New Plays on Campus Program Experiences Growth Spurt

Program forges relationships between colleges and working playwrights

The Playwrights’ Center’s New Plays on Campus (NPOC) program, which matches colleges and universities to working playwrights and their plays, has experienced surprising growth despite tightening budgets at schools nationwide.

Program enrollment has seen a sharp uptick this year, from 19 institutional members in January 2009 to 32 currently. “We’ve already blown past our goals for the year and are continuing to grow,” says Membership Manager Anna Peterson. “We have students encouraging their departments to join, and department heads have been asking questions too.”

NPOC is designed to help both playwrights and schools. “A lot of college theater departments want to put on risky, cutting-edge new plays, but they don’t know where to find them,” explains Peterson. “We put them in touch with playwrights who need to see their work done onstage.”

Karen Peterson Wilson, Professor of Theatre at NPOC member St. Olaf College, has described the program as a “win-win-win for all involved.”

Aquinas College and Vincent Delaney

Serving as a “literary manager at large,” the Playwrights’ Center gives NPOC schools access to the it’s deep inventory of new plays and helps them forge a relationship with the playwright, which frequently includes an on-campus residency.

One such relationship was formed between playwright Vincent Delaney and NPOC member Aquinas College, which produced his play Writer 1272 in 2009. Delaney participated in scene work in classes and an audience talkback following a performance, and spoke to students as part of the school’s Contemporary Writer Series.

Theatre Program Direct Randy Wyatt said, “We worked in conjunction with both the Series and with the Humanities Department to get plenty of students involved … and their reactions were fraught with surprise and enthusiasm  (to the tune of ‘I had no idea this would be so much fun!’).”

Aquinas’s production of Writer 1272 garnered five nominations in the 2009 Grand Awards (for community and college theaters), the most nominations by any single production that year. The experience has generated enthusiasm for Aquinas’s next NPOC project. “We're reading and appreciating so many of the scripts [sent by the Playwrights’ Center], and my students are developing ‘crushes’ on their favorite playwrights,” Wyatt said. “The Playwright's Center is making a difference in the AQ Theatre program.”

Helping Individual Students

In addition to serving whole organizations, the New Plays on Campus program helps students directly. Currently 211 students and faculty receive complimentary Playwrights’ Center General Membership thanks to the program, providing access to a database of submission opportunities, free seminars and other member benefits.

Furthermore, NPOC schools may nominate students for the Core Apprentice program, which provides a fully funded 10-hour workshop at the Playwrights’ Center to further develop their work.

Plays developed through the Core Apprentice program have gone on to production across the country. Core Apprentice David Largman Murray developed his comedy Robots vs. Fake Robots at the Playwrights’ Center in 2007. It was produced in 2009 by Minneapolis’s Walking Shadow Theatre Company to rave reviews, and will be part of the 2010-11 Etcetera Series at Live Theatre Workshop in Tucson, AZ.

Similarly, Core Apprentice Tiffany Antone’s In the Company of Jane Doe recently closed a run at the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica, CA. Of her Core Apprentice workshop, Antone said, “Being able to workshop my play in a friendly and supportive environment outside the nest of academia was not only incredibly helpful to me as a playwright, but encouraging to me as an emerging artist as well.”