Meet our Santa Barbara Playwrights!

We just posted bios for the fabulous playwrights whose work will be going up in Auburn, AL on Saturday, May 16th – so now let’s talk about the West Coast reading taking place that same Saturday!  Rehearsal for our Santa Barbara, CA reading is underway under the fabulous direction of Kate Bergstrom!  Kate runs a new play reading program called Stripped Scripts and just recently helped launch On The Verge, a new non-profit Summer Rep Fest in Santa Barbara focusing on World Premiere work and the re-imagined female, so, we kind of love her!

Let’s meet the amazing women whose work goes up in Santa Barbara this Saturday!

Nancy Cooper Frank’s plays include “Daniil Kharms: A Life in One Act and Several Dozen Eggs,” which, fresh from the 2014 Great Plains Theatre Conference, was given a staged reading by Virago Theatre Company for the opening of The Flight Deck in Oakland. Her kitchen-sink comedy “The Plumber” premiered in the 2014 Arundel Theatre Trail in the UK, won first prize in FirstStage LA’s One-Act festival, and, as part of “Assorted Domestic Emergencies,” won “Best of Fringe” in the 2014 San Francisco Fringe Festival. Nancy is currently working on a play about the tumultuous friendship between Catherine the Great and the outspoken Princess Dashkova, first female director of a national science academy. Dramatist’s Guild; the Monday Night Group (San Francisco); board member, Custom Made Theatre; literary advisor, 3Girls Theatre Company. With a Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literature from Brown University, she still dips into Gogol when nobody is looking.

Mercedes Segesvary is a first generation Hungarian American playwright, filmmaker and fine art illustrator whose work often reflects the diversity of culture, gender and generations. Her play; Man Legs Runs Free was part of the 2014 East Side Stories Festival at the Metropolitan Playhouse, NYC. In May 2013, her one-act play; Alive and Well received a three-week production at the Metropolitan Playhouse, NYC. By Spring 2014 Alive and Well was adapted into a short film, now in festival circuit. Her short play; Room For Rent won her a 2012 PlayGround San Francisco Emerging Playwright Award. In 2008 Mercedes brought to life a comedic retelling of a San Francisco Tour Guide’s life and received a Best of Fringe Award for her critically acclaimed performance. Mercedes is always in the process of creating and sharing. To view some of her work please visit: www.hugithegreat.com

Diane Sampson has an M.A. in Creative Writing. She belongs to PlayGround, a group of Bay Area playwrights working in the 10-minute play form, and her short plays have been produced as far afield as Miami and Seattle. She has three full-length musicals under her belt, the most recent being Sleeping Cutie, a Fractured Fairytale Musical, produced in San Francisco a year ago. Her full-length non-musical plays include Naked, Charlotte Takes the Plunge, and the just completed What We Owe and To Whom We Owe It. In another life she san cabaret, worked in theater administration, and raised two sons. She hopes the demise of the cabaret scene in San Francisco had nothing to do with her.

Katherine James‘ Story: Playwright writes for her own theater company, then writes plays for others, then writes for herself. 1977: “Miranda” FATheatre (production & tour through 1979) 1978: “Beatrix Potter” FATheatre (production & tour through 1983) 1979 “Book of Good Love” (production & tour through 1985) 1980: “To Be Young, Gifted and Pregnant” FATheatre (production & tour through 1982) 1980 – 1990 The Museum Plays (series of 10, all produced in museums across the country), 1985 – 2000 The Sholem Plays (series of 9 Yiddish Theatre plays – Los Angeles), 1984 – 1994 The Theme Park Plays (series of 6, produced in Theme Parks all across the country), 2007 “Olympus” Theatricum Botanicum (staged reading), 2010 “Olympus” FATheatre (production), 2011: “Dirty Laundry” Dirty Laundry Play Festival (production) ; “Play For Jimmy” The Road Theatre, Word@TheRoad (staged reading); “The Old Salt” Certified Organic Festival, Theatricum Botanicum (staged reading); 2012: “She Says, She Says” Out Of The Mouths of Babes Festival (production); 2013: “The Puppeteer Lets Go” Moving Arts Theater (production); 2014: “The Old Salt” Winner Little Black Ink National Festival, (production). Currently: Artistic Director Fre Association Theatre, Seedlings Committee Theatricum Botanicum. BFA: Illinois Wesleyan University, MFA : The American Conservatory Theater.

Jennie Webb is an independent Los Angeles playwright, currently in residence at Rogue Machine (where her dark retail comedy Yard Sale Signs premiered) and Theatricum Botanicum (where she runs workshops and “Botanicum Seedlings: A Development Series for Playwrights”). Her plays, including Remodeling Plans, Unclaimed Assets, GreenHouse, On Tuesday, It’s Not About Race and Buying a House, have been produced in LA (most recently through Green Light Productions), on stages across the country and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She’s been part of The Playwright Center’s PlayLabs, past Female Playwrights ONSTAGE Festivals and Great Plains Theatre Conference; is an artist with the Virginia Avenue Project and published by Heinemann Press, Indie Theatre Now and ICWP. Jennie is a member of The Playwrights Union, EST/LA’s Playwrights Unit, Fell Swoop Playwrights, PlayGround-LA Writer’s Pool and co-founder of the LA Female Playwrights Initiative (LA FPI).  jenniewebbsite.com + @jenniewebbsite

Patricia Mew has written fiction, memoir and plays, having studied creative writing at Smith College and the University of Southern Maine. She has had staged readings of her plays at Smith College, Holyoke Community College, and Keene State College (KSC), placing third in KSC’s one-act play festival. Her work received an Innovation Grant and a Massachusetts Arts Lottery Grant, both in Massachusetts. Several of her short plays have been produced in the Maine Play Festival ‘12, ’13, ’14 (Portland, ME), PortFringe ’13 (Portland, ME) and King of Crows II – Return of the King (Portland, ME) ‘14. In Oct. ’13, she won for Best Play at the Crowbait Death Match in Portland for her play Cock Fight. She lives in South Portland, ME where she is a member of Playwrights’ Circle. Also an actress, Patricia has performed with a variety of theater companies in both Massachusetts and Maine.