Nan’s Notes: NNPN Takes NYC!

What happens when you gather more than 200 new play-makers and new play-lovers for multiple days of new plays? More new plays!

We were delighted to help make “the networking part of the Network work” in the beautiful home of Associate Member Queens Theatre in Corona Park with 4 full readings, 3 excerpt sharings, engagement and visioning time, Board and Committee meetings, dinners and drinks, and a pitch session that included new works advocates sharing information about almost 100 plays.

NNPN Staff at Showcase. Top row from left: RP McLaughlin, Robby Lutfy, Sara Reilly, Christine Stanley, Anne G. Morgan. Bottom row from left: Cheryl Dunn Bychek, Terry Li, Nan Barnett, and Rose Figueroa. Not pictured: Monica Montoya, Alexandra Meda, Gwydion Suilebhan, and Siobhan Carroll.

And conversations - so so so many conversations! - about the past, present, and future of NNPN and the new play field. We celebrated NNPN’s 25 years of bringing new plays to America’s stages and honored those who helped start the organization, including Cynthia Levin (Unicorn Theatre Company) Seth Rozin (InterAct Theatre Company), Kristen Vehill (Prop Thtr), Howard Shalwitz and Sara Rutstein (previously Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), Tim Johnson (Kitchen Dog Theater), and John Clinton Eisner (previously The Lark in NYC) who were with us. We took a moment to celebrate the late Barclay Goldsmith of Borderlands Theater and of course, our founder David Goldman, who along with his wife Carol Dweck kicked off the next 25 years of NNPN with a $25,000 challenge grant that we will be working to match in the coming months.

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I’d personally like to thank NNPN’s team of staff, contractors, and volunteers, along with the amazing folx at Queens Theatre who made it all run so smoothly, the playwrights, directors, and actors who shared their time and talent with us, and everyone who joined us for the weekend.

I had a blast, and from what I saw and heard, our guests did too.

What will come of all the connections renewed, conversations begun, and collaborations imagined? We will have to wait to see, but I’m sure the results will include more productions of more new plays.

Because “the networking part of the Network is what makes the Network work.”

Until next spring, when we gather again in Minneapolis/St. Paul - dates coming soon!!