12-13 Ingram New Works Playwrights

Jennifer Blackmer

Unraveled - May 11 & 15, 2013, 7:00 PM

Jennifer Blackmer is a playwright and director, and Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre & Dance at Ball State University. Her work has been seen at theatres and museums in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Ball State University, and the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, where she serves as Playwright in Residence for the International Theatre in Museums workshop. Recent plays include the first stage adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, which received a workshop at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival during summer, 2012; O’Neill finalist The Human Terrain (also selected for Playwrights’ Week at The Lark Play Development Center); Elegy No. 5 (Manhattan Shakespeare Project Emerging Female Voices); and Delicate Particle Logic (Playwrights’ Center, Minneapolis, and BAL Productions, NYC).

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Other notable work includes directing the American premiere of Cathy Ostlere’s Lost at Indiana Repertory Theatre, and four productions written collaboratively with undergraduates: Daughters of Trinity (Playwrights’ Center and Ball State University); The Human Faustus Project (Indiana Repertory Theatre, CUR Dialogues, and Ball State University); Middletown (Muncie Civic Theatre) and the original film/television/web event Reality TV Bytes (nominated for two Billboard Magazine Digital Entertainment Awards). In 2010, Jennifer received two of Ball State’s most prestigious awards: the Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Outstanding Creative Endeavor Award. Her articles have appeared in the New England Theatre Journal, Insights, and the CUR Quarterly. Jennifer is a member of the Dramatists’ Guild, the Mid-America Theatre Conference, the International Museum Theatre Alliance and The Playwrights’ Center.

Nate Eppler

The Future Mrs. - May 8 & 13, 2013, 7:00 PM

Nate Eppler is a playwright and teaching artist based in the southeastern United States. His plays include Keeping Up With the Joneses (official selection of the Kennedy Center/ American College Theatre Festival, Runner-Up National Student Playwriting Award, Larry Riley Rising Star Award, and Chattanooga Theatre Centre New Play Award), Larries, City of the Dead, and Long Way Down (semi-finalist 2011 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award). Nate is a proud recipient of both the Tennessee Arts Commission Professional Development Support Grant and the Individual Artist Fellowship. Nate is a co-curator of the Ten Minute Playhouse and currently serves as Playwright-in-Residence for the Tennessee Repertory Theatre. For more information visit www.nateeppler.com.

Garret Schneider

Ultrasound - May 9 & 12, 2013, 7:00 PM

Garret Schneider was born in Maine, a state where carnivorous moose roam the country side, lobsters attack unwary swimmers, and where modern-technology still has not penetrated. Plied deep with northeast values and folklore, Garret became a writer.
He found an artistic home at Ohio University, where he directed readings for over 60 of his short plays. In 2009, Garret presented “On the Weekly Execution and Generation of New Plays at Ohio University” at the Mid-American Theater Conference, a paper deconstructing the new works process at Ohio University. In 2010, he returned to the conference to present his ten-minute play A Stone’s Throw, in 2011 for his play Call Him 'Gene', and again in 2012 for 'A Small Drop'. Garret is now teaching Algebra in Nashville, TN and incorporating mathematics, education, and science into his next theater project. The idea of children raising their parents, and exploring the definition of family is at the artistic heart of Garret's work. For more information, visit www.litpunk.com.

Brian D. Walker

The Friend Factory - May 10 & 14, 2013, 7:00 PM

Brian Walker is the artistic director of Louisville, Kentucky based Finnigan Productions. He has written and produced several full length plays in the Louisville area, including: Smoke this Play, dirty sexy derby play, Great American Sex Play, and my daddy’s name is Big Oil. Brian is the creator of Finnigan's Festival of Funky Fresh Fun, a 10-minute play festival celebrating Louisville theatre artists, now in its sixth year. Brian's plays have also been seen in Chicago, IL (Appetite Theatre), Albuquerque, NM (FUSION Theatre Company), Baton Rouge, LA (LSU), Madison, WI (StageQ), Cleveland, OH (Arenafest), Detroit, MI (The Ringwald), Houston TX (Theatre Southwest), Omaha, NE (Great Plains Theatre Conference), Brooklyn, NY (Truffle Theatre Company), Lewiston, ME (Bates College), Valdez, AK (Last Frontier Theatre Conference), Berea, KY(Kentucky Playwrights Workshop’s New Play Contest) and Louisville, KY (The Bard’s Town Theatre, The Alley Theatre, Louisville Repertory Theatre). His play fb: a ghost story was one of three finalists for Kentucky Theatre Association’s 2012 Roots of the Bluegrass New Play Contest. He was awarded the Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship Emerging Artist Award for playwriting by the Kentucky Arts Council in July 2010. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild, The Playwrights’ Center and The Kentucky Playwrights Workshop.

Theresa Rebeck

Fever - May 16-18, 2013, 7:00 PM

Theresa Rebeck is a widely produced playwright throughout the United States and abroad. New York productions of her work include Seminar at the Golden Theatre; Mauritius at the Biltmore Theatre in a Manhattan Theater Club Production; The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann, and Spike Heels at Second Stage; Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection, and Our House at Playwrights Horizons; The Understudy at the Laura Pels Theater in a Roundabout Theatre Company production; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop. Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre. Her newest work, Poor Behavior premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 2011. Dead Accounts, commissioned by the Cincinnati Playhouse, premiered January 2012. Seminar continues to run on Broadway.

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All of Ms. Rebeck’s past produced plays are published by Smith and Kraus as Theresa Rebeck: Complete Plays, Volumes I, II and III and in acting editions available from Samuel French or Playscripts. Ms. Rebeck’s other publications are Free Fire Zone, a book of comedic essays about writing and show business. She has written for American Theatre Magazine and has had excerpts of her plays published in the Harvard Review. Ms. Rebeck’s first novel, Three Girls and Their Brother, was published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in April 2008. Her second novel, Twelve Rooms With A View, was published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in May of 2010. Both novels are available online and at booksellers everywhere.

In television, Ms. Rebeck has written for Dream On, Brooklyn Bridge, L.A. Law, American Dreamer, Maximum Bob, First Wave, and Third Watch. She has been a writer/producer for Canterbury’s Law, Smith, Law and Order:Criminal Intent, and NYPD Blue. Her produced feature films include Harriet the Spy, Gossip, and the independent features Sunday on the Rocks and Seducing Charlie Barker, an adaptation of her pla, The Scene. Awards include the Mystery Writer’s of America’s Edgar Award, the Writer’s Guild of America award for Episodic Drama, the Hispanic Images Imagen Award, and the Peabody, all for her work on NYPD Blue. She has won the National Theatre Conference Award (for The Family of Mann), and was awarded the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award in 2003 for The Bells. Mauritius was originally produced at Boston’s Huntington Theatre, where it received the 2007 IRNE Award for Best New Play as well as the Eliot Norton Award.

Ms. Rebeck is originally from Cincinnati and holds an MFA in Playwrighting and a PhD. in Victorian Melodrama, both from Brandeis University. She is a proud board member of the Dramatists Guild, a Contributing Editor to the Harvard Review, an Associate Artist of the Roundabout Theatre Company and has taught at Brandeis University and Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

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