We recently sat down with Building the Wall playwright, Robert Schenkkan, and director, Brant Pope, to discuss where the current state of American politics and artistic expression through the performing arts overlap and how challenging new plays can act as a medium for continued discussion of current issues.
Continue Reading Creating Challenging New Work for Modern America
Every two years, The Cohen New Works Festival presents over 30 new works of theatre, dance, art and performance to over 7,000 attendees in five days. This festival, named after former playwriting faculty member David Mark Cohen, who our community lost too soon, is a celebration of creative disciplines spanning across the university to showcase the new work of students at The University of Texas at Austin. The 2017 New Works Festival runs April 10-14, 2017 in various locations across campus and is free to the public.
Continue Reading Celebrating Creative Innovation with The Cohen New Works Festival
The creation of new work is challenging for many reasons. Over the course of its development, pages are written and rewritten; scrapped and embellished; characters change, finding new paths through their newly-imagined lives and plot lines take unexpected turns. UTNT (UT New Theatre) celebrates the emerging voices of the American stage with works by third-year M.F.A. in Playwriting candidates; but the creation of new work goes far beyond the script. We sat down with Megan Tabaque (playwright, Galactic Orphans), Graham Schmidt (director, Galactic Orphans), Elizabeth Doss (playwright, Slumber Party), Lirit Pendell (costume designer), Tucker Martin (“Simon Levinson,” The Bigot), Jade Jackson (“Amber,” Gondal) and Adam Sussman (director, Gondal) to learn more about the challenges and thrills of cultivating new works of theatre as they move from ideas to the stage.
Continue Reading Creating New Work with UTNT (UT New Theatre)
