[February 12, 2018] |
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Audible Announces First Class of Theater Commissions to Receive Support from Its $5 Million Emerging Playwrights Fund
Audible Inc., the world's largest producer and provider of downloadable
audiobooks and other spoken-word entertainment, today announced the
first class of theater commissions selected to receive support from its
fund dedicated to the commission and development of innovative
English-language works from playwrights around the globe. Announced
earlier this year, the $5 million fund will enable the creation of one-
and two-person audio plays driven by language and voice, in keeping with
Audible's core commitment to elevating listening experiences through
powerful performances of brilliantly composed words.
At a time when both playwrights and theater companies increasingly rely
upon funding for the arts and ticket prices to live theater soar,
Audible seeks to provide a creative home for artists and ideas,
supporting established and new playwrights by commissioning works that
can be heard by millions of Audible listeners. Audible has selected
these grant recipients in collaboration with an advisory board of
distinguished talent in the theater world, including Sir Tom Stoppard,
Annette Bening, David Henry Hwang, Oskar Eustis, Lynn Nottage, Trip
Cullman, Mimi O'Donnell, and Leigh Silverman.
"We are delighted to welcome our first class of talented playwrights to
the Audible aesthetic, and look forward to bringing their words in
performance to theatergoers along with our millions of listeners," said
Audible founder and CEO Don Katz.
In addition to financial support, Audible will provide the selected
playwrights creative and logistical resources including the use of
Audible's workspace, alongside hundreds of employees committed to
creating exceptional listening experiences every day. With access to
experts in a variety of creative fields, playwrights will enjoy a
nurturing environment that inspires and encourages artistic expression
with Audible listeners in mind.
"What an incredibly impressive first class of exciting and diverse
playwrights to receive commissions from Audible playwright fund!" said
Theater Artistic Director Kate Navin. "We look forward to developing and
supporting the creation of these works and to bringing them to life both
in audio and on stage. Offering these productions on Audible will bring
these plays to millions of people as incomparable listening experiences."
The first class of commissions will go to:
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AARON MARK, a Texas-born, New York-based artist whose
distinctive narrative style drew immediate attention for this early
career playwright. Aaron's ongoing series of solo shows, including
EMPANADA LOCA, has earned him a reputation as a new leading light of
the single-performer genre.
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ADITI BRENNAN KAPIL is a multi-disciplinary artist, of
Bulgarian and Indian descent, who was raised in Sweden. Her plays
include Love Person (Stavis Playwriting Award in 2009),
Displaced Hindu Gods Trilogy (Brahman/i, a one-hijra stand-up
comedy show, The Chronicles of Kalki, and Shiv) (premiered
at Mixed Blood Theater and across the US and London), Orange (News - Alert) (premiered
at Mixed Blood Theatre and SCR), and Imogen Says Nothing (premiered
at Yale Repertory Theatre). She is the Playwright-in-Residence at
Mixed Blood Theatre, an Artistic Associate at Park Square Theatre, a
Core Writer at the Playwrights' Center, and a Resident Playwright at
New Dramatists.
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ANTOINETTE NWANDU is a New York-based playwright whose honors
include the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry
Playwriting Award, and the Negro Ensemble Company's Douglas Turner
Ward Prize. In June 2017, the World Premiere of her play PASS
OVER, which received a Jeff Award for outstanding New Play,
was produced by Steppenwolf Theatre. In Feb 2018, the World Premiere
of her play BREACH: a manifesto on race in america through the eyes of
a black girl recovering from self-hate will be produced by Victory
Gardens.
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BRIDGETTE A. WIMBERLY, an award-winning poet, playwright, and
librettist, has been produced Off-Broadway and across the U.S.
including Opera Philadelphia, Apollo Theatr, Madison Opera, Lyric
Opera of Chicago, Hackney Empire/English Royal Opera/London (Charlie
Parker's YARDBIRD, starring Lawrence Brownlee) and Atlanta's
Alliance Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, St. Louis Black Repertory
Theatre, and The Women's Project (Saint Lucy's Eyes, starring
Ruby Dee).
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CHISA HUTCHINSON, is an acclaimed playwright raised and
currently residing in Newark, New Jersey. She holds a B.A. in Dramatic
Arts from Vassar College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from NYU. Her
work has been presented at such venues as the National Black Theater
and Second Stage Theater. She is a current member of New Dramatists
and former staff writer for the Blue Man Group.
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DAVID ROSSMER is a writer, actor and musician. He co-wrote
book, music and lyrics (with Steve Rosen) for the critically acclaimed
comedy The Other Josh Cohen, which premiered Off-Broadway
and was nominated for 6 Drama Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award
and the Off-Broadway Alliance Award. Rossmer co-created the edgy, hit
variety show Don't Quit Your Night Job, which began at the
Public Theater in NYC and moved to a successful run Off-Broadway…
where he wrote special material for the likes of Sting, Sutton Foster,
James Corden, Huey Lewis, David Hyde Pierce and Andrea Martin, to name
a few. Rossmer also co-wrote Rated P, which began
Off-Broadway, was developed for television by Kelly Ripa's Milojo
Productions and bought by ABC Studios.
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GARY MCNAIR, a playwright, director and performer based in
Glasgow, Scotland. His 2017 sold-out, Fringe First award
winner LETTERS TO MORRISSEY is the third in a trilogy of often darkly
comic works drawing on the joys and struggles of growing up in working
class Scotland.
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JAMES ANTHONY TYLER, is an award-winning
playwright who holds a MFA (News - Alert) in Film from Howard University, an MFA in
Dramatic Writing from New York University, and has recently earned an
artist's diploma in playwriting from The Juilliard School. His honors
include the Paul Robeson Award, and a John Golden Award for Excellence
in Playwriting from NYU. His play DOLPHINS AND SHARKS received its
world premiere in 2016 with the LABrynth Theatre Company off Broadway,
and his play SOME OLD BLACK MAN will run this spring off Broadway at
59E59 Theatre.
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JAMES FRITZ, a playwright from London, who's first full-length
play, FOUR MINUTES TWELVE SECONDS which premiered at Hampstead Theatre
downstairs in 2014, was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding
Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. His other plays include ROSS &
RACHEL ("a virtuosic piece of writing" Time Out) which opened to
critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015, PARLIAMENT
SQUARE, which won a Bruntwood Prize in 2015, premiered at the Royal
Exchange Theatre in 2017 before transferring to the Bush Theatre, and
THE FALL which he wrote for the National Youth Theatre of Great
Britain's 60th anniversary season in 2016. In 2017 his radio play
COMMENT IS FREE won both the Imison and the Tinniswood Awards at the
BBC Audio Drama Awards, which is the first time that a single writer
has won both awards the same year.
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LAUREN GUNDERSON is the most produced playwright in America in
2017 and the author of plays such as The Book of Will, Miss
Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, and I and You. Ms.
Gunderson's work has been commissioned, developed and produced at
companies including South Coast Repertory, Marin Theatre Company, The
Kennedy Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center, San
Francisco Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, TheatreWorks and more.
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LEAH NANAKO WINKLER, a Japanese American playwright from
Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky. Her play KENTUCKY premiered at
Ensemble Studio Theatre. Her play GOD SAID THIS will be in the 2018
Humana Festival of New Plays. She is the inaugural recipient of the
Mark O'Donnell Prize.
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MADHURI SHEKAR, a current playwriting student at Juilliard.
Madhuri is the 2013/14 winner of the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting
contest held by the Alliance Theatre for her play IN LOVE AND
WARCRAFT, for which they did the world premiere production. Most
recently her play QUEEN was produced at Victory Gardens in Chicago.
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NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR, a multidisciplinary theatre maker from
Tehran, currently based in Berlin, Germany. His plays have been
translated into more than 25 languages, and performed across the globe.
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PAOLA LÁZARO is a playwright and actor born and raised in San
Juan, Puerto Rico. She holds a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from SUNY
Purchase College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia
University. Her play TELL HECTOR I MISS HIM premiered at the Atlantic
Theater Company in fall of 2017, and THERE'S ALWAYS THE HUDSON was
recently workshopped at Sundance. Paola is part of the 2015 Emerging
Writers Group at The Public Theater.
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REGINA TAYLOR, a playwright whose credits include OO-BLA-DEE
(Recipient of the American Theatre Critics Association New Play
Award), DROWNING CROW (Manhattan Theatre Club), THE TRINITY RIVER
PLAYS (Dallas Theater Center and the Goodman Theatre; Recipient of the
2010 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award), MAGNOLIA, THE
DREAMS OF SARAH BREEDLOVE, A NIGHT IN TUNISIA, ESCAPE FROM PARADISE,
WATERMELON RINDS, and INSIDE THE BELLY OF THE BEAST. Taylor's
critically acclaimed CROWNS continues to be one of the most-performed
musicals in the country, and is the winner of four Washington, D.C.
Helen Hayes awards.
Beyond support for playwrights, the fund will sustain live and in-studio
production of the newly created plays, and recordings of these
productions will be made available for Audible listeners in 2018.
Audible's inaugural productions are Latin History for Morons, written by
and starring John Leguizamo on Broadway and David Cale's Harry Clarke,
starring Billy Crudup at the Vineyard Theatre off-Broadway.
For more information, please contact [email protected].
Among the acclaimed performers who have narrated works of literature for
Audible are Nick Offerman, Sean Penn, Zachary Quinto, Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Lily Collins, Emma Thompson, James Franco, and Jesse Eisenberg. In 2013,
Audible Studios won its first Grammy Award, for its production of Janis
Ian's memoir, Society's Child, and also won the Audie Award for
Audiobook of the Year, for Colin Firth's performance of Graham Greene's The
End of the Affair.
Audible invented and commercialized the first digital audio player in
1997, and has since been at the forefront of the explosively growing
audiobook download segment. In 2017, listeners around the world
downloaded over two billion hours of Audible content.
ABOUT AUDIBLE, INC.
Audible,
Inc., an Amazon.com (News - Alert), Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is the leading
provider of premium digital spoken audio content, offering customers a
new way to enhance and enrich their lives every day. Audible was created
to unleash the emotive music in language and the habituating power and
utility of verbal expression. Audible content includes more than 400,000
audio programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters,
entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business
information providers. Audible is also the provider of spoken-word audio
products for Apple's (News - Alert) iTunes Store.
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