#pwc45

[pwc45]

I am no good at predictions. The desire for interesting and surprising stories remains strong, as is evident by our golden age of TV. But people feel increasingly isolated, and going to the theater remains a way to experience something as a collective. TV and film can’t give us that. I actually hope that theater is not so different in 45 years, that it is still a group of impassioned artists yelling and fighting and loving each other in dark dingy spaces in cities like New York, Minneapolis, Boston, and Chicago.

Ken Urban, Core Writer, on what theater will be like in 45 years

[pwcenter]

Follow our 45th anniversary tumblr! To celebrate our 45th season, we’ll be looking back on our 45 years (with photos from the archives, milestones, and memories) but also imagining theater forward the next 45 years by sharing quotes and manifestos from theater artists around the country responding to the question, “What will theater look like in 45 years?”

[pwc45]

#tbt Marion McClinton directing a workshop of Buzzer by Tracey Scott Wilson. The play was developed at the Playwrights’ Center in 2012 in partnership with Pillsbury House Theatre, where it had its world premiere.

Marion is a permanent Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, and has been central to the Center as both a playwright and director for many, many years. We will be honoring Marion McClinton at our 45th Anniversary Gala on May 4, 2017 at the Blaisdell.

Photo by Heidi Bohnenkamp, 2012.

[pwc45]

#tbt that time our playwrights were VERY GOOD SPORTS about participating in TKO, our boxing-themed gala at Uppercut Boxing Gym in 2013. 

Pictured top: Jerome Fellow Anna Moench looking fierce in a photoshoot with photographer Heidi Bohnenkamp.

Pictured middle: Featured playwrights on banners at TKO.

Pictured bottom: One of the boxing cards that was printed up for the event, featuring Cory Hinkle.

Our 45th Anniversary Gala is coming up Thursday, May 4, 2017. Details here.

[pwc45]

A #fbf to celebrate Galentine’s Day week: some favorite female friendships from plays in the past few years of public readings at the Playwrights’ Center.

[pwc45]

#tbt Edgar Davis as “Cool Papa” Bell in The Ghosts of Summer by Marion McClinton, developed at the Playwrights’ Center in 1995.

Photo by Charissa Uemura

We will be honoring Marion at our 45th Anniversary Gala on May 4, 2017.

[pwc45]

Workshop of California Love by Core Writer Alice Tuan. Part of the 2015-16 Ruth Easton New Play Series. Photos by Heidi Bohnenkamp.

The workshop was directed by Lisa Peterson and featured actors Sun Mee Chomet, Nathan Barlow, and Nathan Keepers. McKenna Kelly-Eiding read stage directions.

[pwc45]

#tbt December 2010 workshop of Why We Laugh: A Terezín Cabaret by Kira Obolensky, adapted from a cabaret written and performed in 1944 in the Jewish Ghetto at Terezín. Pictured are actors Pearce Bunting, Elise Langer, and Sasha Andreev.

Kira and her team presented the play in Terezín and at the Nine Gates Festival in Prague, and a documentary film crew chronicled the journey. More at http://www.makinglightinterezin.com/

Kira is back at the Playwrights’ Center this week, collaborating with composer Brian Harnetty on The Overcoat, a new musical retelling of Gogol’s short story. (And her amazing team of actor-collaborators includes Sasha Andreev once again!)

[pwc45]

#tbt Adam Kraar developing The Karpovsky Variations at the Playwrights' Center in 2013, part of the Ruth Easton New Play Series. Adam is back at the Center this week as an Affiliated Writer workshopping Dancing on the Edge in partnership with Theatre Novi Most. Photo by Heidi Bohnenkamp.

[pwc45]

The Suffragist Roadshow by Laural Meade, part of the 2010-11 Ruth Easton New Play Series.

[pwc45]

#tbt 2012 workshop of Core Writer Qui Nguyen’s War is F**king Awesome, part of the Ruth Easton New Play Series. 

Pictured in the foreground are Shawn Hamilton and Aditi Brennan Kapil. Creative team also included actors Sara Richardson, Sun Mee Chomet, Bruce A. Young, Nathan Christopher, Neal Skoy, and Alex Galick; director Robert Ross Parker; and designer Nick Francone.

Photo © 2012 by Heidi Bohnenkamp.

[pwc45]

From the archives: the dramatis personae from a Playwrights’ Center reading of August Wilson’s Fullerton Street in the early 1980s.

[pwc45]

The Playwrights’ Center theater space prior to the 2000-2001 building renovation. The lighting grid and curtains have been taken down to prepare for the construction.

[pwc45]

From the archives: 1995-96 Jerome Fellows Bridget Carpenter, Daniel Alexander Jones, Ruth Margraff, Naomi Iizuka, and Carlos Murillo.

[pwc45]

Terrible Things by Lisa D’Amour. Core Writer workshop, May 2009.

[pwc45]

PlayLabs 2006: God Save Gertrude by Deborah Stein