| Dear Iowa Theatre Alumni and Friends: | The semester is well underway, and we've already enjoyed a variety of engaging events and performances. Here are some updates from the summer and the start of our fall semester.
We just closed our first production, The (T-)re(x)formation by MK Shultz (3rd-year BA student) and directed by Emelia Wenzel (4th-year BA student), with a cast and crew made almost entirely of current undergraduate students. We are now turning our attention to the upcoming mainstage production Marie Antoinette, by Tony Award winner and Iowa Playwrights Workshop alum David Adjmi, which I am delighted to be directing. The play, showing in Thayer Theatre October 11-19, reflects our own media-addled infatuation with wealth and power, weaving together comedy, hierarchy, and intrigue as the young queen navigates the tenuous path towards her inevitable deposition.
As always, we genuinely love staying connected with our alumni and we are eager to hear your updates. If you have news to share about your accomplishments or the work of a fellow Iowa Theatre grad, please let us know.
Warmly,
Mary Beth Easley
Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts
Associate Professor, Head of Directing | | | Departmental News | Congratulations to first-year MFA playwright Darrin Terpstra (2023 BA, English and Creative Writing) on receiving the prestigious 2024 Hansberry-Lily Fellowship. Created in honor of playwright Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window), the fellowships ensures that the next generation of women and non-binary playwrights of color are able to follow in Hansberry's footsteps, creating new work and developing their writing careers regardless of their economic situation. Darrin was selected for this award by playwright, director, and actress Seret Scott. Read more about Darrin and this award from the Playbill article HERE.
Image of The (T-)re(x)formation
The (T-)re(x)formation, written by University of Iowa undergraduate student MK Shultz, debuted in the UI Theatre Building on Sept. 20 and was reviewed in The Daily Iowan. Read More.
Find Department of Theatre Arts News and Updates Anytime HERE.
| | | Alumni News | David Adjmi’s new play, Stereophonic, opened at Broadway’s Golden Theatre on April 19. The play, which includes songs by Will Butler, follows a fictional 1970s rock band on the cusp of superstardom as they struggle through recording their new album. The play, directed by Daniel Aukin, completed an Off-Broadway run at Playwrights Horizons on Dec. 17, following a three-week extension. Read More.
Sean Demers’ (2016 MFA) Faculty Portrait, which debuted at the 2015 Iowa New Play Festival, is being published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals. Read More.
_(1).jpg)
Image of Demers' Faculty Portrait
Christopher Leyva (2006 MFA) was chosen as one of 10 fellows for the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) 2024 Series Scriptwriters Program. For more than twenty years, NHMC has cemented the Series Scriptwriters Program as one of the leading writers’ labs in the entertainment industry. The unique eight-week intense program accepts nationwide applications, with ten Latine writers from diverse backgrounds selected to participate. Participants work closely with mentors, meet seasoned writers in the industry, join a community of alum Latine writers, and connect with agents, managers, and executives in the entertainment industry. By the end of the program, participants develop a half-hour or hour-long original series pilot with the opportunity to pitch network executives in NHMC’s network of partners, including The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, and Netflix. Read more about the NHMC Series Scriptwriters Program HERE.
_(1).jpg)
Alyssa Cokinis’ (2017 BA) co-written Shakespeare reimagining, The Lark and the Nightingale (in which Desdemona and Juliet meet and fell in love), was featured in Frigid New York's The Little Shakespeare Festival 2024 in August. Read More.
The Interstitial, a producing partnership between Erica Wray (2020 MFA, Directing) and Morgan Grambo (2020 MFA, Dramaturgy), will present You Must Wear A Hat by C. Meaker (2019 MFA, Playwriting) from October 10 to 12 at Theaterlab. The play follows Tuesday and Weeks as they make hats on the Great Barrier Reef, waiting for the world to end. Since debuting at the 2018 Iowa New Play Festival, the play has been developed at the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights’ Workshop and Kitchen Dog Theater New Play Festival. You Must Wear A Hat features scenic and lighting design by Courtney Gaston (2020 MFA, Theatrical Design), sound design by Joshua Dumas, puppet and costume design by Chelsea June (202 MFA, Theatrical Design), and dramaturgy by Morgan Grambo. Lindsay Warnick (2018 MFA, Stage Management) is the Production Stage Manager. Read More.
Nicholas Meyer (1968 BA) had a reading for his new book Sherlock Holmes and the Telegraph from Hell on September 16 at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City. Nicholas is the best-selling author of several screenplays, short stories and books. He created the Nicholas Meyer Playwriting Scholarship at the University of Iowa to support students of dramatic writing for stage, television, or film. Read more about the book HERE.
Jen Silverman (2011 MFA ,Playwriting) made their Broadway debut this month with The Roommate, starring Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone. Silverman is a prolific playwright, novelist, and screenwriter, who has built their life around the magic of theatre, describing it as “the sort of feeling that becomes a constant longing. It’s the sort of longing upon which you build an entire life.” Silverman’s work is interested in the human condition, or as they put it, “the moral complexities of what it is to be a human in society,” and their play, The Roommate, is no exception to this. Read More.
SUBMIT YOUR NEWS HERE | | | Faculty News |
Megan Gogerty was featured on the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost’s website on a UI Faculty Focus profile. In the article Megan shares insights on her journey as a playwright. Read the article Megan also performed this September a one-time-only performance of her play, Oh, Auctioneer! in Iowa City to raise money to produce her other new play, Fair State. Her ambition is to tour Fair State around the midwest, especially in rural and underserved communities in the Iowa heartland. Read More.
Mark Bruckner, who recently worked with master puppeteer Kevin Augustine on his piece Body Concert has won 3 top awards at the XXXVII International Suitcase Theater Festival in Lomza, Poland. The awards won were in the following categories: Best Music by Mark Bruckner, Best Actor for Kevin Augustine, and Best Scenography by Lone Wolf Tribe. Read more about the festival HERE.
Cathy Parrot opened two premiere productions on Broadway this spring as Associate Costume Designer to Tony Award-winner Dede Ayite: Days of Wine and Roses and Alicia Keys’ Hell’s Kitchen, which was nominated for 13 Tony, including for Best Costume Design. Lindsey Kuhn (2019 M.F.A.) joined Cathy on Hell’s Kitchen as an Assistant Costume Designer. Cathy’s latest film projects were released this summer: The Great Lillian Hall starring Kathy Bates and Jessica Lange and Descendants: The Rise of Red starring Rita Ora and Brandy on Disney+.
Johanna Kasimow developed her semi-autobiographical experimental play, The Grüb in Philadelphia this summer with support from the University of Iowa’s Arts and Humanities Initiative grant. The play blends various theatrical styles, including clowning, melodrama, and hyper-realism, to explore how family stories inhabit our bodies. Kasimow also created an interactive installation titled Live On Set on the play's set, designed by Maiko Matsushima. Using props from the play, the audience engages in playful interactions within these spaces, serving as embodied research for the project. The installation was curated by Icebox Project Space in Philadelphia. Read more HERE.
Installation Live On Set for the play The Grüb
Jason Simms designed the set for 4000 Miles at Berkeshire Theatre Group, directed by award-winning filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb and starring Broadway Legend Maria Tucci, and also for The Gin Game at Bristol Riverside Theatre in Philadelphia. Coming up Simms will design A Christmas Carol at Walnut St. Theater in Philadelphia, Beautiful, The Carol King Musical at Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, UT, and at Geva Theatre in Rochester, NY, and Trouble In Mind and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf at Pittsburgh Public Theatre. This coming summer he will design The Wizard Of Oz at Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
| | | |
