 The Ladies Man Professional Equity Play Feb. 17-Mar. 4, 2012 |
 Photo L-R: April 2009 WPS Playwright Merri Biechler, Program Director, Catherine Rust, and Playwrights Darrah Cloud and Emily Bentley (Playwright Kate Lyn Reiter not pictured) |
 Sister Week, one of many WPS developed plays performed during a regular CSC Season, was presented in Spring 2005. Photo L-R: Two of the three sisters, Becky Engborg and Maria Brodeur |
Now in its 19th season, the WPS is a developmental program dedicated to providing a working forum for the unique
and underserved voice of women writing for the theatre today. Each season 3-4 new plays are selected for a collaborative
workshop process, with a professional director and actors, which takes place over a period of three weeks. At the end of
the rehearsal, a staged reading of the play is presented at CSC (50 miles w. of NYC) for our regional audiences,
giving CSC audiences larger exposure to new work, as well as offering the playwright an opportunity to get feedback
from the audience during the development process.
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Women
Playwrights Series (WPS) 2011 |
| Enjoy our new WPS Photo Gallery of Women Playwrights Series Past and Present. |
Women writers from around the country will converge in Hackettstown for the three week event, which will bring dramatic workshop-presentations of 4 new full-length plays by women writers.
Plays presented in the developmental WPS program are under consideration for full production in a subsequent season at the Centenary Stage Company, the professional, Equity theatre in residence on the campus of Centenary College. The many plays which have successfully transitioned from development to production now include the popular Tillie Project about local legend, Tillie Smith, Inventing Montana, by Jeanne Murray Walker, Dreamhouse, by Darrah Cloud, and Alice in Ireland, by Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding co-creator, Judy Sheehan, ++. Many of these works have appeared on the stages of New York, Louisville's Humana Festival, Chicago's Goodman Theatre, Carnegie Mellon and many more.
| Past Women Playwrights Series Schedules: [WPS before 2001 not on Web Site] |
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| More Recent WPS Developed Plays as Professional Equity Play Presentations on the Centenary Stage Company stage: [WPS before 2003 not shown here] |
Each workshop performance, open to the public at no charge, is an exciting exchange of new ideas, public feedback and conversation with the playwright, which can often inspire subtle and defining alterations to the script for the final rewrite. Past playwright residents have included a wonderful array of talented writers, including:
Alumni of the CSC WPS include:
- Bekah Brunstetter
- Michelle Carter
- Merri Biechler
- Eugenie Chan
- Caridad Svitch
- Neena Beber
- Heather McCutchen
- Deborah Brevoort
- Wendy Hammond
- Christina De Lancie
- Darrah Cloud
- Allison Moore
- Colin Denby Swanson (recipient of the McKnight Grant)
- Judy Sheehan (Tony N' Tina's Wedding co-author)
- Jeanne Murray Walker (NEA fellow)
- Dominique Cieri
- and more
| Made possible in part through the generous support of the BLANCHE AND IRVING LAURIE FOUNDATION |
| CSC is an SPT Equity Company located 50 miles west of NYC in Hackettstown, NJ Artistic Director: Carl Wallnau. WPS Program Director: Catherine Rust |
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Annual programming at the Centenary Performing Arts Guild are made possible in part through the generous support of the The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour (Penn PAT) , Heath Village, Coldwell Banker and Centenary Performing Arts Guild Members and Sponsors. |
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