A panel of playwrights and directors reflect on the past few months of virtual theatre and offer their thoughts on the good, the bad, and the “how does that even work?!”
Perfect for teachers and directors making the move to virtual performance for the fall.
This event is pay-what-you-can to help pay the panelists for their time. The suggested payment for this event is $10. Register now on Eventbrite!
Do you have burning questions about creating virtual theatre you hope to get answered? Send us your questions ahead of time, so our panelists can prepare! Email info@momentumstage.org.
Panelists:
Keyanna Alexander (She/Her) is an early career theatre maker, concentrating in directing and playwriting. She graduated from North Carolina Central University in 2018. Her recent work has been with Women's Theatre Festival and Theatre Unmasked, but has also worked with National Black Theatre Festival, North Carolina Central University Theatre and MOJOAA Performing Arts. Keyanna is currently working remotely from her hometown, Shallotte NC and intermittently making new material in the time of COVID. Paypal: Paypal.me/keyalexander
Michael Kras is a playwright, director, and actor based in Hamilton, Ontario whose work primarily examines young people grappling with growing up in contemporary Canada and the social media age. He is the recipient of the prestigious Herman Voaden National Playwriting Prize for his play The Team, which was also a 2018 Tom Hendry Award nominee and a national finalist for the Safe Words New Canadian Play Award. The Team made its professional world premiere in the 2018/19 theatre season at Essential Collective Theatre and Theatre Aquarius, and is published by Scirocco Drama in the anthology FIERCE: Five Plays for High Schools alongside new Canadian plays by Dave Deveau, Judith Thompson, Tanisha Taitt, and Ali Joy Richardson. Currently, Michael is the 2019/20 OAC Playwright in Residence at Roseneath Theatre, where he is developing his TYA play The Boys. He is also in early development on rip it out of my THROAT, a new play for young audiences, under the support of Ontario Arts Council creation funding. Other works include Zoe and Nora and Everything in Between, commissioned by Toronto’s Convergence Theatre as part of The COVID Confessions; Lydia, produced and presented by the Frost Bites Festival; and The Year and Two of Us Back Here, which was developed at Theatre Aquarius and has seen multiple productions in Canada and the USA. Michael is a graduate of Humber Theatre School, an alumnus of the Theatre Aquarius Playwrights Unit, and the artistic director of Hamilton’s Broken Soil Theatre. You may support his work on PayPal with the email michaelkras1993@gmail.com .
Rachel Lynett is a queer Afro-Latinx playwright who writes dark comedies about complex, complicated women of color. Her recent playwriting credits include commissions with Barrington Stage Theatre Company (HOLY GROUND), Florida Studio Theatre (CARRY ME and AS YOU ARE), and Theatre Lab (LAST NIGHT). Other credits include RICH B*TCH presented by the Rachel Lynett Theatre Company, APOLOGIES TO LORRAINE HANSBERRY to be workshopped with Orlando Shakespeare Festival this fall (2020); I’M F*CKING TIRED OF WRITING PLAYS ABOUT THIS presented by Rachel Lynett Theatre Company based in Madison, WI (2020); LAST NIGHT presented as a reading with Theatre Lab (2020);HERE BE DRAGONS presented as a reading with Capital Rep (2019); YOU WERE MINE presented as a reading at the Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival presented by Theatre Prometheus (2019); HE DID IT presented as a reading with Equity Library Theatre, Chicago (2018) and presented as a workshop production with University of Central Florida's Pegasus PlayLab; REFUGE as part of Z Space's Problematic Play Festival (2018); GOOD BAD PEOPLE as part of Talk Back Theatre's Reading Series (2018), part of American Stage Theatre Company's 21st Century New Voices New Play Festival (2018), part of Jackalope Theatre's CIRCLE UP series (2017) and as a reading as part of Unicorn Theatre Plays In Progress (2018); WELL-INTENTIONED WHITE PEOPLE as the Michigan premiere with Matrix Theatre (2018), the world premiere with Barrington Stage Theatre Company (2018), the Downstage Left Residency with StageLeft (2017), part of Orlando Shakespeare New Play Festival (2017), and receiving honorable mention for the 2017 Kilroys for her play (2017). Her play, ABORTION ROAD TRIP received a workshop production produced by Theatre Prometheus as part of Capital Fringe where it won Best Comedy (2017) and then was later presented by Theatre Prometheus, as a part of the 2017 Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival. Rachel Lynett is also the 2018 Recipient of the Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, one of the 2020 recipients for the 360 grant and the Artistic Director of the Rachel Lynett Theatre Company. Venmo: @rachellynett
Caridad Svich is a playwright, translator, editor, artivist and educator. She has received numerous awards, among them an OBIE for Lifetime Achievement, and the Ellen Stewart Award for Career Achievement from ATHE. Her plays include 12 OPHELIAS, IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS... RED BIKE, and THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS, based on Isabel Allende's novel. She has authored & edited several books on theatre, most recently one on Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Routledge, 2019). Her first independent feature film FUGITIVE DREAMS, based on her play, premieres at the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal this summer. You may support her work on Paypal by with her email csvich21@gmail.com.
Moderated by Nicole Perry, MFA, CLMA