TYA/USA Professional Development Presents:

New Work Development

Friday, November 18, 2016 @ 12 Noon - 1:30 PM CENTRAL

Moderated by Jeremy Winchester, TYA/USA Board Member and Assistant Professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

The New Work Development webinar will present two case studies in the creation of new work for the TYA stage, from the ground up. The presentation will focus on Seattle Children’s Theatre’s in-process adaptation of Black Beauty, and Rising Youth Theatre’s 2015 Antonia, a Chicana Hip-Hop adaptation of Antigone. The artistic director/playwright team responsible for its creation will present each project.

This pairing of projects will allow for an examination of new play development along several dimensions. In-development and complete; a long-established company and a newer organization; site-specific and in-theatre; Children’s Theatre and Youth Theatre – By presenting these two projects in tandem, we will provide multiple lenses into new-work development, useful to any practitioner in the TYA field looking to create a new play.

The presentations will be followed by Q-and-A sessions, moderated by webinar host, Jeremy Winchester.

REGISTER NOW (Visa/MC):

Click: TYA/USA MEMBERS - FREE
Click: NON TYA/USA MEMBERS - $20.00

For nonmembers: after payment, you will be redirected to the webinar registration page. If you are not redirected, CONTACT US, and we will send you the registration link.

For all: We will confirm your membership status and approve your registration, or contact you with any questions. Upon approval, you will receive instructions on how to log-on to the webinar.

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CLICK HERE for further information on our Professional Development Webinars and to suggest topics and guests for future events.

Jose Casas & Sarah Sullivan

Playwright / Co-founder and Artistic Director, Rising Youth

José Casas is an Assistant Professor of Playwriting at the University of Michigan. He has earned a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in Dramatic Arts, a M.A. in Theatre Arts from California State University, Los Angeles and a M.F.A. in Playwriting from Arizona State University. He has taught at a variety of academic institutions such as California State University, University of Redlands, and College of Charleston. He is the Multicultural and Diversity Director for the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE). His plays produced across the country and has a number of publications to his name. Some titles include aDoBe, 14, Talking in Public, the vine and antonia: a chicana hip-hop antigone. His plays plays la ofrenda and somebody’s children have both been awarded the Bonderman National Playwriting for Youth Award and AATE Distinguished Play Award. Most recently, he was selected for the Kennedy Center’s New Visions New Voices program for his play, jj’s arcade. He has a number of publications to his name and he is currently in the process of creating/editing a book titled Palabras del Cielo: An Exploration of Latin@ Theatre for Young Audiences, to be published in 2017 by Dramatic Publishing.

Sarah Sullivan is a theatre artist, educator and writer based in Phoenix, Arizona. She is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Rising Youth Theatre, a company that creates original work with young people in collaboration with professional artists. Through Rising Youth Theatre she has directed and produced a number of youth-driven plays, and built partnerships with social service organizations across the Phoenix Metro area. She currently serves as the Development Manager of Childsplay, where she coordinates all institutional and individual giving programs for the organization. She holds her MFA in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University and her BS in Theatre and English from Northwestern University.
www.risingyouththeatre.org.

James Still & Courtney Sale

Playwright / Artistic Director, Seattle Children’s Theatre

James Still’s work has been produced throughout the United States, Canada, China, Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Australia. He is an elected member of the National Theatre Conference in New York and a Kennedy Center inductee of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. Other honors include the Todd McNerney New Play Prize from the Spoleto Festival, William Inge Festival’s Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the Orlin Corey Medallion from the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America, and the Charlotte B. Chorpenning Award for Distinguished Body of Work. His plays have been nominated four times for the Pulitzer Prize, and have been developed and workshopped at Robert Redford’s Sundance, the New Harmony Project, Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Colorado New Play Summit, the Lark in New York, Launch Pad at UC-Santa Barbara, Perry-Mansfield New Works Festival, Telluride Playwright’s Festival, New Visions/New Voices, and Fresh Ink in Minneapolis. Three of his plays have received the Distinguished Play Award from the American Alliance for Theatre & Education. James is the Resident Playwright at Indiana Repertory Theatre, and an Artistic Affiliate at American Blues Theatre in Chicago. Some of the other theaters that have produced his plays include the Kennedy Center, Denver Center, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Geva, Cornerstone Theater Company, Ford's Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre, the Barter, Pasadena Playhouse, Portland Stage, the Station, the Asolo, Company of Fools, the Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis, Metro Theater Company, B-Street Theatre, Tricklock, Vermont Stage Company, the Round House, American Blues, Illusion Theater, and the Mark Taper Forum. Learn more about James at tyausa.org.

Courtney Sale joined SCT as Artistic Director in August of 2016. Prior to her appointment at SCT, she served three years as Associate Artistic Director at Indiana Repertory Theatre (IRT). IRT directing credits include Jackie and Me, The Giver, And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank, The Mousetrap, The Mountaintop, and two iterations of A Christmas Carol. A director with a strong interest in new works, Courtney has developed plays with New Plays for Young Audiences at NYU/Provincetown Playhouse, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, Write Now, Dorset Theatre Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company’s New Play Summit, New Harmony Project, and the Orchard Project. Her playwright/director collaborations include the works of Steven Dietz, Allison Gregory, Sherry Kramer, MJ Kaufman, Kirk Lynn, Jason Gray Platt, and James Still. Select awards include Indianapolis 40 Under 40, Austin Critic’s Table Award and UT Austin Continuing Fellowship. Courtney has taught at IRT Summer Conservatory for Youth, Summer at Cornish, Temple College and the University of Texas at Austin. BFA, Cornish College of the Arts. MFA, The University of Texas at Austin.
www.courtneysale.com.

The Professional Development Team is planning these topics for the months ahead. More information TBA. Subject to change.