NNPN PLAYWRIGHTS IN RESIDENCE

One of the most exciting recent initiatives undertaken by NNPN is the Playwrights in Residence program, established in 2007 to support playwrights graduating from qualified MFA programs for a season-long residency at an NNPN member theater. Playwrights are nominated annually by member theaters, and those writers selected for the program receive stipends of $8,750 to learn from and engage with NNPN members throughout the year.

Program rationale and details

Currently, when MFA playwriting students leave their programs, they go into the world with virtually no connections to professional theaters and little opportunity for continued artistic advancement. Many of these young playwrights move, by default, to New York or Los Angeles, where they compete with thousands of other writers struggling to establish themselves. Through the Playwrights in Residence program, each participating member theater sponsors an emerging playwright selected for his or her talent, artistic vision, and interest in the type of work being produced by the theater. The theater provides the resident playwright with an artistic home for a season, while the playwright participates in the life of that theater. Playwrights have direct access to the artistic staff (artistic director, literary manager and/or dramaturg) for mentoring and dramaturgical consultation, as well as access to administrative and facility resources for writing and developing plays. Playwrights also gain entrée into the professional theater community. The participating theaters, in turn, add a new member to the staff who may participate in literary management, production, fundraising, outreach and audience development activities. Over time, it is the expectation that many of these playwrights will gain real world experience while developing long-lasting relations with the theaters and the community in which they have become invested.  Since its inception in 2007, the program has funded seven emerging playwrights.

2009-10 RECIPIENTS

CARRIE LOUISE NUTT is the NNPN Playwright in Residence at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. Carrie's 10-minute play The Lamb was produced off-Broadway at 59E59 and The Blue Heron Theatre and was a finalist for the Heidemen Award.  She has attended the Great Plains Theatre Conference and is the 2010 recipient of the New Works for Young Women award.  Two monologues from her full-length play Dust are published by Applause in One on One: The Best Men’s Monologues for the 21st Century.  Her plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle.  She has interned at Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Empty Space and New Dramatists.  Carrie is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America and The Playwrights Center.  She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers University.

SARAH SANDER is the NNPN Playwright in Residence at Florida Studio Theatre. Sarah is a 2008 graduate of the University of Iowa Playwrights’ Workshop. She has developed her work at the Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival and has been a finalist for the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award, the Lila Acheson Playwriting Fellowship, and a semi-finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

STEVE YOCKEY is the NNPN Playwright in Residence at Marin Theatre Company. Steve is a member Out of Hand Theater, where his projects with the company include HELP! and CARTOON. He is a regular fixture at Dad's Garage Theatre Company in their annual 8 1/2 X 11 Festival series. Dad's also produced the short play cycle Sleepy, a work commissioned to inaugurate their new Top Shelf Series in 2005, and the adults-only Skin in 2007 - both directed by Artistic Director Kate Warner. Actor's Express presented the World Premiere of Octopus in January 2008, followed by an extended West Coast run in San Francisco, co-produced by Encore Theatre Company and Magic Theatre. His other plays are Afterlife, Bellwether, Heavier than... and Bliss. He is currently working on commissions for NYU Graduate Acting (with Director Rachel Chavkin) and South Coast Rep. Steve is a Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (2008). He recently completed a Coca-Cola Foundation Artists Residency teaching dramatic structure at Emory University. He also participated in the NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop at the Kennedy Center in Summer 2008.

Previous recipients

In 2008/09, NNPN sponsored four Playwrights in Residence: Jennifer Fawcett at Curious Theatre Company in Denver, Dano Madden at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, Lia Romeo at Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey, and Andrew Rosendorf at Florida Stage. The successes of the 2008/08 residencies included: Jennifer Fawcett's play The Toymaker's War at the National Showcase of New Plays, Lia Romeo's Green Whales getting its premiere production at Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, and Andrew Rosendorf's appointment to the staff at Florida Stage.

During the 2007/2008 pilot year, InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, PA hosted Sean Christopher Lewis, a graduate from University of Iowa's MFA Playwrights Workshop; New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, MA hosted Meron Langsner, a graduate of Brandeis University; and Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in Madison, NJ hosted Brett Williams, a graduate of Rutgers.