I am beyond thrilled to be working with such talented women on this year’s Female Playwrights ONSTAGE Festival! Talk about fun – each playwright’s world is unique, and together they create a fantastic lineup that will leave you laughing, thinking, and definitely moved! I can’t wait to see these plays performed with our partners at Acadiana Repertory Theatre in Lafayette, LA this July! The plays will then be read in NYC before ending the fest with another production in Prescott, AZ this fall. But first, the plays are heading to LA!
You can catch a reading of these plays on Saturday, June 11th at 1pm at Samuel French Bookshop (7623 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90046) for FREE! We’ll even have snacks on hand to please your palate!
Without further ado, please allow me to introduce you to our fabulous 2016 Playwrights!
PLAYWRIGHT: Donna Hoke PLAY: JACK PORK
Western New York regional representative for the Dramatists Guild and ensemble playwright in residence at Road Less Traveled Productions, award-winning playwright Donna Hoke’s work has been seen in 38 states and on five continents. Her full-length plays include THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR (Princess Grace semi-finalist, currently in its third year in rep in Romania), SEEDS (Artie award for Outstanding New Play), FLOWERS IN THE DESERT (AACT top 20 finalist), SAFE (winner of the Todd McNerney, Naatak, and Great Gay Play and Musical Contests), and BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART (winner, HRC Showcase and Firehouse Festival of New American Plays, Woodward/Newman and nuVoices finalist). Donna is also a New York Times-published crossword puzzle constructor; author of Neko and the Twiggets, a children’s book; founder/co-curator of BUA Takes 10: GLBT Short Stories; and blogger. For three consecutive years, she was named Buffalo’s Best Writer by Artvoice—the only woman to ever receive the designation.
PLAYWRIGHT: Anne Flanagan PLAY: THROWN FOR A CURVE
Los Angeles based playwright Anne Flanagan has seen her short and full length plays produced throughout the US and internationally. She is the recipient of several writing awards and zero sports trophies. Publications include her comedy Artifice (Dramatic Publishing) and various anthologies by Smith & Kraus and/or Applause Books. For many years, Anne worked as a private investigator, so she knows where you live. Website: www.anneflanagan.net
PLAYWRIGHT: Nancy Cooper Frank PLAY: IN THE LOOP
Nancy Cooper Frank. Nancy’s The Trouble with Catherine is a full-length play on the bumpy friendship between Catherine the Great and her friend Catherine Dashkova, who helped her seize the throne (written as part of the 365 Women a Year project). Other credits include: Anna and the Blackbird (The Blank Theatre’s Living Room Series, 2015); Dramaphobia (SF Fringe 2015); The Plumber (in 2014 San Francisco Best-of-Fringe winning show); Daniiel Kharms: A Life in One Act and Several Dozen Eggs (Great Plains Theatre Conference PlayLab). Nancy’s The Announcement made the final line-up in the 2015 Onstage Female Playwrights Project. More at www.nancycooperfrank.com
PLAYWRIGHT: Jen Huszcza PLAY: BIG BELLY
Jen Huszcza is a playwright currently based in Los Angeles. Four of Jen’s plays (Rinse, POP, Flowers, and This) were performed in Little Black Dress INK’s first four festivals. Her short play, It Has to End in Tears, was produced by Greenlight Productions in Santa Monica in March 2015. Four of her plays have been presented as staged readings in the Monday Night Living Room Series at The Blank Theatre in Hollywood. She wrote and acted in Gunfighter Nation’s collectively written piece, LA History Project: Pio Pico, Sam Yorty, and the Secret Procession of Los Angeles, presented at the Lost Studio in 2010. She has guest-blogged for the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative. BFA in Dramatic Writing and MFA in Musical Theatre Writing both from NYU.
PLAYWRIGHT: Rhea MacCallum PLAY: ASKING FOR IT
Rhea MacCallum is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and script consultant, whose plays have been produced across the United States and six continents. She was honored to participate in the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and was named a finalist by the Actors Theatre of Louisville for the Heideman Award for her play, YESTERDAY ONCE MORE. Her work has been published by Smith & Kraus, Heuer Publishing, Original Works Publishing, JAC Publishing and themonologueshop.com. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, ICWP and ALAP. Rhea earned her BA from USC and her MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School, New School University.
PLAYWRIGHT: Tiffany Antone PLAY: THE EGG
Tiffany Antone is a playwright, producer, and director, whose plays have been read and/or performed in Los Angeles, New York, D.C., Lafayette, and Minneapolis: Cricket Woman Mother Earth (or) A Nasty Comeuppance was a 2011 O’Neil finalist. Ana and the Closet and Twigs and Bone were both Jerome Finalists and O’Neil semi-finalists for 2009 & 2010. In the Company of Jane Doe was produced in NY this spring with CAKE Productions. Her play, The Good Book, is available through Samuel French. Tiffany holds her MFA in Playwriting from UCLA, lives/teaches in Texas, and blogs for the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative. She is the co-founder of The@trics Theatre, and runs Little Black Dress INK. You can read more about Tiffany at www.TiffanyAntone.com.
PLAYWRIGHT: C.J. Ehrlich PLAY: THE LILAC TICKET
C.J. Ehrlich is a NY-based writer/director whose award-winning works have enjoyed productions on five continents. Some favorites: Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Fest (Shrew Man vs. Shrewman), Grin Theatre, Liverpool (Room Circus, an LGBT bedroom farce), Ingenius NYC (The Red & Green Room). C.J.’s full-length comedy (with Philip J. Kaplan), THE CUPCAKE CONSPIRACY: “Terrorism is Easy. Marriage is Complicated” opened Rover Dramawerks (TX) 2015 Season. Published: Smith & Kraus’ annual Best Ten-Minute Plays anthologies: Noir in Second Class, The Ninth Circus of Hell, Intervention, 2+1=Murder; Applause’s Best American Short Plays of 2014-15 (The Lilac Ticket); Heuer (Home Sweet Homeland Security). C.J. is currently working on two new full-length comedies, The Maltese Babka and Us vs. Us. A proud member of the Dramatists Guild, C.J. lists among her greatest achievements teaching her sons the fine art of the spit take. www.CJ-Ehrlich.com.
PLAYWRIGHT: Reina Hardy PLAY: TIME LOOP
Reina Hardy is a playwright from Chicago. Her plays, which usually contain magic and sometimes contain science, have been seen across the country, including at Rorschach Theatre in DC, the Vortex in Austin, and the 2013 NNPN National New Play Showcase. She’s a Michener Fellow, winner of the 2014 KCACTF TYA Prize, finalist for the Terrence McNally Prize and the recipient of an Interact 20/20 Commission. Up next: “Fanatical the Musical” in England with the Stable, and “Agent Andromeda and the Orion Crusade” with Sky Candy in Austin, TX.
PLAYWRIGHT: Amy Drake PLAY: MODEL BEHAVIOR
Amy Drake is a Pulitzer Prize nominated playwright, member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Board member of the International Centre for Women Playwrights, and Theatre Communications Group member. Her play Home Body was nominated for four awards in the Midtown International Theater Festival (MITF), New York. Voted Theatre Roundtable Best Director for Night Must Fall and was assistant director for the Actors’ Theatre production of Servant of Two Masters, chosen by The Columbus Dispatch as a Top Ten show of 2012. Amy is a published academic writer, conference speaker, and poet. Amy holds a B.A. from Ohio Dominican University and a M.S. degree in marketing and communication. Her education includes creative writing and history summer programs at Cambridge University, UK, graduate studies at Reed Hall, Paris and playwriting at the Kenyon (College) Summer Institute. Amy has been accepted to the Yale Writers’ Conference 2016. Her new play, Alexander the Great in Love and War, will be performed in the Evolution Theatre Festival, June 2016. Her book, Unmasking Shakespeare: Shakespearean Plays and Commedia dell’Art, will be published by Lambert in June 2016 and available on Amazon.com.
PLAYWRIGHT: Rachel Hall PLAY: THE MOON
Rachel Hall is a writer from Houston, Texas. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband Grant where she pursues playwriting, children’s literature, and spoken word poetry. Rachel holds a BFA in Theatre Performance from Baylor University, and spent time at both the National Theatre Institute and the St. Petersburg Theatre Arts Academy.
PLAYWRIGHT: Sharon Goldner PLAY: BAZOOKAS
Sharon Goldner started out her life’s lunacy as a thumb sucker & pal to two of the greatest imaginary friends ever, KaKa & LeeLee. When thumb sucking & imaginary friends were no longer cool, she switched over to gum chewing and short story writing, for which she is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, with over thirty stories published worldwide. Segueing to playwriting, she’s had plays produced Off Broadway to Los Angeles and everywhere in-between. Her plays have been published in collections and she’s won a bunch of awards, plus, a playwriting fellowship all the way in Canada, which proves that being an English major is not a totally useless thing. This is Sharon’s third stint with the glorious Tiffany Antone and Little Black Dress INK, for which she is truly grateful. Please note, no letters of the alphabet are ever harmed in any of Sharon’s writing.
PLAYWRIGHT: Amber Bosworth PLAY: HERE THERE BE CURVES
Amber Bosworth has been committed to theater since she was a kid. She served five years in the US Navy as an Air Traffic Controller to help pay for college. She now works for Lockheed Martin Flight Service and spends most of her free time writing and acting on any stage that will have her. She has been involved with Seatbelts Required, Harvey, Dead Mans Cell Phone, and Educating Rita. Her first love has always been writing. After twenty years of following the sensible path, Amber has finally started to follow her dream as a writer. She is getting her Masters in Creative Writing from Full Sail University. Amber is excited and humbled to be apart of Little Black Dress INK.