Nashville, Here I come! Ingram New Works Project 2013-2014

It is with, pretty much, giddy excitement that I can finally announce that I am one of four playwrights selected for the 2013-2014 Ingram New Works Project at Tennessee Repertory Theatre in Nashville!

Alongside Nate Eppler, Andrew Kramer, and Dean Poynor, I'll be working on a brand new play during this season-long development workshop, culminating in a new works festival in May 2014. What a complete and awesome honor!

From the Tennessee Rep website: The Ingram New Works Lab is intended to be an artistic home for emerging regional playwrights to share work, hone craft, receive direction, and springboard themselves into the next phase of their writing career, providing a fertile environment for the emergence of great new plays.

Another amazing component to this opportunity is that the four playwrights (again, of which, I am one) will spend a week working with this year's Ingram New Works Fellow, which is Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright. Some of Mr. Wright's notable plays include I Am My Own Wife,Quills, The Little Mermaid, and Grey Gardens. You might understand, then, my excitement.

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This is a fantastic opportunity and I cannot wait to begin my trips to Nashville to work with these talented writers and the wonderful artists at Tennessee Repertory Theatre! There will be more to share throughout this journey and I just want to thank Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland, Playwright in Residence Nate Eppler, and everyone at Tennessee Rep who decided to include me in this project. [Image at right, courtesy of Tennessee Rep.]

I'll close this out by sharing the words of one of the project's greatest supporters (i.e. the person for whom the project is named), Martha R. Ingram.

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The Ingram Charitable Fund is thrilled to make this opportunity available in support of new works for the theatre. New work is the life force of every art form. We have no better example than William Shakespeare who, after all, created nothing but new work. And the same can be said for Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and the list goes on.

Well said, Martha. Well said.