Happy New Year! I hope your holiday season was filled with festive fun and a good amount of cheer. I am reshaping my creative practice to be more sustainable for myself and my family - staying subscribed to this letter will help you learn how to connect with the varied projects coming to fruition in 2025! Reader I am so glad you are here.
Established in 2018, the annual Neukom Playwriting Award considers plays that address what it means to be a human in a computerized world. The award is a partnership between the Neukom Institute, the Department of Theater, and Northern Stage, the professional theater company based in White River Junction, Vt.
Director, Marie Cisco
After a weeklong development process led by Marie Cisco in early February, Northern Stage will host the first reading at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14, at the Byrne Theatre in the Barrette Center for the Arts at Northern Stage in White River Junction. The second will take place on the Dartmouth campus at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, in Filene Auditorium located in Moore Hall.
If you plan to make a trip to Vermont, let me know. I’d love to raise a glass with you in honor of my most significant playwriting success to date!
Act Two, A Romance!!
Today marks the first anniversary of the cancellation of the first show in the workshopping run of You, Me, and the Woodsmoke. For those who don’t remember, this first snow cancellation soon became a complete shutdown when The Player’s Ring flooded due to a storm surge. It was devastating for the cast and crew that we could not complete the run and share it with the soldout audiences keen to see this surrealist drama.
The campfire was reignited!
But all was not lost. In fact, the cast and I have been quietly meeting on Sunday mornings since then in order to nourish our creative souls. Unwittingly, this dedicated artistic time led to a significant rewrite of the piece. After seven years of development, the play finally feels like the piece I’ve been trying to write.
This past Sunday, we invited a small but mighty group of colleagues to our secret studio space to hear the work aloud for the first time. With camp chairs in hand, this fearless audience sat around our imaginary campfire to listen to the story of Julianne and Margo’s platonic romance. The experience was emotionally enthralling.
We don’t have a plan for the play's production. Still, we are sure that this prescient story about the ecology of friendship with ourselves, each other, and the natural world will deeply touch the hearts and minds of those who join us in the forest.
Act Three, A Tragedy!!!
It may surprise you, but I haven’t written a new play since graduating from Goddard College in 2022. After intensely working on Doctor Doctor (and sprinkling in the creation of Outsider, Intimate Surveillance, and Island Funeral while procrastinating on completing that five-act behemoth), I vowed to continue developing my existing canon rather than abandoning old loves for something new and shiny.
With the successes of readings, productions, awards, and development processes for several of my works in 2024, I have decided to begin a new (old) work. Welcome to the stage, America Unraveling (previously titled Threads). I will be working with Lauren Morris (of Good Lazy Woman fame) and a stellar cast of actors based in Atlanta to make this mind-bending descent into creative madness!
