Playwrights' Center announces 2012-13 Jerome and Jerome Many Voices Playwriting Fellows
06/04/2012Long-running programs in partnership with Jerome Foundation infuse Twin Cities theater scene with talent
The Playwrights' Center today named its newest class of Jerome and Jerome Many Voices playwriting fellows.
The 2012-13 Jerome Fellows, some of whom will relocate to the Twin Cities for the fellowship, are New York-based writers Alex Lewin and Anna Moench, Chicago playwright Martín Zimmerman, and local playwright Joe Waechter.
The 2012-13 Many Voices Fellows are Janaki Ranpura and Ricardo Vazquez; 2012-13 Many Voices Mentorship participants are Taous Khazem and Miré Regulus.
“We are proud to continue these successful programs in partnership with our visionary colleagues at the Jerome Foundation,” said Producing Artistic Director Jeremy B. Cohen. “When these extraordinary artists are given the resources and support they need to create new theatrical work, the results—both here in the Twin Cities and throughout the field at large—are powerful.”
The Jerome Fellowship is the Playwrights' Center's longest-running program and is considered by many dramatists to be a critical milestone in a playwriting career. Jerome Fellows must live in or relocate to the Twin Cities for the fellowship year; they receive a $16,000 stipend to assist with living and travel expenses, as well as the opportunity to develop a new work at the Center and connect with local producing theaters.
The creative impact of Jerome Fellows can be felt throughout the local theater community. Local companies Workhaus Collective and New Native Theatre were both created by playwrights who came to the Twin Cities for Jerome Fellowships and subsequently became permanent residents. In addition, numerous recent productions were penned by current or former fellows, including Enrique Urueta's Learn to be Latina and Kristoffer Diaz's The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity at Mixed Blood Theatre; Kira Obolensky's Vasa Lisa at Ten Thousand Things Theatre Company; Allison Moore's adaptation of My Antonia at the Illusion Theatre; Victoria Stewart's adaptation of Mercy Watson to the Rescue at Children's Theatre Company; and next year's Courting Harry by Lee Blessing at the History Theatre.
The Jerome Many Voices Program, which exclusively serves Twin Cities-based artists of color, increases the diversity of voices writing for the contemporary theater. Many Voices Fellowships provide in-depth support for artists with prior playwriting experience and include a $5,650 stipend. Many Voices Mentorships provide a year of intensive playwriting instruction to beginning playwrights or artists coming to the craft from other disciplines plus a $1,000 stipend.
Instituted in 1994, the Jerome Many Voices Program has awarded 135 fellowships to nearly 100 local artists of color. Past recipients include Daniel Alexander Jones, Naomi Iizuka, Aditi Brennan Kapil, Ed Bok Lee, Marcie Rendon and Eric “Pogi” Sumangil.
JEROME FELLOWS
ALEX LEWIN'S plays have been presented and developed at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Chautauqua Theater Company, Geva Theatre Center, MCC Theater, The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, Arena Stage, the New Harmony Project, and New York Theatre Workshop, where he is an Artistic Associate. Commissions: La Jolla Playhouse, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Foundation. Finalist: the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, the Heideman Award, and the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, among others. Alex holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from the University of California at San Diego. He was a 2009-10 Playwrights Realm writing fellow and a member of the 2009-10 P73 writers group, “Interstate 73.” Alex co-authors the film review blog They'll Love It In Pomona.
ANNA MOENCH'S plays include Hunger, In Quietness (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Great Eastern, and The Pillow Book (59E59). Other productions of her work have been seen at the Old Vic, The Flea, Dixon Place, and FringeNYC. Awards include the 2012 Van Lier Fellowship at the Lark, the Jerome Foundation's 2009 Travel Grant, the 2010 T.S. Eliot Exchange with the Old Vic, and the Tennessee Williams Scholarship. Anna has been commissioned by the EST/Sloan Project, NYU Tisch, Red Fern, and Haggard Middle School. She has been in residence at Baltimore's Centerstage, the Tofte Lake Center, the Vineyard Arts Project, the Emerging Writers Group at the Public, and Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre.
JOE WAECHTER'S plays include Lake Untersee, PROFILES, Good Ole Boys, The Strangler, and Memory Library. His work has been developed or produced at Playwrights Horizons, Ars Nova, American Repertory Theater, McCarter Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Red Eye, Inkwell, Clubbed Thumb, Perishable Theatre, and the Twenty-Five Cent Opera of San Francisco. He is the recipient of a 2011-12 Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights' Center, a 2008-09 Lucille Lortel Playwriting Fellowship, the Weston Award in Playwriting, a Jerome Emerging Artist Residency at Tofte Lake Center, a research travel grant to Iceland, and he will be a Playwright-in-Residence at Hangar Theatre in Summer 2012. He also creates work for other media, including The Hoot Owl, an opera for headphones and Antarctica, an immersive virtual reality piece. M.F.A. Playwriting: Brown University. www.joewaechter.com
MARTÍN ZIMMERMAN'S plays have been produced or developed at the Kennedy Center, Goodman Theatre, the Playwrights' Center, Alliance Theatre, American Theater Company, The Theatre @ Boston Court, Chicago Dramatists, Primary Stages, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Theatre Row, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Borderlands Theater, Source Festival, The Gift, and Red Tape. A recipient of the Carl Djerassi Playwriting Fellowship, NNPN's Smith Prize, and a Core Apprenticeship at the Playwrights' Center, Martín is a member of the 2011-12 Playwrights' Unit at Goodman Theatre, a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, and has been a finalist for the Kendeda Competition and Heideman Award. www.martingzimmerman.com
JEROME MANY VOICES FELLOWS
JANAKI RANPURA cultivates wild abandon in tight spaces. She writes for theatrical platforms that might step over gridlocked traffic, leap across the street in a single bound, lean down, and kiss you. She unites technology with traditional tricks of puppet theater. Projects evolve from her experience as a performer, a community artist, a writer, and a designer for parades and stage.
RICARDO VAZQUEZ is a Puerto Rican actor/writer who has survived over twenty Minnesota winters to date. He has written articles for Minnesota Playlist, ATS.com, and one-act scripts for the University of Minnesota New Works Series. As an actor he was recently seen around town in the title role of Teatro del Pueblo and Pangea World Theater's collaborative production of Oedipus El Rey, Mixed Blood's world premiere of Crashing the Party, and can also be seen weekly on the TV show M@dabout TV! airing nationally. When he is not auditioning around town, he can be heard struggling to learn classical guitar in Powderhorn Park.
JEROME MANY VOICES MENTORSHIP PARTICIPANTS
TAOUS CLAIRE KHAZEM teaches theatre to youth, young adults and adults with disabilities at SteppingStone Theatre, Stages Theatre, the Children's Theatre and Interact Center for the Arts. She also recently joined the COMPAS artist roster. She worked as a theatre artist in Casablanca, Morocco; Amman, Jordan; Albi and Paris, France; Yaoundé, Cameroon; and in every major Algerian city. Locally, she has performed with Interact Center, Pangea World Theater, Frank Theatre, Dreamland Arts and Off Leash Area. Taous trained at the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris, France and holds a B.A. in Theatre and French from Macalester College.
MIRÉ REGULUS is a mover, writer, and theater performance artist. Past associations include @rkology, a spoken word and music group, and performances at Patrick's Cabaret and the Center for Independent Artists. Miré directs, most notably performance pieces by Mankwe Ndosi and Gabrielle Civil. She developed new work in Red Eye's Works In Progress series and studied with the Change Exchange program on L.A.'s Skid Row. In 2009, she was a recipient of Pillsbury House's Naked Stages grant and created work for Laurie Carlos' Late Nite series in 2011. Her work is marked by poetical prose, rich language and non-linear structure.
