Smart People

PLAYWRIGHT & PRODUCTION STAFF

• Lydia R. Diamond
  Playwright
• Summer L. Williams
  Director
• Ilana M. Brownstein
  Dramaturg
• Tyler Monroe
  Dramaturg
• Katherine Clanton
  Stage Manager

Cast

• Miranda Craigwell
  Valerie
  
• Warner Miller
  Jackson
  
• Kevin Kilner
  Brian
  
• Eunice Wong
  Ginny
  

• Lydia R. Diamond
  Lydia R. Diamond’s plays include: Stick Fly (’10 Irne Award – Best Play, ’10 LA Critics Circle Awards, ’10 LA Garland Award – Playwriting, ’08 Susan S. Blackburn Finalist, ‘06 Black Theatre Alliance Award – Best Play), Voyeurs de Venus (’06 Joseph Jefferson Award – Best New Work, ‘06 BTAA – Best Writing), The Bluest Eye (’06 Black Arts Alliance Image Award – Best New Play, ‘08 American Alliance for Theatre and Education Distinguished Play Award), The Gift Horse (’05 Theadore Ward Prize, Kesselring Prize 2nd Place), Harriet Jacobs, Stage Black, and Lizzie Stranton (2008 Boston University Playwriting Initiative Commision). Theatres include: Arena Stage, Chicago Dramatists, Company One, Congo Square, Everyman Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Co., Jubilee Theatre, Kansas City Rep, L.A. Theatre Works, Long Wharf, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, McCarter Theatre Co., Mo’Olelo Theatre Co., MPAACT, New Vic, Playmakers Rep, Plowshares Theatre Co., Providence Black Rep, Steppenwolf, TrueColors, The Matrix, Underground Railway Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and The Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Lydia’s plays have been produced at Universities around the country including: Duke University, Howard University, Emerson College, Boston University, Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin, Columbia College Chicago, Spelman College, University of California – San Marcos, and University of Maryland. Lydia has been commissioned by: Steppenwolf, McCarter, Huntington, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville/Victory Gardens, Humana, Boston University, and The Roundabout. Stick Fly and Harriet Jacobs are published by NU Press, Bluest Eye, Gift Horse, Stage Black – Dramatic Publishing. Lydia was a 2007 TCG/NEA Playwright in Residence at Steppenwolf, an 06/07 Huntington Playwright Fellow, 2009 NEA/Arena Stage New Play Development Grant Finalist, is a TCG Executive Board Member, a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, an Honorary Doctorate of Arts Recipient from Pine Manor College, and a recent recipient of the Huntington Theatre’s 2011 Wimbley Award.

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The Old Ship of Zion

PLAYWRIGHT & PRODUCTION STAFF

• Natalia Naman
  Playwright
• Megan Sandberg-Zakian
  Director
• Jennifer Howard
  Stage Manager

Cast

• Fedna Jacquet
  Siblie
  
• Juanita Rodrigues
  Mama Gwen
  
• Michelle Dowd
  Choir Director
  
• Hampton Fluker
  Darryl
  
• Sheldon Brown
  Quincy
  
• James Milord
  Reverend
  
• Pamela Lambert
  Sister Marlow
  
• Madeleine Harvey
  Stage Directions
  

• Natalia Naman
  Natalia Naman is a playwright living in Boston, MA. Her plays include THE OLD SHIP OF ZION, JESS & DJ: A BABY MAMA DRAMEDY, LAWNPEOPLE, DROUGHT, SO NOT FAIR and CROSSING OVER. Her work has been developed/performed at the Lark Play Development Center, NYU, Princeton University, HERE Arts Center, The Cherry Pit, New Georges, and Boston Playwrights' Theatre. She graduated from Princeton University with a BA in English and NYU Tisch with an MFA in Dramatic Writing.

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Splendor Lit Beneath Their Bones

PLAYWRIGHT & PRODUCTION STAFF

• Kirsten Greenidge
  Playwright
• Shawn LaCount
  Director
• Erin Basile
  Production Stage Manager

Cast

• Molly Kimmerling
  Nicole
  
• Nicole Prefontaine
  Lisa
  
• Hannah Cranton
  Colleen
  
• Lauren Foster
  Fran
  
• Aimee Doherty
  Gloria
  
• Joshua Heggie
  Anthony
  
• Greg Maraio
  Dave
  
• Obehi Janice
  Aline
  
• Keith Mascoll
  Clive
  
• Michael Knowlton
  Nick
  

• Kirsten Greenidge
  Kirsten Greenidge’s work shines a strong light on the intersection of race and class in America, and she enjoys the challenge of placing underrepresented voices on stage. In May 2012 Kirsten received an Obie for her play Milk Like Sugar which was first commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse and TheaterMasters, and then produced at La Jolla and then Playwright’s Horizons as a coproduction with Women’s Theater Project. Milk Like Sugar was also award a TCG Edgerton grant as well as a San Diego Critics Award. Boston audiences might be familiar with Kirsten’s latest play The Luck of the Irish, which was presented at the Huntington Theater Company in the spring of 2012 and enjoyed a warm reception and extended run. A former NEA/TCG playwright in residence at Woolly Mammoth, previous work includes several Boston Theater Marathon pieces, Bossa Nova (Yale Rep, 2010 and also an Edgerton New Play Award recipient), Thanksgiving in Company One’s Grimm (2010), Rust (The Magic Theater, 2007), 103 Within the Veil (Company One, 2005) and Sans Culottes in the Promised Land (Humana, 2004). She has enjoyed development experiences at Sundance, Sundance at UCross, the O’Neil, Pacific Playwrights Festival (South Coast Rep), and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Kirsten was the inaugural fellowship for Page 73’s playwrighting fellowship program. Current projects include commissions from CompanyOne, Yale Rep, Denver Center Theater, The Goodman, La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, and Emerson Stage, where she and director Melia Bensussen will adapt the Pulitzer Prize winning book Common Ground. Early in her career Kirsten was a recipient of the Lorraine Hansberry Award and the Mark David Cohen Award by the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival. She attended Wesleyan University and The Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa. She is an Assistant Professor of Theater at Boston University's Center for Fine Art as well as being a resident playwright at New Dramatists she is a member of Boston’s Rhombus writing group.

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Check out these contextual images from each of our three XX plays. We think they provide the feeling of each work, and are excerpted from the research the festival dramaturgs have done as part of the plays’ development processes.

 

SPLENDOR LIT BENEATH THEIR BONES
by Kirsten Greenidge

 

THE OLD SHIP OF ZION
by Natalia Naman

 

SMART PEOPLE
by Lydia R. Diamond

 

 

Get to know the 2013 XX artistic teams through this series of interviews and profiles by D.C. Playwright & Activist Jacqueline Lawton.

Stay tuned for information on special events!

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