THE FORCE BEHIND THESE BRAVE NEW PLAYS

STORY BY Amanda Watkins

Approaching its 20th year anniversary, the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition has been introducing new stories to the Hertz Stage and welcoming dozens of emerging playwrights to our campus for close to two decades.

Each year, the template for the selection process remains roughly the same. Graduate students from playwriting programs across the country submit a full length play to the competition. (This year we received 65 plays!) A first-round adjudication process ensues with the gracious assistance of eager volunteers, narrowing the initial play submission to five finalists. There is a second round of adjudication with a panel of national judges, and sometime mid-Winter, the winning play for the following season is selected for a world premiere.

There would be no Kendeda Competition without the dozens of playwriting programs across the United States. From University of California San Diego, to University of Iowa, to The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (just to name a few), these institutions fuel the talents of writers and provide invaluable mentorship and training to our next generation of playwrights. Producing new plays takes a village, and with so many flourishing playwriting programs across the country, for us at the Alliance, often the foundation of the village lies in the incredible work happening at these institutions and with the folks who run the programs — the folks who understand that new work is the life-force of our industry.

Tonight’s play is written by Stephen Brown, a recent graduate of The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. This program offers tuitionfree, graduate-level fellowships to four or five writers per year, keeping the cohort intentionally small and allowing the writers an intimate immersive experience, equivalent to a “writers group.” Adam Szymkowicz (who is the Program Manager at The Juilliard School and is himself an impressively commissioned and produced playwright) recently mentioned in an interview that he has noticed an uptick in the amount of projects playwrights are working on, both inside and outside the program. A playwright might have a production being mounted while also juggling the demands of the program’s curriculum. “But that is what it is like to be a playwright. There is always more than one story happening.”

And lucky for us as audience members that these emerging playwrights from these esteemed programs are at any given time breathing life into multiple new stories for the stage. Here at the Alliance, the four finalist plays from The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd ’s competition year will be presented to our community in the form of public readings the week of March 6th. Like Stephen Brown’s magnificent work, each of these four plays beautifully aligns with the Alliance Theatre’s mission to expand hearts and minds.

Memorial (by Adam Ashraf Elsayigh from Brooklyn College and Arianna Gayle Stucki from The Juilliard School) chronicles the impact of the two mosque shootings that occurred at Christchurch in New Zealand in 2019; Ruth and Lydia (by Jamie Rubenstein from Hunter College) is centered around two women spending their last days in a retirement community and is a time-bending kaleidoscopic play about the sublime beauty of being alive; Ridgway (by Charlie O’Leary from University of Iowa) is a ghost story about who can live safely in rural America; and How to Bruise Gracefully (by Brittany Fisher from The Juilliard School) portrays a deep exploration of fear, trauma, and inner strength through the eyes of women who have both nothing and everything to lose.

The Kendeda New Work initiative is so much more than a play competition. It is just one part of the village that creates access and opportunity for writers. It is because of these spectacular playwriting programs and their leaders that our rehearsal halls and stages are continually enriched by the voices of the next generation of playwrights.

APR 1–15 2023

World Premiere // Musical

This play, inspired by the early life and influences of musical icon Jimi Hendrix, encourages us to dream big when it matters most.

Book

by

IDRIS GOODWIN

Music by EUGENE H. RUSSELL IV & DIVINITY ROXX

Directed by TIM BOND

Coming Soon in the 2022/23 SEASON

JUN 4–JUL 9 2023

World Premiere // Musical Romance, deception, and magic beneath the big top of a traveling circus. A world-premiere musical based on the critically acclaimed and best-selling novel.

Book by RICK ELICE

Music & Lyrics by PIGPEN THEATRE CO

Based on the Novel by SARA GRUEN

Directed by JESSICA STONE

2023/24 Season to be announced soon!

Tickets and memberships available at alliancetheatre.org

SHARE YOUR STORY.

PRESERVE YOUR STAGE .

The posting of photos taken before the show, during intermission, or in our lobbies is not only allowed but strongly encouraged! We do kindly ask that you refrain from taking pictures, recording audio, or capturing video during the performance to allow our audiences and performers to stay connected with each other during our brief time together.