, Skylight, New Jersey Rep, Hens and Chickens (London), The Galway Fringe Festival, and Actors Repertory Theatre of Luxembourg. Plays include BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART (Kilroys List), ELEVATOR GIRL (O'Neill, Princess Grace, and Austin Film Festival finalist), and TEACH (Gulfshore New Works, O'Neill semifinalist). She has been nominated for the Primus, Blackburn, and Laura Pels prizes, and is a three-time winner of the Emanuel Fried Award for Outstanding New Play (SEEDS, SONS & LOVERS, ONCE IN MY LIFETIME). She's also twice received New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Awards to develop HEARTS OF STONE and CANALSIDE, and, in its final three years, Artvoice named her Buffalo's Best Writer-the only woman to ever receive the designation.

Hortense Gerardo is a playwright and anthropologist and the Director of the Anthropology, Performance, and Technology (APT) Program at the University of California, San Diego. Her works have been performed nationally and internationally, including: LaMama Experimental Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, the International Performance Art Festival, and the Nuit Blanche Festival, Toronto. She is a co-founder of the Asian American Playwright Collective (AAPC). Her feature-length documentary Small Steps: Dances of Resilience, won juried awards for Best Environmental Film at the Vancouver Film Festival and Best Dance Film in the Rome International Film Festival. Her play Middleton Heights had its world premiere at Umbrella Stage on March 31 - April 23, 2023. Her new media audience interactive commissioned work, Glacial Incantations, will be presented in April as part of the 2023 Without Walls Festival (WoW) produced by La Jolla Playhouse. For more information go to: www.hortensegerardo.com

Serena Norr is a writer, playwright, and founder of Let's Make a Play, a playwriting program for kids and adults. Her plays have been performed at the Omaha Fringe Festival, White Plains Performing Arts Center, the New Deal Creative Arts Center, Westchester Collaborative Theater, The Players Theater with the Rogue Theater Festival and the NYC Short Play Festival, The Tank, The Flea, the University of Alabama as well as various productions over Zoom. She is a second-rounder at the Austin Film Festival for her play, "Agency for the Lost." Her plays have been published in the "Bittersweet Monologue Collection," "ellipsis... literature & art Drama," and the "Stonecoast Review." She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Westchester Collaborative Theatre, participant in the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive (2021), and the National Women's Theatre Festival (WTF) Directing Program (2022) and Producing/Directing Program (2023). For more information, visit http://www.serenanorr.com/

Workshop Intensive Facilitators:

Leslie Kincaid Burby (She/Her) is a director, dramaturge, and performer dedicated to developing new theatrical work in the New York City area. She has received the New York Innovative Theatre outstanding director award for her Drama Desk nominated production The Navigator by Eddie Antar at The Workshop Theater (New York Times Critic Pick). She also received the New York International Fringe Festival Overall Excellence Award for her direction of Sean-Patrick O'Brien's Zamboni. Over the course of the pandemic, Leslie directed and developed readings of a number of new works, including New Canaan by Jessica Durdock Moreno (featuring Debra Jo Rupp), and American Portraits by Devon O'Brien (featuring Kate Burton). Her independent film, Robin Hood, recently won multiple awards in the Hudson International Film Festival. Leslie is a frequent director for Dephi, Pied Piper, and UP Theatre companies, and is proud to serve as an Associate Artistic Director at The Workshop Theater.

Stephanie Kane (she/her) is a professional theatre artist and educator. In addition to the Workshop, her theatrical homes past and present include Center Theatre Group, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, and The Public Theater. Outside of her theatrical endeavors, Stephanie has worked as Jewish educator for kids of all ages and abilities at Camp Ramah in California, JCC Pittsburgh, Lab/Shul, and the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. Stephanie holds a BFA in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University and currently lives in Brooklyn on sovereign Munsee Lenape and Canarsie land, although she was born and raised in Los Angeles, a fact that shocks people because she's pale, walks fast, and hates the beach.

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