#something marvelous

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Meet playwright Monica Trausch.  Her play Border Crossing is in development as part of our workshop series this season!  Be sure to catch the public staged reading on July 10.

Monica Trausch is a New York City based writer whose work includes The ABCs; Border Crossing (semi-finalist, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference); Emily the Artist; and Trans-Siberian Railway. Her plays have been developed with Exquisite Corpse Company, The Pantry, Rule of 7x7, UglyRhino, the Bechdel Group, Primary Stages Detention Series, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the UCSB Studio Theatre, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and more. Monica is affiliated with Theatre Without Borders and has interned with New Dramatists, Women’s Project, and New Georges. BA: UC Santa Barbara.

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Meet playwright Shannon Pritchard.  Her play Kin & Kind is in development as part of our workshop series this season!  Be sure to catch the public staged reading on July 6.

Shannon Pritchard has written several plays, including Traces, Practice Babies, The County Hell, Get Lucky and Bonny Anne. They’ve been produced and developed by Jackalope Theatre, TimeLine, The Second City, Chicago Dramatists and Playwrights Horizons Theater School. She is a two-time Eugene O’Neil Playwrighting Conference semi-finalist (2014 & 2015), a Humanitas Drama nominee, and has received commissions from Next Theatre and the DePaul Theatre School. Shannon was seen in February writing live at the Water Works Building as part of Chicago Theatre Week’s Playwrights at Work Project. This June her short play Psychodramatic will premiere in Sick by Seven, part of A Red Orchid Theatre's Incubator series. Shannon is a founding member of the Accidental Shakespeare Company in NYC and holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA from Northwestern University’s Writing for the Screen + Stage program.

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ORIGINS photo highlight: Toya Turner performs Paloma by Isaac Gomez, directed by Monty Cole.

Playwright Isaac says…

"With so much racial and political tension in our world - violence and irrational rhetoric intentionally targeted to hurt people and communities - I was struck by how so suddenly it was all happening. I mean, it's been happening for forever. But something about Trump rallies, for example, has unleashed something within our communities. And it felt as if Pandora's box had been opened somewhere in the world, unleashing today's modern horrors (from my point of view, anyway.) So I was drawn to that myth and what that means/looks like coming from two women of color who are just trying to do the best they can in a world consumed with media and Facebook and Hulu but can't seem the get it right. And then - a mysterious package arrives."

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ORIGINS photo highlight: Karissa J Murrell Myers performs Tiresias’s Bedsheet by Laura Nessler, directed by Lexi Saunders.

Playwright Laura says…

"I like to use magical realism to give power to people, objects, and even animals that are often ignored. All theatre can seek to give voice to the voiceless, but I love the way magical realism lets you mess with power dynamics by "bending the rules" of reality, while still being recognizable to the audience."

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ORIGINS photo highlight: Christopher Acevedo, and Tricia Rodriguez perform Tears of Hope by Juan Villa, directed by Aaron Mays.

Director Aaron says…

"When we use magic within our storytelling, we are able to remove the limitations set by the real world. With magical realism, we can see the heart of the story and a different perspective. We can color outside of the lines, so to speak, and more closely focus on the human condition while sharing the stories from diverse cultures."

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ORIGINS photo highlight: Maximillian Lapine performs From Tartarus with Love by MT Cozzola, directed by Wm. Bullion.

Playwright MT says…

"The idea of two twin messengers, Arke and Iris, being divided by the rise of the Olympians, speaks to me for many reasons. First, the notion of the new generation of gods taking over from the Titans is fascinating. And the idea that Arke is later stripped of her wings and sent to Tartarus, just for being loyal to the old gods, seems so wrong. She's spoken of as having betrayed the Olympians, but only because she was loyal to the Titans, who were there long before the Olympians. And also, the way we adapt to the new powers in control--the way we have to, in order to survive, and how we treat those who don't adapt."

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ORIGINS photo highlight: Becca Savoy, Nathan Wainwright, Edward Mawere, and Allyce Torres perform Hebrews Rising by Sean Douglass, directed by Laura Nash.

Playwright Sean says…

"Humans have long used literary strategies of fantastical or seemingly paradoxical content, like myths or Zen koans, as a way to open their communities' minds and awaken their sense of possibility, and magical realism is no different in this regard. It's not an invitation to another world, but a lens through which we see the marvelous, radical possibility life offers, and the marvelous depth and potentiality present in one another."

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ORIGINS photo highlight: Andrew Goetten and Ellen Girvin perform Flying South by Dana Lynn Formby, directed by Amy Szerlong.

Director Amy says...

"By introducing magic into a seemingly real world, the audience is required to expand its understanding of reality and expand its definition of what is possible. With that in mind, I believe the audience is encouraged to see beyond its understanding of our real world (including constructs of society, race, class, gender, etc.). "