|
MPW, a project of the University of Missouri-Columbia Department of Theatre, was founded in fall of 1998 by Assistant Professor David Crespy, for the purposes of providing playwrights the opportunity to hear their plays performed in public readings and receive response and criticism on a weekly basis. The workshop meets every Tuesday night during the Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters at the Memorial Union in the North Ground Lounge. MPW was founded as a open workshop, so that all members of MU writers community are invited to participate as writers, actors, and audience. This would include students, faculty, staff, and members of the Columbia Community at large. The Workshop works closely with the Missouri Theatre Workshop and Loose Change, the independent student theatres at MU, to develop the scripts that are initially read at the MPW in full, workshop productions.
Because the Missouri Playwrights Workshop is open to the public, it has garnered a commendation by the Crossing Boundaries Circle, an interdepartmental organization of faculty, student affairs, staff, and students dedicated to encouraging and rewarding faculty who work collaboratively with their students outside the classroom. MPW also sponsors, with the Columbia Entertainment Company, a local Community Theatre, and the MU Department of Theatre, the Columbia Young Playwrights Festival, which produces the short plays of Columbia school children. As part of the advance work of the Festival, MU playwriting students teach five playwriting workshops in the local schools, and scripts developed in the workshop are subsequently developed at MPW and then produced in staged readings at Columbia Entertainment Company.
Several student plays, originally developed at the Missouri Playwrights Workshop have gone on to win awards through the American College Theatre Festival (ACTF), the primary juried University theatre competition in the United States. In 1999, Kate Sinnett's play, Obscenity, and Jeff Carrillo's play, Party Favors were both finalists in the ten-minute play showcase at the Region V American College Theatre Festival. Jeff's play was subsequently one of eight ten-minute plays nationwide that was performed at the National American College Theatre Festival at the Kennedy Center. Kate Sinnett's play was a finalist in the National Ten-Minute Play Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
This past year Robert AuFrance's Horsefly Summer was a Region V ACTF ten-minute play finalist, and MPW playwright and director, Dr. David Crespy, was selected to direct Anna Gorisch's play, The Individuality of Streetlamps, at the National ACTF ten-minute play showcase at the Kennedy Center. In addition, five original plays originally developed by MPW were invited to be presented in a scene showcase of new student writing at the 2000 Region V American College Theatre Festival. These included Riot Girl by Michael O'Donohoe, Crop Circle by Robert Aufrance, Under Glass by Emily Daniels, Bottom of a Well by Ashley Rearden, and Pinned by John Meissner. Also, Lindsey Alley's play, Like It Is, a one-woman show developed at MPW for full production on the MU mainstage subscription season, received an invitation to be presented at the 2001 Region V American College Theatre Festival. Dr. Crespy's play, Beshert, initially read and developed at the Missouri Playwrights Workshop, was selected for the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, and hosted by Edward Albee, and won a Panelist's Choice Award.
Many of the plays from the Missouri Playwrights Workshop have gone onto workshop or full production. In its first year, MPW developed three plays, Under Glass by Emily Daniels, Bottom of A Well by Ashley Reardon, and Pinnedby John Meissner, which were subsequently produced on the MU mainstage subscription series as an evening of one-act plays entitled, Prisoners of Passion: New Plays From the Missouri Playwrights Workshop. The following fall, MPW produced a workshop production of Michael Kateman's Ruby Nelle at Columbia College, a play based on the life of Ruby Nelle McVean, a talented Missouri photographer, and MU donor. Later that fall, the MU Department of Theatre gave a full mainstage production to Michael O'Donohoe's Riot Girl, a play first read at the Missouri Playwrights Workshop.
Last spring, MPW developed three new women's plays, Mashing Peas by Laura Miller, Waiting For the Prequel by Suzanne Cook, and Like It Is by Lindsey Alley which were subsequently produced as an evening of one-acts entitled Of Mice and Women: New Plays From the Missouri Playwrights Workshop. This year's one-acts, Joyapolis by Marisa Wall, Nuke Me Gently by Michael O'Donohoe, and I Punched Out Mike Tyson, have been read at MPW and will be produced next Spring as Fantasies With Fangs: New Plays from the Missouri Playwrights Workshop.
Many of the plays first developed by the Missouri Playwrights Workshop have been subsequently produced by Loose Change productions, an independent student theatre troupe which performs plays in found spaces across the Columbia community. These plays include: Obscenity, Party Favors, Nuke Me Gently, Violet Palimpsest, Lovesong of a Heartsick Fool, Mashing Peas, Oh, Jesus, Shot Dead, ! Rewrites, A Special Place Called Hell, Holy Shit!, Photos of Amy, How I Learned to Ride, Cracked and Reflected, Automatic, The Fling, and Miss Apple Blossom Queen.
Several MU and other university faculty have had their plays developed at MPW including Henry Sullivan (Calvary II and The Whore Tax of Nevada), Gladys Swann (The Bathtub), Weldon Durham (adaptation of Treasure Island), and Ethan Bumas (The Sign Shop), William Yellow Robe (Sneaky and The Star Quilter), and Bert State's Oedipus, The Early Years.
The Missouri Playwrights Workshop has developed well over one hundred plays, and looks forward to a busy season of new plays by professional playwrights, students, faculty, staff, and members of the university community in Columbia, MO.
|
