Celebrating the Year of the Female Playwright in B-N in 2014

There has been a lot of controversy about the lack of representation for female playwrights on American stages. I don't know if it was on purpose or just a happy accident, but Bloomington-Normal knocked it out of the park when it came to showcasing the work of female playwrights in 2014. From The Diary of Anne Frank back in January to Falling by Deanna Jent, which closed just before Thanksgiving, from stories told in ten minutes to one acts and full-length plays, we had a chance to see -- right here in Bloomington-Normal -- 21 different plays written by women, two plays co-written by women, and three musicals with music, lyrics or books written or co-written by women.

Last spring, Illinois State University gave us Diana Son's Stop Kiss, directed by Leah Cassella for Westhoff Theatre, followed by Exonerated, a "true crime" documentary piece written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen and directed by Cyndee Brown, and Mrs. Packard, a look at a particularly dark moment in women's history written by Emily Mann and directed by Vanessa Stalling for ISU's Center for the Performing Arts.

This fall, ISU came back with In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) by Sarah Ruhl, directed by David Ian Lee for the CPA, with an amazing set design by Jen Kazmierczak; Water by the Spoonful, Quiara Alegria Hudes's 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner, directed by Cassella in Westhoff; and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, from Lynn Nottage, another Pulitzer winner, directed by Don LaCasse for the CPA.

Over at Heartland, the April play was Iron, by Scottish playwright Rona Munro, a searing look at a daughter trying to reconnect with the mother she can't remember, a mother who is in prison for killing Dad fifteen years ago. Claire BonEnfant, Nancy Halper and Brigitte Viellieu-Davis won slots in Heartland's 10-Minute Play Festival, while Lori Matthews and Pamela Devon Lovell wrote winning one-acts produced as New Plays from the Heartland. And this fall, Heartland staged Julia Cho's The Language Archive, directed by Kathleen Kirk, and Deanna Jent's Falling, directed by Lori Adams, who had also directed the play in its St. Louis premiere and its off-Broadway transfer. Jent's intensely personal play was a shot right to the heart of playgoers.

New Route Theatre continued its mission to showcase underrepresented voices by bringing back The Mountaintop, Katori Hall's play about the last night in the life of Martin Luther King, and then offering Johnna Adams' mother/teacher showdown Gidion's Knot; Full Bloom, a reunion play by Leola Bellamy, Erica Thurman's Flashbacks; and Walking with My Ancestors, a journey into the past told in song, dance and the spoken word, written by ISU professor Ama Oforiwaa Aduonu.

Community Players brought us The Diary of Anne Frank, an adaptation of Anne's own words for the stage originally written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and updated by Wendy Kesselman; the musical 9 to 5, with music and lyrics by Dolly Parton and book by Patricia Resnick, and Shrek: The Musical, with music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics and book by David Lindsay-Abaire.

Illinois Wesleyan University offered 12 Ophelias by Caridad Svich and The Drowsy Chaperone, a delightful 1920s musical spoof with music and lyrics co-written by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison.

The newest theatrical venture in town, the bar plays called Sticky in the Sticks, also featured work by women, in the tradition of Sticky founder Libby Emmons. The Normal version of Sticky gave us pieces by Emmons herself as well as Jeanine Jones in its December show.

All in all, it was a very good year.  More than two dozen different women with very different voices, all represented on stages in our home town.

The work isn't done, of course. It seems unlikely this will happen two years in a row, let alone three or four. But for now, for Bloomington-Normal in 2014, we can congratulate ourselves on quietly, happily getting it done. Here's to moe of the same in 2015!

October 23 Openings, Part Three: WATER BY THE SPOONFUL at ISU

We have a multitude of entertainment options this week, with three good ones opening tonight. We've talked about ShakesFEAR!, a haunted house concept played around Ewing Manor and its grounds, and The Shape of Things, a provocative play by Neil LaBute that takes the stage at Illinois Wesleyan University through the weekend.

The third choice, Water by the Spoonful, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, has a bit longer run than the other two. You can catch Water by the Spoonful at Westhoff Theatre tonight through November 1, with evening performances at 7:30 pm and matinees on the 26th and the 1st at 2 pm.

Water by the Spoonful is the second in a trilogy of plays by Hudes, all dealing with a veteran of the Iraq wars named Elliot. In the first play, Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue, itself a Pulitzer finalist, the title character was dealing with a family legacy of war and its echoes. In Water, family is also at the forefront, although this time it's Elliot and his cousin Yaz, as well as an online community of recovering addicts that begins to function like a family. The Happiest Song Plays Last, which premiered last year at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, brings back Elliot and Yaz as they struggle to find "peace and purpose in an ever-changing world."

The play takes place in North Philadelphia, where Ellot is trying to get back into civilian life while staying away from a dangerous addiction and some very bad dreams. He has a job -- at a Subway Sandwich -- and connections, to his cousin, Yaz, and the woman who raised him, who is dying. Addiction is also an issue for a small group of diverse online "friends" who gather every day to help each other stay sober. The connection between Elliot and the cyber-support group become clearer as the play progresses, delineating families and friendships bound and separated by blood and water.

Third-year MFA directing candidate Leah Cassella directs Water by the Spoonful for Illinois State University's Westhoff Theatre with a cast that includes grad student Ronald Roman as Elliot and Lauren Pfeiffer as Yaz. Jaimie Taylor will play Odessa, the leader of the addiction support group, with Joey Banks, Anastasia Ferguson and Hananiah Wiggins as the other members of her online family and Eddie Curley as someone from Elliot's past who haunts him.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for faculty, staff, students or seniors. Tickets can be purchased at the College of Fine Arts Box Office, located in ISU's Center for the Performing Arts, from 11 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday, or by phone at 309-438-2535. For more information, click here or here.

What's Ahead on ISU Stages in 2014-15

Illinois State University's Department of Theatre and Dance has announced what will be on stage in the Fall of 2014 and Spring of 2015. And it's an ambitious and intriguing lineup, with lots of new work, lots of female playwrights, and lots of roles for actors of color.

The first play on the schedule will be Sarah Ruhl's funny, provocative take on women, sexuality, and the birth of the vibrator in the 19th century. In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) will be directed for ISU's Center for the Performing Arts by David Ian Lee, an MFA director who earned rave reviews for his production of Perestroika last semester. The Vibrator Play was originally directed by Les Waters, the current Artistic Director at Actors Theatre of Louisville, for Berkeley Rep in California; Waters then took the play to Broadway with a production that starred Laura Benanti and Michael Cerveris and earned Tony nominations for the play, David Zinn's Victorian costume design, and featured actress Maria Dizzia. The play was also a nominee for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Lynn Nottage, the playwright behind By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, also slated for the CPA this Fall, is no stranger to the Pulitzer Prize. Her play, Ruined, was the 2009 winner of that prestigious prize. Vera Stark is more humorous and more lively than Ruined, telling the story of an African-American woman who works as a maid for a Hollywood diva. But then Vera gets a role on screen as a maid -- the maid to her boss's Southern belle in some epic historical romance film -- and the fact that her sparkling performance upstages everybody does not go unnoticed. She had a career. She had suitors. She went to the best parties. So what happened to Vera Stark? Nottage's play is irreverent and a little wacky, and it will serve as the Crossroads production for the season. Don LaCasse is on tap to direct the ISU version of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark.

And here's that Pulitzer word again. The third play on ISU's schedule is a Pulitzer winner from yet another female playwright. Water by the Spoonful is Quiara Alegría Hudes's second play in a three-play series about a soldier named Elliot who has issues when he comes back to the U.S. The first play, Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue, was nominated for a Pulitzer in 2007, while the third Elliot play, The Happiest Song Plays Last, premiered at Chicago's Goodman Theatre last year. Elliot, his cousin, his biological mother and an online circle of recovering addicts populate Water by the Spoonful, a lyrical, innovative play about connections, guilt and forgiveness. Third-year MFA candidate Leah Cassella will direct Water by the Spoonful in Westhoff Theatre.

Going from Quiara Alegría Hudes to Noel Coward is quite a jump. Although Illinois Wesleyan just did Hay Fever last semester, ISU director Sonja Moser is going to go for her own take on the Coward classic. Instead of Spoonful's disconnected cyberworld of 2012, Hay Fever is all about the 1920s during a weekend at an eccentric family's country house. Tennis, anyone? It's lighter than air, fizzy and charming. What in the world will Moser do with it? I guess we'll find out next Fall in Westhoff Theatre!

The last piece of the 2014 puzzle is the annual Fall Dance Concert, under the direction of Sara Semonis, Artistic Director of Illinois Dance Theatre.

As we move into 2015, ISU assistant professor Duane Boutté will bring the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret, based on the Joe van Druten play I Am a Camera, itself based on Christopher Isherwood's autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin, to the Center for the Performing Arts. The original Broadway Cabaret and its decadent view of life in Berlin in the 1930s won eight Tony Awards back in 1967, including Best Musical, Best Composer and Lyricist for John Kander and Fred Ebb, Best Director for Hal Prince and Best Featured Actor for Joel Grey, who played the seedy, scary Emcee. Grey reprised his role and won an Oscar for his role in the 1972 movie directed by Bob Fosse, a film that took home eight Oscars, including Best Director and Best Actress for Liza Minnelli. That's Liza at the top of the heap in the movie poster shown here.

Moving back in time and somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand miles to the east, Anton Chekhov's The Seagull will take the stage at the CPA later in the Spring semester. The Seagull was written in 1895 and its first production was a famous flop. But Stanislavski's 1898 production for the Moscow Art Theatre turned it into a sensation. It's about the interaction and complications between and among a fading actress named Arkadina, her lover Trigorin, who is a writer; her would-be playwright son Treplev; and a young woman named Nina, as well as various other characters who live on the country estate owned by Arkadina's brother Sorin. The Seagull was last performed at Illinois State University as part of the 2004-05 season. This time out, Lori Adams, who heads up the Acting program at ISU, will direct.

Second-year MFA director Jonathan Hunt Sell will twist and (gender-bend) Moliere's classic comedy The School for Wives for Westhoff Theatre, giving Moliere the "Drag and Breeches" treatment with men playing the female roles and women playing the male ones. So the gents will be in dresses -- fancy 17th century French couture -- and the ladies will be in breeches. That should upend and refresh this tale of a creepy guy named Arnolphe and his attempts to keep his innocent ward, Agnes, cooped up and stupid so she won't fall in love and he can marry her himself.

Sell's colleague Jessika Malone, the other second-year MFA candidate in directing, also looks outside the U.S. for her play. She has chosen Selkie: Between Land and Sea, a mystical, mythical Scottish piece by Laurie Brooks, for her Spring production in Westhoff. The legend of the selkie is a cross between a mermaid story and the Swan Princess, with a girl who becomes a seal when in the sea, but a woman when on land. Laurie Brooks has also written a book version of her story, simply called Selkie Girl, and that's the image you see here.

All the details on Illinois State University's schedule will appear here and here once the current season is finished. 

New Route Announces Provocative New Season

New Route Theatre has announced a line-up of ambitious and provocative shows for their 2013-14 season. Artistic Director Don Shandrow sent out the list this morning, including work by four Pulitzer Prize winners and one local playwright. Plays range from the well-known, like August Wilson's Fences and Lynn Nottage's Ruined, both Pulitzer Prize winners, to new work like F2M from Patricia Wettig and Hostage, written by Illinois State University Professor Kim Pereira.

Here's what you'll see coming from New Route beginning this May:

Dael Orlandersmith

The Gimmick by Dael Orlandersmith
May 10-19
Directed by Don Shandrow
This moving play, by the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright of Yellowman, tells the story of Alexis, an intelligent girl whose life is complicated by her alcoholic mother and impoverished neighborhood. Only a librarian with a love of words can open a window of hope for Alexis, hope for something beyond the world of “gimmicks” that plague her neighborhood.

Patricia Wettig

F2M by Patricia Wettig
June 13-22
Directed by Irene Taylor
Parker, a transgender freshman college student, is confronted by his parents during an unexpected visit. This new play by Patricia Wettig, primarily recognized for her acting roles in "30 Something" and "Brothers and Sisters," is a funny and poignant look at identity, parenting and making choices.

Lynn Nottage

Ruined by Lynn Nottage
August 2-11
Directed by Don Shandrow
This 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning play is a powerful portrayal of the triumph of human spirit in a war-torn country. Guided by music and the rhythm of life in the Congo, Ruined transports us to Mama Nadi’s bar, a small town refuge where intimacy comes at a price. This remarkable story is rich with humor, hope and humanity as it expertly navigates relationships, politics and the resiliency of the female spirit.

Kim Pereira

Hostage by Kim Pereira
September 12-21
Directed by Heidi Harris
An American journalist is captured by an Arab in the Middle East. What starts as a stereotypical situation takes a few unexpected turns as both men are forced to confront some difficult truths about themselves and each other... and the strange roles they will play in each other's lives. A Semi-finalist for the O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference.

August Wilson

Fences by August Wilson
November 1-10
Directed by Kim Pereira
The 1950s ushered in a new era for blacks in America. The complex rhythms of be-bop and cool jazz reflected a changing country in which African-Americans began to stake a claim. Fences is the story of Troy Maxson, a baseball player trapped between two worlds -- not just between blacks and whites but between his frustration of the past and his suspicion of the future.

Quiara Alegría Hudes

Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue by Quiara Alegría Hudes
February 14-23
This 2007 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama tells the interwoven story of four Puerto Rican family members who represent three generations of military service. Elliot, the son, returns home a wounded hero from Iraq, While on leave, Elliot learns the stories of his father and grandfather who served in Korea and Vietnam before him. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called the play "A lush and evocative tone poem about the way the landscape of the soul is transformed by war."

New Route's shows are performed at the YWCA of McLean County, located at 1201 North Hershey Road in Bloomington. Friday and Saturday performances are scheduled for 7:30 pm, with Sunday matinees at 2:30 pm. You may reserve tickets in advance by e-mailing new.route.theatre@gmail.com or by calling 309-827-7330. For more information about New Route and its new season, check out their Facebook page.

TCG Will Publish Pulitzer Prize Winner "Water by the Spoonful"

Theatre Communications Group has announced that they will be publishing "Water by the Spoonful," the Quiara Alegría Hudes play which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Quiara Alegría Hudes

TCG plans to release the play through its TCG Books imprint on August 1, 2012, followed by Hudes' previous play, "Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue," on August 15.  "Elliot" and "Water" represent the first and second parts of a trilogy involving an American soldier sent to Iraq, with "Elliot" looking at three generations of one soldier's family and how war (and music) have shaped them, and "Water" taking up that soldier's story once he is back from Iraq, weaving him into a narrative about how we form connections in cyberspace.

Writing for the New York Times , Phoebe Hoban called "Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue," "that rare and rewarding thing: a theater work that succeeds on every level, while creating something new."

About "Water by the Spoonful," TCG writes, "Water by the Spoonful follows Elliot, a 19-year-old marine, as he struggles to find his place in the world upon returning from Iraq. While he copes with the monotony of day-to-day life, somewhere in a chat room, four recovering addicts forge an unbreakable bond. The boundaries of family and friendship are stretched across time and cyberspace in this second installment of Hudes’s trilogy."

They also note that the first two scenes of  "Water by the Spoonful" can be read on Hudes’s website.

The third part of the trilogy, "The Happiest Song Plays Last," is scheduled for next April and May at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama Goes to Quiara Alegría Hudes for "Water by the Spoonful"

Winners of the Pulitzer Prizes for 2012 were announced yesterday, with Quiara Alegría Hudes taking the Drama prize for her play "Water by the Spoonful," which the Pulitzer committee described as, "an imaginative play about the search for meaning by a returning Iraq war veteran working in a sandwich shop in his hometown of Philadelphia."

Quiara Alegría Hudes

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama may be awarded annually to "a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life," and it comes with a $10,000 added prize.

Hudes' play premiered last year at the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut. A previous play, "Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue," which was a Pulitzer finalist in 2007, is the first in a planned trilogy, with "Water by the Spoonful" as the second play. And the third part of the trilogy, "The Happiest Song Plays Last," is scheduled for next April and May at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

"Water by the Spoonful" spotlights characters around the world who interact by way of an internet chat room, with the main focus on the troubled veteran in Philadelphia and his mother, who has demons of her own.

Other finalist plays this year were "Other Desert Cities," by Jon Robin Baitz, also on the Goodman's schedule for next year, and "Sons of the Prophet," by Stephen Karam.