Don’t miss Anne’s play, OFEM, in our Planting the Seed Festival in Prescott, Jan 2nd and 3rd!
Tickets available HERE.
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I’ve got to say, we received some pretty creative interpretations of this year’s theme Planting the Seed. I so enjoyed reading these works by women who had run with the idea and landed in some delightfully messy or hilariously weird or painfully meaningful places with their scripts. Anne Hamilton’s OFEM, a monologue featuring a feisty woman with some hilarious and passionate ideas about produce, was one of those pieces that was just so unexpected that it had to be included in our line-up!
So, without further ado, meet playwright Anne Hamilton:
LBDI: Why did you decide to submit your work to the ONSTAGE Project?
Anne: I realized that I had some 10-minute plays and monologues that were worth submitting. I had heard of Little Black Dress INK and its mission to put plays by women on stage, and so when the call for plays came out, I realized that it was the perfect fit. I submitted a dramatic monologue called GROUNDING and a comedic monologue called OFEM.
LBDI: Describe your writing space…
Anne: I have an office in my home, where I work as a freelance dramaturg. That said, I take my laptop to many different locations in the house depending on my mood for the day. Do I want to sit on a comfy couch? A cushy chair? Do I want to look out the window at the tree blooming in my back yard? Do I want to sit outside in the sun with my dog by my side? I feel like a DJ spinning sometimes, because my artistic projects are set up all over the house and I go from one to the next, according to how the inspiration hits me.
LBDI: If you could be any cartoon character for just 24 hours, who would you be?
Anne: Without a doubt, Bugs Bunny. He is the ultimate cartoon character of all time. I admire his wit, his irony, his use of language, his passion for the task in front of him, and his use of different personae. Yes, I would be Bugs Bunny, and I would play tricks on everyone I know, and a few strangers, too.
LBDI: What was your first play titled/about?
Anne: My first play was called ANOTHER WHITE SHIRT, and it was a hybrid piece with dance, music and puppets about two women who lose the men they love in accidents. It’s about how grief moves through the body, toward healing. The women speak, but the men only dance. It’s about how grief and healing are ineffable, but there is movement in both.
LBDI: Which playwrights do you admire and what about them inspires you?
Anne: Oh, that is a big topic. As a dramaturg for the past twenty three years, I have been helping playwrights to develop their scripts and place them on the stage. I admire the ones I’m working with at the moment, and I admire the ones whose works I travel to see. There are just too many to name.
LBDI: Why do you write for theatre? (as opposed to other written media…)
Anne: I started as a singer and a poet. Writing plays allows me to place lyricism on the stage. I have loved the theatre since I was in middle school and saw a high school production of GUYS AND DOLLS. I fell in love, and got more and more involved. I love creating theatre. I love how the words are expressed through the bodies of the actors in the collaborative process.
LBDI: What is your spirit animal?
Anne: The Barn Owl.
LBDI: Paper or Plastic?
Anne: Oh, paper for sure. I’m an eco-girl.
Anne Hamilton is the Founder of Hamilton Dramaturgy, an international consultancy based in New York City’s professional scene, and located in Bucks County, PA. She has over twenty years of experience across the country and internationally. The majority of her clients are located in N.Y. and L.A. Her clients have gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur “Genius” Award, the Tony ® Award, and a Royal Court International Residency. In 2009, STAGE DIRECTIONS magazine named her a “trailblazer” in American dramaturgy.
Hamilton has consulted with Andrei Serban, the Joseph Papp Public Theater, the Harold Prince Musical Theatre Institute, Michael Mayer, Lynn Nottage, Yehuda Ne’eman, Classic Stage Company, B.T. McNicholl, Tina Andrews, NYSCA, Jean Cocteau Repertory Theater, Leslie Lee, Andrew Barrett, The New York City Public Library’s Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Tom Cavanaugh, and the Great Plains Theatre Festival. www.hamiltonlit.com.
The Planting the Seed Festival runs this week for 3 performances only
at the First Congregational Church Theater in Prescott.
Showtimes – Jan 2nd @ 7:30, and Jan 3rd @ 2:30 & 7:30.
Tickets just $14 online or at the door!
