The Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive 2021

The Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive 2021 – John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 

July 11-24, 2021
Led by Gary Garrison
Associate Directors – Jacqueline E. Lawton and TJ Young

Applications are now being accepted for the virtual Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive, led by Gary Garrison, an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and educator who has served as Executive Director of Creative Affairs for the Dramatists Guild of America and the Dramatists Guild Institute of Field Learning and Dramatic Writing in New York.

The program consists of rigorous writing workshops and discussions of the art, craft, and business of playwriting with Gary and a wide range of distinguished guest artists. Recent teaching artists have included James Avery, Mark Bly, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Chisa Hutchinson, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, Tim J. Lord, Marsha Norman, and Caridad Svich.

This year, under the leadership and guidance of Jacqueline E. Lawton and TJ Young, we are developing a designated track for playwrights identifying as Black, Indigenous, of Latinx or Asian heritage, and of Mixed Race. As part of our ongoing commitment to address Representation, Equity and Diversity in the American Theatre, we are working to create a safe, working space for focused learning and growth for these participating artists. In addition to the sessions described above, affinity and identity groups, each led by distinguished mentor, will be created for the participating playwrights of the program.

Participants are university students, faculty, and emerging professionals from across the country. We welcome applicants who are writing outside of the “traditional” play structure and those who may not have existing “plays,” but may have works to share.

The Intensive begins on Sunday evening with an orientation and introduction to the cohort with Gary, Jacqueline and T.J. Monday through Saturday will consist of sessions 2-6pm Eastern time, with small group discussions 6:30-8:30pm Eastern time, intermittently throughout the schedule. Sunday, July 18 will be free.

TUITION*
$100
* Tuition will be invoiced upon acceptance.
Playwrights contact Gregg Henry (KCACTF Artistic Director) at GHenry@kennedy-center.org for information regarding Financial Aid.

To apply, you will need to submit, by May 9, 2021:

• A letter of motivation for attending the Playwriting Intensive;
• A resume of related experience; and up to 10 pages of writing from a recent work or series of works.

Every effort will be made to notify participants of acceptance by June 1.

The Associate Directors

Jacqueline E. Lawton is a playwright, dramaturg, producer, and advocate for access, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the American theatre. Her produced plays include Blood-bound and Tongue-tied, The Hampton Years, Intelligence, Mad Breed, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She received her MFA in playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. She is a 2012 TCG Young Leaders of Color award recipient and an alum of the National New Play Network, Arena Stage’s Playwrights’ Arena, and Center Stage’s Playwrights Collective. Lawton is an associate professor in the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a dramaturg for PlayMakers Repertory Company. She is also Dramatist Guild’s regional representative for North Carolina.

TJ Young is a Texas-born playwright and dramaturg based in Pittsburgh where he serves as co-representative for the Dramatists Guild – Pittsburgh region. His plays include The Inseparables (Pittsburgh Public Theatre commission),No. 6 (2017 Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award Winner – KCACTF), Lyon’s Den (2018 Harold and Mimi Steinberg Distinguished Achievement awardee), Ruby’s Baby Blue (2016 John Cauble Short Play Award Regional Finalist- KCACTF), Hell is Empty (2017 John Cauble Short Play Award Regional Finalist – KCACTF), Cupid, The Frontlines. His 10-minute plays are: Before the Fire (Fade to Black 2018 Festival Selection), Hallmark (TETA Playfest 10-minute Winner) Effie, Rock the Cradle, Lillies, and Stuffed. He is the recipient of the 2017 Ken Ludwig Playwriting Scholarship. He has had productions at Texas State University as part of their New Works Festival, Director/Designer Collaboration Project, and as part of their 2016-2017 Main Stage Season. He was the 2019 Spotlight Artist of Throughline Theatre Company in Pittsburgh, PA. He received his MFA in Dramatic Writing from Texas State University. He has been a Teaching Artist with City Theatre in Pittsburgh and Quantum Theatre in Pittsburgh. He is also the NPP Vice-Chair for Region 2 of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. He is a member of subTEXT Solutions Dramaturgy Group and with the groundbreaking Entertainment Engineering Collective.
The Program Director

Gary Garrison was the Executive Director for Creative Affairs of the Dramatist Guild of America for over a decade, and recently retired as the Artistic Director the Dramatist Guild Institute of Field Learning and Dramatic Writing. Prior to his work at the Guild, Garrison filled the posts of Artistic Director, Producer and fulltime faculty member in the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he produced over forty-five different festivals of new work, collaborating with hundreds of playwrights, directors and actors. Garrison’s plays include The Unexpected Light On Azadeh Medusa, Too Quick to Pick, Ties That Bind, Skirting the Issue, Caught Without Candy, Game On, The Sweep, Verticals and Horizontals, Storm on Storm, Crater, Old Soles, Padding The Wagon, Rug Store Cowboy, Cherry Reds, Gawk, Oh Messiah Me, We Make A Wall, The Big Fat Naked Truth, Scream With Laughter, Smoothness With Cool, Empty Rooms, Does Anybody Want A Miss Cow Bayou? and When A Diva Dreams. This work has been featured at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, City Theatre of Miami, Boston Theatre Marathon, Primary Stages, The Directors Company, Manhattan Theatre Source, StageWorks, Open Door Theatre, Pulse Ensemble Theatre, Expanded Arts and New York Rep. His recent work as guest artist or master teacher of playwriting involve such institutions as the Marfa Intensives, Sewanee Writer’s Conference, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, CityWrights, The Inkwell and Source Theatre in D.C., Baltimore Playwrights Festival, New Hampshire Playwrights Festival, Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Southeast Theatre Conference, Northwest Theatre Conference and Boston Playwrights. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, The Playwright’s Survival Guide: Keeping the Drama in Your Work and Out of Your Life, Perfect Ten: Writing and Producing the TenMinute Play, A More Perfect Ten and two volumes of Monologues for Men by Men. He served on the Tony Award Administration Committee for the American Theatre Wing.. A collection of short plays, Verticals and Horizontals, was published last spring by Original Play Publishers in Los Angeles. In April of 2014, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts instituted the National Gary Garrison Ten- Minute Play Award given to the best ten-minute play written by a university dramatist. In the spring of 2016, he was awarded the Milan Stitt Outstanding Teacher of Playwriting by the Kennedy Center. He has led this summer program since its inception in 2002.

For any questions or concerns, please contact Gregg Henry, Artistic Director of KCACTF, at GHenry@kennedy-center.org.