Theatre For Young Audiences/USA And Write Now Festival Announce The 2023 Write Now Dorothy Webb Finalists

Theatre of Young Audiences/USA (TYA/USA), the national service organization supporting, connecting, and advocating for the field of theatre for young audiences, will co-present the 2023 Write Now Festival in partnership with Childsplay in May.

This year's focus will be on supporting immersive theatre for young audiences and the two project finalists are The Society of Historic Sonic Happenings (SHSH) and Middlemist Red. The two projects will receive a week-long workshop at Childsplay and the opportunity to present an excerpt of the work for TYA/USA Festival & Conference attendees on Thursday May 11th in Tempe, Arizona.

Write Now, hosted by Childsplay, is a national effort to advocate for playwrights and promote the development of new work for young audiences. Through a biennial national competition and workshop program, Write Now supports the development and sharing of strikingly original plays for young audiences. The 2023 Write Now Biennial Competition will be presented as part of the 2023 TYA/USA National Festival & Conference, the largest gathering of theatre for young audiences professionals in North America. Over 250 artists, educators and administrators will convene at this year's event, held at Childsplay and the Tempe Center for the Arts in Arizona, to experience theatre from around the nation, exchange current practice, and discuss the future of the TYA industry.

"We are truly thrilled to focus on immersive work for young audiences this year, supporting innovative theatremakers who center young people as active participants in the telling of strikingly original stories," says Jenny Millinger, Write Now's Artistic Director. "Our audiences are increasingly becoming content creators and constructors of their own identities across storytelling platforms - immersive theatre is an opportunity to engage them in a rich and collaborative exploration of the art form. By partnering with TYA/USA to present the 2023 Write Now Festival, we hope to spark dialogue about an increasingly widening range of storytelling modalities that appeal to and are co-created with young people."

The Write Now Festival residency provides time and resources for artists to develop their work and experiment with new ideas. The two teams will have up to 20 hours with actors for workshop/rehearsal and will have access to their spaces for an additional 20 hours of build/prep. During the week, each team will share their work to a group of age-appropriate young people and receive dramaturgical feedback. This year's Dorothy Webb Finalists, named in honor of the founder of the Bonderman New Plays Festival/Write Now, are:

The Society of Historic Sonic Happenings (SHSH), is an UP CLOSE Projects Production. Created by Adrienne Kapstein, with sound and interactive prop design by Bhurin Sead and Peter Musante as Artistic Producer. SHSH believes that sound never dies and that the world is filled with hidden sounds of the past. But with the right device, in the right place - and with the audience's help - the lost voices and noises of the past can be heard in the present. Audiences of all ages work directly with SHSH Sound Scientists to preserve these forgotten sounds in special sonic time capsules.

Middlemist Red is created by writer and director Kate Douglas. Middlemist Red aims to reconnect children of the digital age with the importance of conservation through an immersive, analog mystery experience to find a rare plant that has gone missing from a traveling flower show. Tori Sparks will assistant direct and Corey Umlauf will design.

MORE ABOUT LEAD ARTISTS:

Adrienne Kapstein (Lead Artist of The Society of Historic Sonic Happenings (SHSH) is a collaborative theater artist and theater educator creating visually rich, physically adventurous new work and immersive, participatory performance experiences. She is passionate about bringing experimental work to audiences of all ages and sharing live art across generations. Her original theatrical work has been presented at Lincoln Center, Soho Rep, New Victory LabWorks, PS 122, as well as in Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Romania, Croatia, and China. She is Associate Professor and Program Head of the BA Acting and BA Directing International Performance Ensemble (IPE) at Pace School of Performing Arts at Pace University. She is also the co-founder of Movement Theater Studio, the only Lecoq based acting studio in NYC. For more, visit www.adriennekapstein.com

Kate Douglas (Lead Artist of Middlemist Red) is a writer, performer, and gardener. She has over eight years of creating, directing, and performing in immersive experiences, most notably in her position as Associate Artist at The McKittrick Hotel, home of Punchdrunk's Sleep No More. Her theatrical work has been presented by the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Met LiveArts, and The Civilians and developed at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Millay Arts, and Rhinebeck Musicals. She is currently a Colt Coeur Resident Artist and is on faculty at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts. For more, visit www.katedouglasprojects.com

For more information about the Write Now Festival, visit https://writenow.com

For more information about the TYA/USA Festival & Conference, visit https://www.tyausa.org/festival.

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