PlayPenn Announces Spring 2017 Theater and Playwriting Courses

PlayPenn, Philadelphia's artist-driven organization dedicated to improving the way in which new plays are developed, has announced their Spring 2017 education offerings.

Theatre artists and writers from the region and beyond are invited to register for the organization's various offerings, ranging from one-day master classes to multi-week courses for enthusiasts of all experience levels. Artists Jacqueline Goldfinger, Lynnette Freeman, David Jacobi, Lori Fishcer, Ken Urban, Lauren Yee, Michele Volansky, Rebecca Wright, Mary Tuomanen, and Thomas Coinacky serve as the semester's faculty.

PlayPenn's new online classes and workshops are the result of an extensive self-study where our educators worked, refined, and piloted a limited number of online courses until they felt that they "got it right." PlayPenn uses Zoom, a professional, high quality, stable online meeting service used primarily by business to hold meetings nationally and internationally. Zoom does not require the purchase of special software or a particular operating system. The classroom screen is arranged like The Brady Bunch credit sequence; students can see each person in the class, or they simply click one button to only see the speaker. This system has the intimacy of one-on-one instruction combined with the option to connect with all class members. All instructors are live and students can interact with them directly. They have crafted their curriculum specifically for PlayPenn to make best use of the online format and our system. It's like being in the classroom without having to leave your home (or your PJs!).

Of course, PlayPenn is also offering a host of face-to-face classes in Center City Philadelphia that are perfect for those who are interested in more of a conventional workshop setting.

A full list of PlayPenn's Spring 2017 classes is below. Pre-registration is required for interested students. Class registration and further details can be found by visiting playpenn.org/classes, or by emailing classes@playpenn.org.

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DETAILS AND CLASSES:

Playwriting 101: Nuts and Bolts. Saturday, February 11, 1-6PM, $75, online. Faculty: Jacqueline Goldfinger. Details: Join University of Pennsylvania Playwriting Professor and PlayPenn Director of Education Jacqueline Goldfinger for a down and dirty, nuts & bolts five-hour exploration of the basics of the art and craft of playwriting. Whether you're a professional writer or haven't written a word, this class is great both for polishing skills and picking up new ones.

Where to Start: Auditioning and Acting in New Plays. Saturday, March 4, 10AM-6PM, $120, Asian Arts Initiative (1219 Vine Street, Philadelphia). Faculty: Lynnette Freeman. Details: Join PlayPenn performer Lynnette R. Freeman to learn why she is so popular with our artists, and how you can sharpen your new work skills. As the new work scene grows, both nationally and here in Philadelphia, the most successful performers are going to be the ones who know how to jump in and effectively work on a new play that's in the middle of a development or production process. In this interactive workshop, participants will receive the tools to increase their confidence in auditioning and working with new plays. We'll tackle questions including: Where do I start? How do I prepare? How do I work with a piece that is always changing? What is my function as an actor in this process? How do I work as an effective collaborator in the room with new material? Pre-registration is required!

Seven Week Workshop. March 7-April 18, Tuesdays 6-9PM, $350, SOLD OUT. Faculty: David Jacobi. Details: Join PlayPenn Conference Playwright and University of the Arts Professor David Jacobi for a seven-week exploration of your new work! All genres and lengths of plays are welcome. This workshop is limited to 12 students and will meet for seven weeks over the course of the spring semester. Students are invited to begin a new play during this process or develop a work-in-progress. Sessions will begin with writing prompts and end with artist-driven feedback on student-written scenes. On the final meeting of the workshop, you will hear a 10-page excerpt of your script read by professional actors. Pre-registration is required!

Writing Great Characters. March 20-April 24, Mondays 7-9PM, $225, online. Faculty: Lori Fischer. Details: Create compelling, detailed unforgettable characters with a NYU Playwriting Professor and Dramatists Guild Fellow Lori Fischer! What do Scarlett O'Hara, Hamlet, Blanche DuBois, and Michael Corleone have in common? All are great characters. Whether you are a playwright, screenwriter, novelist, or television writer, the ability to create compelling, unforgettable characters is key. Ultimately, it is the recognizable yet surprising and unique character that draws in readers and audience members and leads them forward. Through a combination of in-class exercises, lectures, reading, and writing assignments, learn how to create detailed, compelling characters. Course topics include the tools of character writing, story structure, theme, character, development, dialogue, conflict driven scene writing. Pre-registration is required!

Adapting the Stories You Love. Friday, April 7, 5-8PM, Saturday, April 8, 11AM-5PM, Sunday, April 9, 11AM-5PM, $275, Wilma Theatre (265 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia). Faculty: Ken Urban. Details: Join Playwrights Center Core Playwright and popular PlayPenn returning teaching artist Ken Urban to explore how to create work based on preexisting material. Adaptation is the theatrical equivalent of sampling. So much of contemporary popular music takes a pre-existing sound and makes it new by changing the pitch and speed, or placing that sound in a new and unexpected context. Our workshop will be a chance to discuss and practice the art of adapting for the stage. We will look at an Ibsen play. Through a series of exercises, we will re-imagine these classics as contemporary plays. We will discuss topics such as borrowing story and structure, and finding common ground between the past and the present. You will leave the workshop with new scenes and a working model for how to adapt a classic text into a new work. Pre-registration is required!

Jumpstart the Play. Friday, May 5, Monday, May 8, and Monday, May 22, 7-10pm, $200, online. Faculty: Lauren Yee. Details: Join PlayPenn and Lincoln Center Playwright Lauren Yee for an adventure into the invigorating unknown.Taking the first step in a play can be paralyzing. It may be you don't know the way in. Or you have too many ideas to settle on just one. In this course, students will explore unexpected source material and playwriting techniques that will help them jumpstart a brand new play. We will explore how to create formally inventive, idiosyncratic worlds that reflect your voice as a writer by casting the playwright in the role of the explorer. How can a unique launch point influence a play's characters, world, voice, and structure? What means of attack can one use to illuminate subject matter in surprising ways? The course will mine outside sources, such as mythology, pop culture, and current events, for answers to these questions. Students will start with nothing but their imaginations and finish the class with an exciting roadmap for your next playwriting adventure as well as a reserve of scenes, monologues, and ideas. Pre-registration is required!

Vital Invisibility: An Introduction to Dramaturgy. May 24-31, Wednesdays 7-9PM, $125, online. Faculty: Michele Volanksy. Details: This class is perfect for theater artists of any stripe seeking to deepen their understanding of generating new work and interpreting known texts. It's especially useful for emerging dramaturgs and the dramaturgically-curious looking to strengthen their skill set or embark upon a professional career as a dramaturg. Dramaturgs can sometimes feel invisible even though their impact on a piece or process is priceless. Join PlayPenn Artistic Associate and nationally-renowned dramaturg Michele Volansky to delve into the wide-ranging tool kit of a professional dramaturg and learn how you can apply their tools to any process. Pre-registration is required!

Collaborative Writing for All Theater Artists with Applied Mechanics. May 8-22, Mondays 5:30-8:30PM, Tuesday, May 23 from 5:30-8:30PM, $175, Asian Arts Initiative (1219 Vine Street, Philadelphia). Faculty: Applied Mechanics' Rebecca Wright, Mary Tuomanen, and Thomas Choinacky. Details: Applied Mechanics generates an abundance of material so that each word or idea is not overly-precious; when the best idea presents itself, we let the others fall away. In this workshop, participants are gently guided through concentrated exercises in which objects, landscapes, images, movement and text become provocations to jar the writer and other creators out of familiar patterns in which not the ego but the id does the driving.This method strives to find the evocative over the didatic, the dangerous over the familiar. Individual research is combined and translated into staging proposals, soundscapes and texts which can be collaged together in startling ways. The workshop also provides artists the opportunity to participate in exercises in which we scavenger hunt for creative dramturgy; bringing disparate elements together in a way that encourages bold, poetic and often surprising connections. Finally, participants ricochet off one another's ideas, learning to rely on each other as collaborative allies and face complex challenges together. Pre-registration is required!

ABOUT THE FACULTY:

Jacqueline Goldfinger is an award-winning playwright who has taught playwriting at PlayPenn, University of Pennsylvania, University of California, San Diego, McCarter Theatre, and around the world. Her work has been seen at theaters including: The Kennedy Center, La MaMa (NYC), FringeArts, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Arden Theatre, Azuka Theatre, Flashpoint Theatre, Seattle Public, Barrington Stage, Vermont Stage, and elsewhere. Her work is supported by NEA ArtWorks, Independence Foundation, Producer's Fund, Yaddo, PlayPenn Conference, Lark Playwrights Week, and others. Read more about her work online: www.jacquelinegoldfinger.com

Lynnette R. Freeman is a multidisciplinary artist who hails from East Cleveland, Ohio. Primarily an actress, she considers herself a storyteller who uses her chosen mediums of acting, dance, and writing to reflect and celebrate human experience. She is a graduate oF Brown University with a focus in Creative Writing and Performance, and holds a MFA in Acting from the Brown/Trinity Rep Conservatory. Her previous roles include Ruth in A Raisin in the Sun (Trinity Rep, Arkansas Rep), Lena in Clybourne Park (Dorset Theatre Festival, Barrington Stage), African Woman in Waking Sun and Kentucky (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Mrs. Muller in Doubt (Music Theatre of Connecticut, CT Theatre Critics Nomination for Best Actress), Carmen/Helene in Luz (LaMama), and Reheema Abu-Salaam in the world premiere of In A Daughter's Eyes and Pretty Mbane in the world premiere of The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane at InterAct Theatre. She has performed in dozens of new work processes, from table reads to readings and workshops to performances, at companies including the PlayPenn Conference and New Black Fest. Lynnette has been a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre (a theatre that specializes in the development of new work in NYC) since 2013. In addition, she is an accomplished teaching artist and dancer.

David Jacobi's plays have been performed throughout the U.S. and in China, including the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, FringeNYC, Penghao Theatre, Sideshow Theater, and 798 Dashanzi Art District. His work has been developed at Portland Center Stage, Cutting Ball Theater, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Kennedy Center MFA Playwrights Workshop, Pig Iron Theatre Company, and PlayPenn Conference. He is a winner of the Holland New Voices Award, Kennedy Center Theatre for Young Audiences Award, and has been nominated for the Weissberger Award. He received a BFA in Dramatic Writing from Purchase College and an MFA from UC San Diego. He teaches playwriting at the University of the Arts.

Lori Fischer is a New York University Harry Kondoleon Graduate Award in Playwriting recipient and a 2008-09 Dramatists Guild Fellow. Up next, her play Greener Pastures will be produced in 2017 at the Cumberland County Playhouse. Lori received her M.F.A. from the N.Y.U. Dramatic Writing Department. Recent Theater Credits: Lori and co-writer Don Chaffer's musical The Sparkley Clean Funeral Singers was produced at Capital Repertory Theatre and the Cumberland County Playhouse. Sparkley is a 2012 Richard Rogers Award finalist and is published by Samuel French. Lori is the author of the critically acclaimed musical Barbara's Blue Kitchen, which played at The Adirondack Theatre Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse and finally Off-Broadway at The Lamb's Theatre. Published by Samuel French. Is This Heaven, Evan by Lori Fischer, Don Chaffer and Lori Chaffer, produced in the BeSpoke Musicals Festival at The York Theatre Company, NYC. In 2017, Lori's play Petie is getting produced in NYC. Lori's work has also been seen at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Midtown International Theatre Festival and the Capitol Fringe Festival. Film Credits: Lori is a 2014 Independent Vision Award Nominee for Outstanding achievement in Screenwriting for her feature film Chasing Taste. Chasing Taste was also the Feature Comedy Award Winner at the 2014 Manhattan Film Festival as well as at the 2013 Burbank International Film Festival and an official selection at the 2014 Visionfest Film Festival, the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema and the 2015 Sedona International Film Festival, 2015 Seoul International Food Film Festival, 2015 New Filmmakers NYC. The film is distributed by Seed&Spark and is available on ITunes and Verizon FIOS.

Ken Urban is a playwright and screenwriter based in New York. His plays have been produced around the country and in London including Off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 59E59 Theatres, SPF at the Public, and Studio 42. Awards include the Weissberger Award, Huntington Theater Playwriting Fellowship, Headlands Artist Residency, Djerassi Artist Residency, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, and MacDowell Colony Fellowships. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and Methuen Drama.

Lauren Yee holds a BA from Yale and a MFA in Playwriting from UCSD. She was a Dramatists Guild fellow, a MacDowell fellow, a member of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group, a Playwrights Center Core Writer and a Page One Resident at Playwrights Realm. Her work has been seen and developed by Cleveland Public, Goodman Theater, Lincoln Center/LCT3, San Francisco Playhouse, Mu Performing Arts, Second Stage Theatre, Centerstage, Orlando Shakespeare, Kitchen Dog, and many others. Lauren is a member of the Ma-Yi Theatre Writers Lab. She is currently under commission from the Denver Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Lincoln Center, Mixed Blood, Portland Center Stage, South Coast Rep and Trinity Rep. For more information, see her website: laurenyee.com.

Michele Volansky, PhD, is Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Drama at Washington College. She is also Associate Artist and Head Dramaturg for the annual PlayPenn New Play Development Conference in Philadelphia. In her career, she has worked on over 150 new and established plays, having served on the artistic staffs at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Steppenwolf, and Philadelphia Theatre Company. She is the 1999 inaugural recipient of the Hayes Award for Dramaturgy and a past President of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.

Applied Mechanics is a collaborative ensemble that has been making original, immersive theater since 2009. Founded by director Rebecca Wright and designer Maria Shaplin, the company's inaugural show put a fishing village in a West Philly apartment on Valentine's Day and invited audience members to explore the town as the myth of the Selkie unfolded around them, complete with a saw-playing seal. Since then, Applied Mechanics has become a standing ensemble of five artists and created nine original works. Their adventures have included touring from Texas to Maine with their invasion play Portmanteau, rocking out as their all-girl band the Cherry Jones Administration, condensing the Napoleonic Empire into an hour-long movement opera with 26-actors, conducting a workshop on immersive storytelling at Microsoft, and winning a cult following with their revolutionary feminist punk play, We Are Bandits. They host bi-annual Community Dinners - free home-cooked meals that anyone is welcome to attend - and ahve thrown six excellent immersive theme parties, including a Science Fair at the Chemical Heritage Foundation and an adolescence-themed Awkward Ball. They have garnered grants from the Wyncote Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, the Fels Foundation, Network of Ensemble Theaters, and the Charlotte Cushman Foundation, among others. They have been featured in American Theater Magazine and presented by the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts and the Annenberg Center for Performing Arts. Applied Mechanics is Rebecca Wright, Maria Shaplin, Jessica Hurley, Thomas Choinacky, and Mary Tuomanen. They are based in Philadelphia. They share a home-cooked meal at every rehearsal. www.appliedmechanics.us

Rebecca Wright is a director-creator based in Philadelphia, and the artistic director of Applied Mechanics with whom she has created ten immersive performance pieces. Recent credits include At Home with the Humorless Bastard with Annie Wilson at FringeArts, Kafka's The Metamorphesis and Shaw's St. Joan with Quintessence Theater Group, Sarah Flood in Salem Mass at The Flea (NYC), Sophie Gets the Horns with The Riot Group (NYC and touring), and Feed and We are Bandits with Applied Mechanics. Rebecca has worked with students at the University of Michigan, the University of the Arts, Temple University, Arcadia University, Swarthmore College, the University of Minnesota, and Columbia University, where she created and directed Joan of Arc: Voices in the Fire with MFA students and Kristin Linklater.

Mary Tuomanen is a performer and playwright educated at the Lecoq School for Movement Theater in Paris. Her play shave been developed at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville, Theatre Exile, the Foundry, and the Dael Orlandersmith Solo Performance Residency at the Kimmel Center. Her solo work has been performed at the Kimmel Center's SEI Inovation Studio, the Annenberg Center, Bloomsberg Theatre Ensemble, FringeArts, and University of Pennsylvania's Penn Radicals conference. Her play Marcus/Emma is premiering at InterAct this season and her Orbiter 3 play Peaceable Kingdom will be co-produced with Christ Church Neighborhood House.

Thomas Choinacky is a performance artist and playwright who finds equal expression in the creation of new performance and in organizing the convening of artists and audiences around ideas. He founded SoLow Festival, an annual 11-day performance fesival, and is a company member of Applied Mechanics. Thomas has been a grantee of 1812 Productions Jilline Ringle Solo Performance Program (Thomas is Titanic) and has been awarded artist residencies at Kutuuritehas Polymer in Tallin, Estonia and Elsewhere in Greensboro, NC. His interest in the use of time and space in performance has led to Magnitute (a nine-hour long performance viewable through a peephole) and Substance (staged throughout a South Philly apartment). 2017 projects include A User's Manual, This is My Allowance, and an exhibition at Terminal 136 in San Antonio, TX. thomaschoinacky.com

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PlayPenn is a 12-year old artist-driven organization dedicated to improving the way in which new plays are developed, inviting playwrights to engage in risk-taking, boundary-pushing work free from the pressures of commercial consideration. The organization's flagship annual new play development Conference and year-round development workshops in cooperation with producing theatres result in staged readings of at least 10 new plays each year for over 1,800 artists, producers, and theatergoers. Additionally, PlayPenn's rapidly expanding educational programs-which include 15-17 in-person and online classes annually with notable instructors, application assistance, personalized dramaturgy services, plus The Foundry, a three-year membership group for emerging playwrights resident in Philadelphia-serve another 230+ playwrights from the region and across the nation. PlayPenn supports artists at all career stages across a broad spectrum of cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender experience. Since 2005, PlayPenn has helped to develop over 100 new plays from infancy to a state closer to production-readiness. Nearly 60% of these plays have gone on to more than 275 professional productions at esteemed institutions in the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere around the world, including the London's National Theatre, National Theatre of Israel, English Theatre Berlin, Roundabout Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, Atlantic Theatre, Second Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, LaJolla Playhouse, Denver Center Theatre, South Coast Repertory, and a host of theatres in the Philadelphia region, in cities across the country and around the world. In 2017, PlayPenn will celebrate the first of its developed plays to hit a Broadway stage-JT Rogers' Oslo at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.

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