Catherine Stewart is an applied theatre artist, making performance work created through participatory processes. Specifically, as a writer, director, media designer, and facilitator working in theatre and film she has developed her practice as part of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, as a Creative Community Fellow at National Arts Strategies, and as a certified facilitator of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. She is a recent alum of Company One’s PlayLab Unit where she developed her latest play, You, Me, and the Woodsmoke, which was named a finalist for Bloomington Play Project's 2022 Woodward/Newman Award. She has a BA Honours in Theatre and Performance from the University of Leeds, where she was awarded the White Rose Scholarship for Enterprise for her work in developing sustainable creative economies, and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Goddard College.
She is a member of the Dramatist Guild of America. You can view her work on the New Play Exchange and at her online portfolio at www.makecreatemore.com.
Plays
Julianne and Margo try to rekindle their friendship with a long weekend camping at Forest Hills State Park. As a result of frustration with each other the women find themselves alone in the woods where Julianne welcomes Daryl, a straight-talking, disdainful black bear with an interest in social psychology, into her campsite and Margo stumbles upon Roadie, a distantly familiar curmudgeon from a music festival the women went to as students. Their encounters mingle with the woodsmoke to unearth a clarity that neither woman has been willing to face before.
Frank led a solitary island life, so when his kin come ashore to lay his body to rest they are left to reconcile their own relationships with the lobsterman. When the end comes there is more than Frank’s land and legacy at stake as the mourners struggle to unearth common ground.
Successes
Named as one of twelve finalists for the Bloomington Play Project's Woodward/Newman Award for You, Me, and the Woodsmoke (2022)