Our Voices

Mark Your Calendar for the 6th Annual Our Voices Festival of Boston Area Women Playwrights, March 24, 2012, Regis College Weston Fine Arts Center Black Box

Produced by Kelly DuMar, Wendy Lement and Ann Garvin

Saturday, March 24, 6:30pmRegis College Fine Arts Center, Weston, MA
Black Box Theatre
Admission: Free and open to the public. General Seating

An evening of staged readings of new plays performed by talented Boston-area actors. This day-long event provides artistic support for local women playwrights, including Regis College students. There is an audience/playwright reception prior to the evening performance, as well as a talk-back following the plays. The festival, which is free and open to the public, is produced by Kelly DuMar, playwright and festival founder, Wendy Lement, playwright and director of Theatre Program at Regis College, and Ann Garvin of Image Theatre. Guest Dramaturg & Playwright: Sybil Roberts, who teaches playwriting at American University in Washington, DC. Participating playwrights will be announced in February. Hope to see you there!

Our Voices VI is open for submissions from Boston area women playwrights

Call for Plays – Staged readings of short works by

Boston Area Women Playwrights

 Our Voices Festival VI 

6^th Annual Celebration of Boston Area Women Playwrights!

March 24, 2012 – 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Fine Arts Center, Black Box, Regis College, Weston, MA

 Highlights of this year’s festival:

 Morning & Afternooon Workshops for Participating Playwrights (TBA)

Tech Rehearsal & Food for evening performance participants 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Welcome Reception in Lobby for friends/audience 7:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Staged Readings of New Plays by Women:  7:00 - 9:15 p.m.

Feedback & Discussion with Playwrights & Guest Dramaturg:    9:15 – 9:45 p.m.

 The 6th Annual Our Voices Festival will be produced by Kelly DuMar, Ann Garvin of Image Theater, and Wendy Lement, Regis College Theatre Dept. Chair, faculty member and participating playwright.  The festival will include free workshops for playwrights (topic & format announced soon!) and discussion with Guest Playwright & Dramaturg Sybil Roberts Williams from Washington, D.C. Thanks to the generosity of Regis College for the use of the Black Box, the festival will be free & open to the public!

 Submission Guidelines – Two Opportunities 

For the Evening Staged Readings:

• E-mail submissions only of short plays, scenes or monologues, 10 minutes or less – sorry, nothing longer can be considered, and playwrights should submit only the selected portion if the piece is from a longer work.  We’d like to include as many playwrights as possible.
• Please be sure to include your contact info, title of your piece, and production history (if any). 
• No published scripts; scripts that have had a prior staged reading are preferred.  (Please don’t send one that has been done a lot in the Boston area).
• Selected playwrights will be responsible for arranging for a director & actor(s)
• No set items, minimal tech requirements; lights up, lights down.  We’ll have a designated volunteer to read any and all stage directions.
• Selected playwrights must be willing to participate in morning or afternoon workshop as well as tech rehearsal, reception & evening of readings
• Content is open
• There is no budget at all to pay playwrights, actors or directors!  This is an all volunteer festival with a spirit of building networking and community support.
• Deadline:  Please send in Microsoft Word or pdf to diarydoor@aol.com no later than January 25, 2011, sooner the better.  Selected playwrights will be notified by February 10, 2011 and a required production meeting will soon follow.

Submissions For the Morning Critique Group

 

• New Work – these are new works that have not had a prior reading that you will present informally and there will be the opportunity for feedback & discussion.  Short plays, scenes, monologues, 10 minutes or less – sorry, nothing longer can be considered, and playwrights should submit only the selected portion if the piece.
• Deadline:  Please send in microsoft Word or pdf to diarydoor@aol.com no later than March 1, 2012.  Selected playwrights for the critique group will be notified by March 10, 2011.

For more information, contact Kelly DuMar (diarydoor@aol.com), (508) 647-0596

Or visit: www.diarydoor.typepad.com/ourvoices

 

Madge Kaplan's play, The Last Appointment, to be produced by the Vineyard Playhouse

Our Voices participant, Madge Kaplan, will have the play she presented at the Our Voices Festival 2011, The Last Appointment, produced by the Vineyard Playhouse, Martha's Vineyard, Saturday October 8 and Sunday October 9, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. MJ Bruder Munafo will direct. Congratulations, Madge!

Evening One

Saturday October 8th
Sunday October 9th
7:30pm

THE GRADUATION OF GRACE by Wendy Kesselman

THE LAST APPOINTMENT by Madge Kaplan

SLOW TRAIN COMING by Maureen Hourihan

 

 

Our Voices Participants Have Plays in Annual Playwrights' Platform Festival

39th Annual Playwrights' Platform Festival of New Plays

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Series A: June 9, 10, 11 – 8pm
Series B: June 16, 17, 18 – 8pm

At Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02466
(directions)

Tickets: $17 ($14 qualified discounts*)
To purchase tickets, visit Boston Playwrights’ Theatre http://www.bu.edu/bpt/ or call 866-811-4111.

*Discounts are available for seniors, students; for Playwrights' Platform, NOMTI, and Stage Source members; and for BPT subscribers.

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Overview

Each year in March a Playwrights' Platform committee selects a vibrant variety of member scripts to be produced in our annual June showcase. These new short plays include comedies and dramas performed by our talented Actors-in-Residence — Boston area actors of all ages who perform our plays throughout the year. Each play has its own director, selected by the playwright, from a pool of well known and talented directors from the Boston area.

Audience members participate in the festivities by voting for their favorite plays and actors after each performance. Our festival culminates in a popular Awards Ceremony where we honor Audience Choice for Best Play, Best Actor, Best Director and Playwrights' Choice for Best Play for each series. We sell out, so get your tickets early!

Series A

Have a Nice Evening

Sherry Alpert

Christmas in Rio

Regina Eliot Ramsey*

 

The Chair

James C. Ferguson

 

Parallel Lives

Roberta Kosberg

 

Going Down

Phyllis Rittner*

 

It Doesn't

George Smart

 

Destined

Donald Tongue

 

Drive In

Scott Welty

Series B

 

Business Trip to Paris

Ludmila Anselm*

 

Inner Serendippiness

Hortense Gerardo*

 

Kiss The Twins For Me

G.L. Horton*

 

Mr. Leach and the Nurse

Michael Keamy

 

Cupid's Night Out

Chris King

 

Abby, Bert, and Millie

George Masselam

 

Do Like Papa Says

Ron Radice

 

Queen of the Ten-Minute Play

Ellen Davis Sullivan*

 

Beware the Phoebie Jeebies

Sandra Weintraub*

*Past Our Voices Festival Participant

Our Voices Participant Deirdre Girard Announces her Upcoming Play Reading

 

Our Voices Playwright, G.L. Horton, will have "Ruling Passion" performed in the Newton South High School Student Directing Festival, April 2011

Ruling Passion, by G.L. Horton, will be directed by Abi Oshins, as part of the Student Directing Festival at Newton South High School, Newton, MA, April 28, 29, 30 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8. The festival will also include, The Land of Cockaigne by David Ives, directed by Ellie Crowley.

 

About Ruling Passion, Geralyn Horton writes: "It's an OLD play, dating back to 1974, when I was in grad school at Goddard/Cambridge working on the Women Studies M.A. I was awarded in 1976.  Some of the characters are based on women- students and teachers- I met in that program.  But the script was inspired by Arthur Kopet's One Act with a similar length and cast, "Chamber Music".  It aspired to be the second half of a Kopet/Horton double bill.  (Hasn't happened. Yet.) The first draft of Ruling Passions was read at Playwrights' Platform, the Boston writers' co-op then in the first decade of what in 2003 will be a 40 year run: probably some kind of record for longevity. The original Boston production featured as Cleopatra the then-wife of Frank Shefton, an excellent actor/playwright/singer still active locally with Up You Mighty Race and Our House theatres in Roxbury/Dorchester, and last time I checked still DJ of the blues show on MIT radio.  Ruling Passion was in a number of women's theatre festivals -- that was back when there WERE women's theatres!-- and was recorded for the blind in the mid 1980s.  Since I put the script on my web site in the mid 1990s it has had a few productions every year -- including England, Ireland,and Australia-- but never one close enough to home that I could see it. So this is a play I have not seen performed in 25 years."

 

CAST of Ruling Passion:

 

Eleanor:  Stephanie Foster
Price: Alex Levy
Mary: Jess Dagg
Cleo: Hannah Dober
Joan: Sydney Morin

Our Voices V Featured Artist, Lida McGirr

2011 Participating Playwright Artist Statement

The Poker God, A Monologue, by Lida McGirr

Our Voices Festival V

March 26, 2011

Fine Arts Center, Black Box, Regis College

Artist Statment

The Poker God was inspired by a family member.  One thing that surprises me about the monologue is that several actors have asked me if they could use it for an audition piece.  The play is built upon my strong belief that gambling is an addiction; however, one thing I have learned from this monologue is that just because I believe something to be true doesn’t make it so and vice versa.  My three wishes for this play are: 1) For it to have a companion piece written from the POV of the woman mentioned in the piece; 2) For it to be a YouTube phenomenon and 3) That it stimulates a dialogue about gambling and addiction.

 
Staged Reading Cast

Jerry Bisantz as The Poker God

PLAYWRIGHT BIO

Lida McGirr began her acting career as a 7- year-old singing and dancing leprechaun at Nathan's on Coney Island. She spent her early twenties as one of three start-up members of the Little Theater on 26th Street before moving to Boston. Since then, she's won an EMACT DASH Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, appeared as Dean Kenny in the Elliot Norton Award-winning Spinning Into Butter, received rave reviews for her portrayal of Shirley Valentine at the Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham and most recently as Mrs. Banks in Barefoot In the Park at the Zero Point Theater in Watertown. She has directed a short opera protesting the cancellation of Saturday's at the Met, productions for libraries and private functions, as well as many local community theater productions including TCAN's award-winning A Piece of My Heart nominated for four EMACT DASH Awards. Her short plays have been performed in festivals, retirement centers, a romance novelist convention, a bakery, and board meetings throughout New England.

Our Voices V Featured Artist, Kelly DuMar

2011 Participating Playwright Artist Statement

Your Gullibility & Your Free Sample (Selected ENVIA! Episodes), by Kelly DuMar

Our Voices Festival V

March 26, 2011

Fine Arts Center, Black Box, Regis College

Artist Statement

The character of ENVIA!, and her entire show, Gifts for the Goddess of Illusion, from which these two monologues are drawn, was inspired by a voice in my head, answering my spontaneous question - what if there was an actor - a character - who was regularly cast in people's dreams. . . which became the first ENVIA! Episode: Your Dream of Me.

One thing that suprises me about ENVIA! is how clearly I hear her voice speaking to me - as if her thougts are fully formed, waiting for me to translate them to the page.

ENVIA! is a play which is built upon my strong belief (or faith) in the power of getting a DO-OVER!

If my play could change something, it would encourage people to be more confident in expressing their dreams and vulnerabilties.

One thing I've learned from writing this play is how much I enjoy working one-on-one with a single actor, as the director and playwright.

A block or resistance I have had to overcome in creating this play is my fear that one actor would be unable to memorize the entire script. Aimee Rose Ranger is currently working really hard to overcome my concern!

A wish I have for this script is to have it produced with audience-involved post-performance creative explorations using elements of psychodrama and playback theatre. I would also be interested in seeing it produced with many different actors playing ENVIA! in the 19 episodes.

Cast

Aimee Rose Ranger as ENVIA!

Directed by Kelly DuMar

Playwright Bio

Kelly DuMar is a Boston area playwright and member of the Dramatists Guild whose plays have been produced around the US & Toronto & published by Heuer, Brooklyn, & Smith & Kraus. Kelly’s full-length play,Weekend at the Dreaming Cloud, winner of the Susan McIntyre Play Festival, had a workshop production with Yellow Taxi in Nashua, NH, and was selected for New Plays at the Nora, Central Square Theatre, Cambridge, MA.  The Adventures of Rocky & Skye is published by Youth Plays. Most recently: her one-act romantic comedy, Amber & Air, will have a staged reading on April 7, 2011 as part of the Double XX Fest, Stone Soup Theatre, Seattle, and her one-woman show, Gifts for the Goddess of Illusion, will be performed at the ASGPP Annual Conference in Clearwater, Florida, April 2011.  Kelly is founder and co-producer of the Our Voices Festival of Boston area Women’s Plays, now in its sixth year. She is a certified psychodramatist, a Fellow in the ASGPP, a member of the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston and a Playback Theatre Artist. 

Our Voices V Featured Artist, Geralyn Horton

 

2011 Participating Playwright Artist Statement

Kiss The Twins For Me, (A 10-minute Play), by G.L. (Geralyn) Horton

Our Voices Festival V

March 26, 2011

Fine Arts Center, Black Box, Regis College 

Artist Statement

 

This play was inspired by: An item I read + my grandmother

 

One thing that surprises me about this play is: How judgmental audiences can be re: adult children's concern for parents

 

This play is built upon my strong belief (or faith) in: How little we know about even those we are close to.

 

One thing I have learned (about myself or my writing) from this play is: How hard it is to portray inner changes that are not verbalized: subtextual shifts.

 

A block or resistance I have had to overcome in creating this play or monologue was (is still?) my fear/belief/concern that: Nobody cares.

 

My wish for this play is that it will connect with readers, actors, audiences.

 

CAST

 

Directed by: Jerry Bisantz

Jerry Bisantz - Steve,

Phyllis  Rittner - Diane

Jay Newlon - Jeffrey
 

Our Voices V Featured Artist - Wendy Lement

2011 Our Voices Participating Artist Statment

Wedding Dreams by Wendy Lement

Our Voices Festival V

March 26, 2011

Fine Arts Center, Black Box, Regis College

Artist Statement

This play was inspired by my personal journey and coming to terms with choices that I’ve made.

One thing that surprised me about this play is that I started writing it as a one-woman piece.  I lost interest and put it down for several months. Then I started having dreams. Incorporating those dreams and characters from them into the play entirely reshaped the structure of the piece and made it a joy to write.

This play is built upon my belief that humor can help us put our lives into perspective.

If my play could change something it would help brides to stop stressing about their weddings and focus on the marriage they are about to enter.

One major resistance I had to overcome was my fear that a self-scripted piece wouldn’t be of interest to the general public.

My three wishes for this play are:

1. That the play is funny.
2. That the play strikes a cord with the audience.
3. That the dreams are woven into the text in a way that furthers the action.

Staged Reading Cast

Directed by: Wendy Lement

Susan Lombardi Verticelli - SHELLY

Shelly Bolman - DAN

Daniel Bolton - MICHAEL

Derek Nelson - RICHARD

PLAYWRIGHT BIO

Wendy Lement is co-founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Espresso, a theatre-in-education company that tours to schools, museums, and courthouses with interactive historical dramas that explore issues of human rights, social justice, and constitutional law. She is also a Professor and Chair of the Theatre Program at Regis College in Weston, MA, where she has directed over thirty productions, including: Dancing at Lughnasa, Importance of Being Earnest, The Good Woman of Setzuan and Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), and Steel Magnolias, which won a Moss Hart Award. Her production of The House of Bernarda Alba won the 2000 New England Region’s American College Theatre Festival, sponsored by the Kennedy Center. She is co-author of And Justice for Some: Exploring American Justice through Drama and Theatre, published by Heinemann Press (2005). Wendy’s children’s book, Keri Tarr: Cat Detective, was published by Breakaway Books (2004). She has written numerous plays including, Woman with the Red Kerchief (selected for the 2010 New England Russian Theatre Festival), Salem’s Daughters, King George III vs. Ruth Blay, Remember Last Night, Dolphins: The Myth of Persephone, The Legend of the Christmas Rose, and Keri Tarr: Cat Detective (based on her children's book), which won the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s 2002 Unpublished Playreading Project. Wendy holds a Ph.D. in Educational Theatre from New York University.