“On this time of closures of New Play Improvement applications across the nation, we hope to offer the theatre neighborhood some constructive information. We’re thrilled to announce the lineup for the 2023 Ojai Playwrights Convention’s twenty sixth Season, our first beneath the management of Producing Creative Director Jeremy B. Cohen.” ~Mark Seldis OPC Managing Director

Playwrights will obtain a week-long workshop to develop their new performs adopted by a public presentation in OPC’s twenty sixth Annual New Works Pageant, August 2 – 6

Ojai — Ojai Playwrights Convention (OPC), beneath the management of latest Producing Creative Director Jeremy B. Cohen, in the present day introduced the number of playwrights for its twenty sixth Annual New Works Pageant to be held August 2 – 6 in Ojai, CA. 

Playwrights and their performs to be introduced within the Pageant embody: Ngozi Anyanwu, My…Identify is Beatrice; Benjamin Benne, and thou shalt be healed; Mathilde Dratwa, Soiled Laundry; Julia Izumi, Akira Kurosawa Explains His Motion pictures and Yogurt (with Reside & Lively Cultures!); and Anne Washburn, The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Hearth. 

Previous to sharing their performs with the general public on the Pageant, the playwrights will take part in Convention week, which incorporates play growth workshops with administrators, dramaturges, and OPC creative employees. They then might be joined by actors, stage managers, and manufacturing groups who assist carry every playwright’s imaginative and prescient to life for the general public shows. 

Writers-in-Residence June Carryl, Madeline Sayet, and Delanna Studi will participate in a personal play growth course of and take part within the Pageant as a part of the artist neighborhood. (All playwright bios, play descriptions, and presentation days/occasions listed beneath.) 

This 2023 Pageant marks Jeremy B. Cohen’s first 12 months as OPC’s Producing Creative Director. He’s joined by co-artistic producers Khanisha Foster, Jeff Liu, and Hannah Wolf. (See bios at ojaiplays.org/artisticproductionstaff.) 

“I couldn’t be extra thrilled with this primary cohort of writers we’ve curated for my first Ojai Playwrights Convention and New Works Pageant,” Cohen mentioned. “Their tales and artistry mirror 

a strong imaginative and prescient for the way we have to transfer theater ahead on levels throughout the nation. This season is stuffed with playwrights whose work insists we collect collectively once more to hear, to share, to attach, after which to take that have again out into the world.” 

Along with the 5 new performs, the Pageant will embody a particular occasion for artists in Ojai and the OPC neighborhood (together with contributors within the Youth Workshop and Intern applications) to share their work with the general public, and a night of dialog with the 2023 Pageant playwrights, led by Cohen. 

Pageant passes can be found now and vary from $80 – $400; all passes embody most well-liked seating. Single tickets might be common admission and donation-based (pay what you may), and out there two weeks previous to the Pageant.

Extra info: https://www.ojaiplays.org/new-works-festival. 

ABOUT THE 2023 NEW WORKS FESTIVAL PLAYWRIGHTS & PLAYS 

Mathilde Dratwa 

Soiled Laundry | Friday, August 4, 8:00 p.m.
A girl finds herself grappling with each grief and anger following the sudden dying of her mom and the stunning revelation of her father’s infidelity. In the meantime, her father tries his finest to verbalize his personal difficult emotions about love, loss, lust…and family chores. And the opposite lady wonders: Is she nonetheless “the opposite lady” when the unique lady is gone? A play in regards to the absurdity and messiness of life and dying. 

BIO: Mathilde Dratwa’s (she/her) performs embody Milk and Gall (Theatre503, London), A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein, Soiled Laundry, and Esther Perel Ruined my Life. Her work has been introduced by the Floor Flooring at Berkeley Rep, Rattlestick, LAByrinth Theater Firm, the Playwrights’ Middle, Audible, and the Younger Vic. On the movie/TV facet, Mathilde has developed content material for Image Begin, Endeavor, LuckyChap, Soiled Movies, FX, Pink Wagon, Sony/TriStar, Chernin and wiip. 

Benjamin Benne 

and thou shalt be healed | Saturday, August 6, 3:00 p.m.
Siblings Mary and Johnny had been raised in the identical Christian cult. Now of their 30s, the nonetheless non secular Mary is having a disaster of religion and is in want of a miracle. Her now secular brother provides a controversial resolution. When reunited on a distant mountain in New Mexico, surrounded 

by power vortexes, rumors of aliens, and a golden eyelash palm pit viper named Daisy, they surprise: Did they ever know the identical God? 

BIO: Benjamin Benne’s (he/him) performs embody Alma (World Premiere ’22: Middle Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, L.A. & American Blues Theater, Chicago; ArtsWest, Seattle ’22; Curious Theatre, Denver ’23; Central Sq., Cambridge ’23), In His Fingers (World Premiere ’22: Mosaic Theater, D.C.), and What / Washed Ashore / Astray (World Premiere ’23: Pillsbury Home, Minneapolis). He’s a winner of Portland Stage’s Clauder Competitors Grand Prize, Arizona Theatre Firm’s Nationwide Latinx Playwriting Award, Kennedy Middle’s KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award, American Blues’ Blue Ink Playwriting Award, the Playwrights’ Middle’s McKnight and Many Voices Fellowships, and was named a part of “LA Vanguardia: The Latino innovators, investigators, and energy gamers breaking via obstacles” by the L.A. Instances. Commissions: South Coast Rep, Seattle Rep. MFA: Playwriting, David Geffen/Yale College of Drama ’22. http://www.benjaminbenne.com 

Ngozi Anyanwu 

My… Identify is Beatrice | Saturday, August 5, 8:00 p.m.
My… Identify is Beatrice is a continuation of what hopes to be The Homecoming Queen as we comply with Kelechi’s return to America, this time together with her “daughter” Beatrice. And we’ll come to seek out out therapeutic and reuniting is messy enterprise. And requires letting go. 

BIO: Ngozi Anyanwu’s (she/her) playwriting credit embody: Seven Lethal Sins (Drama Desk Award); The Homecoming Queen (Kilroys checklist 2017, Leah Ryan Finalist), world premiere at The Atlantic theater (2018); Nike… (Kilroys Checklist 2017), workshopped at The New Black Fest along side The Lark and The Strand Pageant along side A.C.T and House on Ryder Farm and New York Stage and Movie. Anyanwu wrote and starred in Good Grief (Kilroys Checklist 2016, semi-finalist Princess Grace, Humanitas Award), produced at Middle Theatre Group (2017) and The Winery Theatre (2018) and The Final of the Love Letters, The Atlantic Theatre Firm (2021). She has had a number of playwright residencies and commissions and has intensive credit as an actor. Anyanwu is presently Artist-in-Residence with the Nationwide Black Theatre. Schooling: UCSD (MFA Performing), Level Park College (BA). 

Julia Izumi 

Akira Kurosawa Explains His Motion pictures and Yogurt (with Reside & Lively Cultures!) | Sunday, August 6, 11:00 a.m.
Tonight we welcome Akira Kurosawa, the acclaimed filmmaker, who will give us an unique peek into the thrilling world of his motion pictures. However, you already know, it’s so bizarre, each time he talks about his movies, it kinda appears like he’s speaking about yogurt? Akira Kurosawa Explains His Motion pictures and Yogurt (with Reside & Lively Cultures!) is a fantastical lecture/efficiency hybrid about what influences our artwork and “wholesome” cultural consumption. 

BIO: Julia Izumi’s (she/her) works embody Regretfully, So the Birds Are (Playwrights Horizons/WP Theater), miku, and the gods. (ArtsWest), Generally the Rain, Generally the Sea (Rorschach Theatre), and others. Her work has been developed at MTC, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Berkeley Rep, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Oregon Shakespeare Pageant, Ojai Playwrights Convention, and extra. Honors for her work embody the OPC Dr. Kerry English Artist Award, O’Neill Finalist, and KCACTF’s Darrell Ayers Playwriting Award. Present New Dramatists Resident, LMCC Workspace Resident, and Civilians R&D Group Member. Present commissions: True Love Productions, MTC/Sloan, Playwrights Horizons, Seattle Rep 20×30. MFA: Brown College. 

Anne Washburn 

The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Hearth | Sunday, August 6, 3:00 p.m.
Set in another neighborhood on the Northern California coast, The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Hearth is a play a couple of dying, a pageant, a resurrection, a rescue, a locked basement door, containers of previous garments and papers, jars used as vases, plums, a hamster cage, a wildcat cranium, and plenty of graces. The children might or might not be all proper. 

BIO: Anne Washburn (she/her) is a California-born Brooklyn-based playwright whose performs embody 10 out of 12, Antlia Pneumatica, Apparition, The Communist Dracula Pageant, A Satan At Midday, I Have Liked Strangers, The Internationalist, The Girls, Little Bunny Foo Foo, Mr. Burns, Shipwreck, The Small, and transadaptations of Euripides’ Orestes & Iphigenia in Aulis. Her work has premiered with 13P, Actors Theater of Louisville, the Almeida, American Repertory Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Basic Stage Firm, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Fogler, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Two River Theater Firm, Winery Theater and Woolly Mammoth. 

OPC 2023 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE 

Madeline Sayet (she/her) is a Mohegan theatre maker who believes the tales we move down inform our collective doable futures. She has been honored as a Forbes 30 Beneath 30 in Hollywood & Leisure, TED Fellow, Nationwide Directing Fellow, NCAIED Native American 40 Beneath 40, and a recipient of The White Home Champion of Change Award from President Obama. As playwright: Up and Down the River, Antigone Or And Nonetheless She Should Rise Up, Daughters of Leda, The Neverland. Her play The place We Belong has been carried out at The Public Theater, Seattle Rep, Hudson Valley Shakespeare, The Goodman Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Firm, Portland Middle Stage, and Baltimore Middle Stage as a part of a nationwide tour produced by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Firm in affiliation with The Folger Shakespeare Library and printed by Bloomsbury. Her efficiency of The place We Belong on the Goodman Theater earned her a Jeff Award nomination for Finest Solo Efficiency. As director: Lengthy Wharf 

Theatre, Denver Middle for the Performing Arts, Perseverance Theatre, Connecticut Repertory Theater, TheatreSquared, Delaware Shakespeare Pageant, South Dakota Shakespeare Pageant, The Krannert Middle, Glimmerglass Pageant, 59e59, and extra. She is an Assistant Professor at Arizona State College, and Government Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP). http://www.madelinesayet.com 

June Carryl (she/her) is initially from Denver and studied Political Science and English Literature at Brown College. Her performs embody Blue (Rogue Machine), N*gga B*tch (Residency, Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre, Vagrancy Theatre’s Blossoming Mission), Lady Blue (CTG L.A. Author’s Workshop), Florence & Normandie (Golden Tongues – Diversifying the Classics Initiative – UCLA/Playwrights Area), The Good Minister From Harare (Playwrights Area Summer season Collection, ADAA Saroyan/Paul Award), and the life and dying of (Vagracy Theatre), Colossus (Semi-Finalist, O’Neill Nationwide Playwrights Convention), and Stone Angels (Finalist, the Killroys). Half Considered one of her collaboration with composer Jason Barabba about Aunt Jemima premiered as a part of Overtone Industries. 

DeLanna Studi (she/her) is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation and the Creative Director of Native Voices on the Autry. She has over 25 years of expertise as a performer, storyteller, educator, facilitator, advocate, and activist. Theater credit embody the primary nationwide Broadway tour of August: Osage County, Gloria: A Life on the Daryl Roth Theatre, Knowledgeable Consent on the Duke on forty second Avenue, and a number of other regional theaters. DeLanna originated roles in over 18 world premieres together with fourteen Native productions. She wrote and carried out And So We Walked: An Artist’s Journey Alongside the Path of Tears, based mostly on retracing her household’s footsteps alongside the Path of Tears together with her father, which has been produced all through the nation and was the primary American play chosen for the Journees Theatricales de Carthage in Tunisia, Africa. DeLanna has intensive appearing credit in movie and tv, and has had residencies and workshops at universities and organizations throughout the nation. She is a recipient of the Butcher Scholar Award, MAP Fund Grant, and Cherokee Preservation Grant. Since 2007, she has served because the chair of the SAG-AFTRA Nationwide Native Individuals Committee. 

ABOUT OJAI PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE 

Since 1998, theatre professionals and enthusiastic audiences have converged in Ojai to take part within the growth of latest performs for the American theatre. Quite a few performs developed at OPC have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in regional theatres throughout the nation. Some have been nominated for and received prestigious awards. Each Enjoyable Dwelling by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori and Different Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz had been Pulitzer Finalists. Enjoyable Dwelling received the Tony Award for Finest Musical; and Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed and Stephen Adly Guirgis’ The Motherf**ker with the Hat had been every nominated for the Tony Award for Finest Play. 

In 2019, OPC obtained the LADCC Gordon Davidson Award for distinguished contribution to the Los Angeles theatrical neighborhood. In 2023, creative chief, director, and playwright Jeremy B. Cohen was named Producing Creative Director, succeeding Robert Egan who led the group for 21 years. 

EVENT SUMMARY & CALENDAR LISTING 

The Ojai Playwrights Convention (OPC) 2023 New Works Pageant will happen August 2 – 6 in Ojai, CA. This celebration of latest work for the American theater will embody 5 shows of brand-new performs and particular occasions celebrating the artists of Ojai and the OPC neighborhood. 2023 marks the primary 12 months for OPC’s new Producing Creative Director Jeremy Cohen. 

Playwrights collaborating in OPC’s twenty sixth Annual New Works Pageant embody Ngozi Anyanwu, Benjamin Benne, Mathilde Dratwa, Julia Izumi, and Anne Washburn. Writers-in-Residence June Carryl, Madeline Sayet, and Delanna Studi will participate in a personal play growth course of and take part within the Pageant as a part of the artist neighborhood. 

Previous to the Pageant, playwrights take part in every week of latest play growth workshops with administrators, dramaturges, and OPC creative employees. They’re then joined by actors, stage managers, and manufacturing groups who assist carry every playwrights’ imaginative and prescient to life for public presentation. 

Wednesday, August 2, 8:00 p.m.
IN CELEBRATION – A night of latest and in-progress works from artists in Ojai and the OPC neighborhood, together with contributors in OPC’s Youth Workshop and Intern applications. 

Thursday, August 3, 8:00 p.m. 

IN CONVERSATION – Be part of the playwrights of the 2023 New Works Pageant for a night of dialog, led by OPC’s new Producing Creative Director Jeremy Cohen. 

Friday, August 4 

8:00 p.m. – Soiled Laundry by Mathilde Dratwa 

Saturday, August 5 

3:00 p.m. – and thou shalt be healed by Benjamin Benne 8:00 p.m. – My…Identify is Beatrice by Ngozi Anyanwu 

Sunday, August 6 

11:00 a.m. – Akira Kurosawa Explains His Motion pictures and Yogurt (with Reside & Lively Cultures!) by Julia Izumi 

3:00 p.m. – The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Hearth by Anne Washburn

LOCATION: Milligan Middle for the Performing Arts at The Thacher College, 5025 Thacher Highway, Ojai, CA 

TICKET INFO:
Pageant passes can be found now and vary from $80 – $400; all passes embody most well-liked seating. Single tickets might be common admission and donation-based (pay what you may), and out there two weeks previous to the Pageant.

Extra info at ojaiplays.org/new-works-festival.