Tell us a little about yourself. What’s your backstory as a playwright?
Some of my past productions include Cirque du Soleil’s Paramour (Broadway, Hamburg Germany), Prodigy (CCU, Collaborative Development Project, Two Rivers Theatre Company, Indiana University, Harrisburg New Works Festival), The Artist and the Scientist (CAP21), To Have and to Hold (Prospect Theatre Company), Cinderella (commission, Spotlight Youth Theatre), Two Bugs are Better Than One (commission, New York City Children’s Theatre), Awakening, Extended Stay (Florida Festival of New Musicals, Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat), Beating a Dead Horse (2017 Reva Shiner Comedy Award Winner, Bloomington Playwrights Project), and The Homefront (Village Theatre Originals, Village Theatre Beta Series). My work has been featured at Lincoln Center (“The Lyrics of Jennifer Stafford”), Joe’s Pub, Ars Nova, 54 Below, the NAMT Songwriter’s Showcase, Prospect Theatre, Barrington Stage, and elsewhere. I’ve been an Artist in Residence at the Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat, Hypatia in the Woods, Goodspeed Musicals/Johnny Mercer Writer’s Colony, CAP 21, the Ross Ragland Theatre, and the Berkshire Playwrights Theatre. I was a Finalist for the 2019 Kleban Prize. I’m a Dramatists Guild member who got my MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
In working on Secret Hour, what has your process been like so far?
The actual writing of this piece has been fairly quick, though the idea was rolling around in my brain for more than a year before I started writing it! I wrote part of it at the National Winter Playwright’s Retreat in January of this year, and the rest has been with the writer’s group through BETC.
What’s one reason people should come to hear this story at a table reading?
The script the audience will hear at the reading will be a true first draft…as in, I am still writing it right now, and probably won’t finish it until the day before the reading! While it’s scary as an artist to put your work out in the world in such an unpolished state, I think it can be exciting as an audience member to see this part of the process. This draft is mostly asking the questions that I find myself asking about womanhood, motherhood, and ethics…so this draft feels very raw and honest.
What do you think makes for good post-reading conversation?
I love to hear what audiences resonate with–what parts of the show struck a chord with them, emotionally or intellectually. I think that’s always the most helpful thing to hear, because then I often focus my next draft in that direction!
RSVP here for the reading of “Secret Hour” on June 3.
