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The Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights' Festival

The annual Ohio University Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwright's Festival held each year at the end of the Spring Quarter, represents the culmination of the work of the playwrights in the program.

An overview of this year's festival.

KATE AND COMET
by Jason Half
Directed by Jamie Lish
8:00 pm
May 25th, 27th, June 2nd & 4th, Baker Theater Stage, Kantner Hall
2:00 pm matinee: May 28th
Kate Sampson, head writer of Commander Bill and the Space Brigade, sees her chance to create something as exciting and rare as a Martian: a strong and smart female on 1950s American TV. But as her friendship with a woman in the costume shop grows so do suspicions, and Kate may not survive the hostile landscape of an alien—and thoroughly male—planet.
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BITTEN BY A BOOMSLANG*
by Andrew Black
Directed by Rebecca VerNooy
8:00 pm
May 26th, 28th, June 1st & 3rd, Baker Theater Stage, Kantner Hall
2:00 pm matinee: June 4th
The Civil War in Sierra Leone began in 1991. Several thousand people, many of them children, had their arms and legs cut off in a savage display of power. Learning of these atrocities, Lowell Carpenter, an American prosthetist, decides to start a foundation providing artificial arms and legs for the victims. He brings two teen-age amputees from Sierra Leone to America to outfit them with prosthetic limbs. He plans to return them to their homeland and open a clinic. However, Brima, one of the teenagers Lowell is trying to help, has other ideas about how the project should unfold. Like the boomslang of the title, Brima moves quietly and quickly, and Lowell discovers that doing good deeds for others requires more than he first imagined.
*Funded in part by a grant from the African Studies Program
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EXPECTING
Written & Directed by Mark Chrisler
1:00 pm, Wednesday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
At the end of World War II, in a small convent outside Lisbon, a young novice is fast on her way to becoming a nun. But when back-biting peers, cryptic prophecies, a mysterious theft, alarmingly callow and conniving Nazis and a pregnancy that just might be the second coming of Jesus Christ get in her way, she has to reevaluate what it means to achieve her goal of being special. Expecting is a dark comedy about the pitfalls of faith, the pettiness of hope and what happens when you think you think you already know. It's also about some very adorable little baby dolls.
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LITTLE STRIKES
by J. Merrill Motz
Directed by Lee Kinney
4:00 pm, Wednesday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
Detective Stanley Colehour doesn't play good cop bad cop in the interrogation room. In fact, he thinks that's torture, no better than using suspects for batting practice. He wants suspects to feel safe and trust him, and he's found the steps to ask questions with a friendly intent to get confessions without any harm. His high success rate has gotten him noticed at the Midwest Law Enforcement Convention by a mysterious Scotsman wanting to offer him his dream job in the big leagues. But, only if he can prove his steps work on an unsuspecting detective at the convention. Trouble is, Colehour gets the feeling this test may be more than he bargained for. Little Strikes pits interrogation with baseball, and asks if even a little torture is still too much torture to get to the truth.
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LIVELY STONES
by Sarah Bowden
Directed by Shelley Delaney
8:00 pm, Wednesday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
Tired of delivering babies and doling out aloe in her living room, midwife Anne Hutchinson pines for Planned Parenthood: circa 1636 Massachusetts. When colony founder John Winthrop announces his plans to run for governor, Anne agrees to support his election -- if he'll grant her the land to build a women's clinic in Boston. Amid mounting campaign promises, she becomes one pebble in a full bucket, tossed aside to further Winthrop's own schemes. In Lively Stones, Anne must figure out how to lay her hospital's cornerstone while stemming the suspicions of the colony's most important citizen.
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THE MOMENT AFTER
by Greg Aldrich
Directed by Emily Penick
1:00 pm, Thursday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
Deven, a lowly editor, has always dreamed of a writing career and a steady home life: exactly the life his best friend Tristan possesses. When Tristan decides to throw all his achievements aside so he can pursue an old flame, Deven decides to steal Tristan's life—their friendship be damned. The Moment After dramatizes a world where Schrödinger's Cat and Spooky Quantum physics explore the choices that lay between and after the various moments that define of our lives.
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"THE WICKED SON" A PASSOVER PLAY
by Cecilia Copeland
Directed by Emily Penick
4:00 pm, Thursday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
"The Wicked Son" is a play about love, spirituality, the Middle East, and Gefilte fish. Heavy guilt meets tiara humor when the youngest brother in the family, Saul returns home from serving in the Israeli army with news of his pregnant Palestinian girlfriend. Our Drag Queen Hostess tries to hold the Seder together as each member of the family must make peace with the ghosts of the past wrapped in the politics of today in order to have Passover as a modern, culturally mixed, American family.
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BITCH MAGIC
by Rebecca Abaffy
Directed by Emily Penick
8:00 pm, Thursday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
With nothing but money for Wonder Bread left in the bank, Kelly Nicely (a.k.a. Magic), decides to become a West Virginia stripper. She's going to earn herself a sterling silver, R.N. lapel pin even if she has to show a little nip to do it. Aaaaaaaaaand she's fine with this, absolutely fine with it, never felt better about a decision in her life.
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THE HONEYCOMB
by Fiona Kyle
Directed by Lee Kinney
2:00 pm, Friday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
Alexandra hopes to research the disappearance of bees but first she has to pay for college. When tragedy strikes she cuts a deal with her grandmother in order to pursue her dreams. The Honeycomb follows Alexandra as she's swarmed by the women in her family, who are connected by blood but nothing else, as they build each other up to tear each other down. Will Alexandra get the cash to go to college, or will she fail to save the bees and her family?
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ADVICE TO THE GRADUATE
by Ira Gamerman
Directed by Dennis Lee Delaney
4:00 pm, Friday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
Welcome to the Ohio University 2011 College Career Counseling Convention, graduating seniors! Some lame-ass old dude with a microphone is gonna tell you some stupid story about how he "knows what you're going through". And he's gonna use some lame-ass social issue theater group to help do it. Lame, lame, lame. But what if he's actually right? And what if that means something terrible?
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RIPTIDE
by Leean Kim Torske
Directed by Andy Felt
4:00 pm, Saturday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
Riptide is an expressionistic investigation of pathology and identity. Fighting against the undertow of depression, Lily Morgan is lost at sea in her career. When she gets an opportunity to prove herself by landing an exclusive interview with a media shy, sexy art photographer, she sees her own struggles with depression reflected in his work. Will Lily's medication drown her, or is it the only thing keeping her afloat?
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THE FACE OF CONTRITION
Written & Directed by Jeremy Sony
4:00 pm, Saturday, Forum Theater, RTV Building
A ratings-starved news pundit on the brink of cancellation, James is coping with the death of his wife and co-host, Alison. He's wants to break the last story they worked on together, but the pressure to produce ratings and stay on the air without Alison's help is greater than he realized. Loyalties are put to the fire when a congressional scandal erupts within James' inner-circle. Squaring off against his daughter, the media, and even his dead wife, how far will James go to make his deadline and ensure his wife's final story will be told?
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Guest Mentor Bios

GEORGE BRANT's plays include Elephant's Graveyard, Any Other Name, The Mourners' Bench, Three Voyages of the Lobotomobile, Defiant, Dark Room, Good on Paper, Ashes, NOK, The Lonesome Hoboes, One Hand Clapping, The Royal Historian of Oz, Lovely Letters, Three Men in a Boat, Borglum! The Mount Rushmore Musical, Tights on a Wire and Night of the Mime. His work has been produced and developed by Trinity Repertory Company, the Kennedy Center, the Cleveland Play House, the Playwrights Foundation, Dobama Theatre, The Playwrights' Center, WordBRIDGE Playwright's Lab, Equity Library Theatre, Premiere Stages, Florida Studio Theatre, Trustus Theatre, Elemental Theatre Collective, Balagan Theatre, the Drama League, the Disney Channel, Factory Theatre, Debutantes and Vagabonds, StreetSigns Theatre Company, and zeppo theater company, among others. His script Elephant's Graveyard was awarded the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center and the Keene Prize for Literature. He has received writing fellowships from the James A. Michener Center for Writers, the MacDowell Colony, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and the Blue Mountain Center as well as commissions from Dobama Theatre and Theatre 4. George received his Masters in Writing from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. His scripts are published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus, and Broadway Play Publishing.
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KEITH BUNIN is the author of the plays The Busy World Is Hushed (Lucille Lortel Award nomination), The World Over and The Credeaux Canvas, which were all originally produced off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons. His other plays include The Principality of Sorrows, produced by Pure Orange Productions, The King Of Clocks, produced by Lincoln Center Lab at HERE, and A Joke, produced by Malaparte. He wrote the book for the musical 10 Million Miles, which was produced off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theatre Company. He has written screenplays for Disney Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Likely Story/Mandalay Films, and Film Nation, among others. He has also written for the HBO TV-series InTreatment. His essays have been published in American Film Magazine and on the web at McSweeney's. He received his B.A. from Goddard College and his M.A. from Columbia University. He lives in Brooklyn.
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LAURA KEPLEY is the Associate Artistic Director of the Cleveland Play House where she recently directed My Name is Asher Lev and produced FusionFest which is CPH's annual festival of new work. A native Ohioan, Kepley returns to the Buckeye State from Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island where she served as a Resident Director and Artistic Associate for four seasons and Interim Head of the Master of Fine Arts Graduate Program in Directing at Brown University/Trinity Rep for one. While at Trinity Rep, she directed The Clean House, The Syringa Tree, and Shapeshifter. Kepley also co-created and directed the world premiere docu-dramas Boots on the Ground, which examines the local impact of the war in Iraq, and Some Things are Private, which uses American photographer Sally Mann's images to explore parenting and First Amendment issues. Both of these Trinity Rep commissions were co-created with and written by Deborah Salem Smith. Kepley has directed the world premieres of over 20 plays including Jennifer Haley's Breadcrumbs at Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Laura Schellhardt's The K of D at The Kennedy Center and Orlando/UCF Shakespeare Festival, George Brant's shop talk at Drama League's DIRECTORFEST and Brant's Elephant's Graveyard at The University of Texas-Austin. She has workshopped new plays with The Public Theater, The Playwright's Center, PlayPenn, Naked Angels, and WordBRIDGE Playwrights' Lab, among others. Kepley received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and her Master of Fine Arts from Brown University/Trinity Rep. She is a Drama League Directing Fellow and a recipient of the 2009-2011 National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Career Development Program for Directors. Upcoming directing projects include a new play by George Brant at Dobama Theatre and In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play at Cleveland Play House.
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JOCELYN PRINCE is the Artistic Associate at The Public Theater where she produces the Public LAB Speaker Series. Dramaturgy credits include A Raisin In The Sun (Juilliard School of Drama); Black Diamond: The Years The Locusts Have Eaten (Lookingglass Theatre Company); Raisin and The First Breeze Of Summer (Court Theatre); The MLK Project (Writers' Theatre); My Julliard, Kingdom and Eyes (eta Creative Arts Foundation); Teibele And Her Demon (European Repertory Company); Daughters Of The Mock, Spunk, King of Coons and The House That Jack Built (Congo Square Theatre Company); and Intimate Apparel and Harriet Jacobs (Steppenwolf Theatre Company). Jocelyn has directed at the Bailiwick Repertory Directors Festival, Around the Coyote Art Festival, and 20 Percent Theatre and has assisted Mary Zimmerman on Mirror Of The Invisible World (The Goodman Theatre), Eric Rosen on Wedding Play (About Face Theatre), and Hallie Gordon on The Bluest Eye (Steppenwolf). Jocelyn's social justice and political work includes positions with the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago's Rape Crisis Hotline and Obama for America. She holds an MA in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and has written for TimeOut Chicago, TimeOut New York, The Chicago Reporter, and the African American Review.
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