Audible Announces First Class of Theater Commissions to Receive Support from Its $5 Million Emerging Playwrights Fund
February 12 2018 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Fund Will Enable the Creation of Captivating
Performances for Millions of Listeners
Audible Inc., the world’s largest producer and provider of
downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word entertainment, today
announced the first class of theater commissions selected to
receive support from its fund dedicated to the commission and
development of innovative English-language works from playwrights
around the globe. Announced earlier this year, the $5 million fund
will enable the creation of one- and two-person audio plays driven
by language and voice, in keeping with Audible’s core commitment to
elevating listening experiences through powerful performances of
brilliantly composed words.
At a time when both playwrights and theater companies
increasingly rely upon funding for the arts and ticket prices to
live theater soar, Audible seeks to provide a creative home for
artists and ideas, supporting established and new playwrights by
commissioning works that can be heard by millions of Audible
listeners. Audible has selected these grant recipients in
collaboration with an advisory board of distinguished talent in the
theater world, including Sir Tom Stoppard, Annette Bening, David
Henry Hwang, Oskar Eustis, Lynn Nottage, Trip Cullman, Mimi
O’Donnell, and Leigh Silverman.
“We are delighted to welcome our first class of talented
playwrights to the Audible aesthetic, and look forward to bringing
their words in performance to theatergoers along with our millions
of listeners,” said Audible founder and CEO Don Katz.
In addition to financial support, Audible will provide the
selected playwrights creative and logistical resources including
the use of Audible’s workspace, alongside hundreds of employees
committed to creating exceptional listening experiences every day.
With access to experts in a variety of creative fields, playwrights
will enjoy a nurturing environment that inspires and encourages
artistic expression with Audible listeners in mind.
“What an incredibly impressive first class of exciting and
diverse playwrights to receive commissions from Audible playwright
fund!” said Theater Artistic Director Kate Navin. “We look forward
to developing and supporting the creation of these works and to
bringing them to life both in audio and on stage. Offering
these productions on Audible will bring these plays to millions of
people as incomparable listening experiences.”
The first class of commissions will go to:
- AARON MARK, a Texas-born,
New York-based artist whose distinctive narrative style drew
immediate attention for this early career playwright. Aaron’s
ongoing series of solo shows, including EMPANADA LOCA, has earned
him a reputation as a new leading light of the single-performer
genre.
- ADITI BRENNAN KAPIL is a
multi-disciplinary artist, of Bulgarian and Indian descent, who was
raised in Sweden. Her plays include Love Person (Stavis Playwriting
Award in 2009), Displaced Hindu Gods Trilogy (Brahman/i, a
one-hijra stand-up comedy show, The Chronicles of
Kalki, and Shiv) (premiered at Mixed Blood Theater
and across the US and London), Orange (premiered at Mixed
Blood Theatre and SCR), and Imogen Says
Nothing (premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre). She is the
Playwright-in-Residence at Mixed Blood Theatre, an Artistic
Associate at Park Square Theatre, a Core Writer at the Playwrights’
Center, and a Resident Playwright at New Dramatists.
- ANTOINETTE NWANDU is a New
York-based playwright whose honors include the Paula Vogel
Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award,
and the Negro Ensemble Company’s Douglas Turner Ward Prize. In June
2017, the World Premiere of her play PASS OVER, which
received a Jeff Award for outstanding New Play, was produced
by Steppenwolf Theatre. In Feb 2018, the World Premiere of her play
BREACH: a manifesto on race in america through the eyes of a black
girl recovering from self-hate will be produced by Victory
Gardens.
- BRIDGETTE A. WIMBERLY, an
award-winning poet, playwright, and librettist, has been produced
Off-Broadway and across the U.S. including Opera Philadelphia,
Apollo Theatre, Madison Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Hackney
Empire/English Royal Opera/London (Charlie Parker’s
YARDBIRD, starring Lawrence Brownlee) and Atlanta’s Alliance
Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre,
and The Women’s Project (Saint Lucy’s Eyes, starring Ruby
Dee).
- CHISA HUTCHINSON, is an
acclaimed playwright raised and currently residing in Newark, New
Jersey. She holds a B.A. in Dramatic Arts from Vassar College and
an M.F.A. in Playwriting from NYU. Her work has been presented
at such venues as the National Black Theater and Second Stage
Theater. She is a current member of New Dramatists and former staff
writer for the Blue Man Group.
- DAVID ROSSMER is a writer,
actor and musician. He co-wrote book, music and lyrics (with Steve
Rosen) for the critically acclaimed comedy The Other Josh
Cohen, which premiered Off-Broadway and was nominated for 6 Drama
Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award and the Off-Broadway Alliance
Award. Rossmer co-created the edgy, hit variety show Don’t
Quit Your Night Job, which began at the Public Theater in NYC and
moved to a successful run Off-Broadway… where he wrote special
material for the likes of Sting, Sutton Foster, James Corden, Huey
Lewis, David Hyde Pierce and Andrea Martin, to name a few.
Rossmer also co-wrote Rated P, which began Off-Broadway, was
developed for television by Kelly Ripa’s Milojo Productions and
bought by ABC Studios.
- GARY MCNAIR, a playwright,
director and performer based in Glasgow, Scotland. His 2017
sold-out, Fringe First award winner LETTERS TO
MORRISSEY is the third in a trilogy of often darkly comic
works drawing on the joys and struggles of growing up in working
class Scotland.
- JAMES ANTHONY
TYLER, is an award-winning playwright who
holds a MFA in Film from Howard University, an MFA in Dramatic
Writing from New York University, and has recently earned an
artist’s diploma in playwriting from The Juilliard School. His
honors include the Paul Robeson Award, and a John Golden Award for
Excellence in Playwriting from NYU. His play DOLPHINS AND SHARKS
received its world premiere in 2016 with the LABrynth Theatre
Company off Broadway, and his play SOME OLD BLACK MAN will run this
spring off Broadway at 59E59 Theatre.
- JAMES FRITZ, a playwright from
London, who’s first full-length play, FOUR MINUTES TWELVE SECONDS
which premiered at Hampstead Theatre downstairs in 2014, was
nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an
Affiliate Theatre. His other plays include ROSS & RACHEL (“a
virtuosic piece of writing” Time Out) which opened to critical
acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015, PARLIAMENT SQUARE,
which won a Bruntwood Prize in 2015, premiered at the Royal
Exchange Theatre in 2017 before transferring to the Bush Theatre,
and THE FALL which he wrote for the National Youth Theatre of Great
Britain’s 60th anniversary season in 2016. In 2017 his radio play
COMMENT IS FREE won both the Imison and the Tinniswood Awards at
the BBC Audio Drama Awards, which is the first time that a single
writer has won both awards the same year.
- LAUREN GUNDERSON is the
most produced playwright in America in 2017 and the author of plays
such as The Book of Will, Miss Bennet: Christmas at
Pemberley, and I and You. Ms. Gunderson’s work has been
commissioned, developed and produced at companies
including South Coast Repertory, Marin Theatre Company, The
Kennedy Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center, San
Francisco Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, TheatreWorks and more.
- LEAH NANAKO WINKLER, a Japanese
American playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky.
Her play KENTUCKY premiered at Ensemble Studio Theatre. Her play
GOD SAID THIS will be in the 2018 Humana Festival of New Plays. She
is the inaugural recipient of the Mark O'Donnell Prize.
- MADHURI SHEKAR, a current
playwriting student at Juilliard. Madhuri is the 2013/14 winner of
the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting contest held by the Alliance
Theatre for her play IN LOVE AND WARCRAFT, for which they did the
world premiere production. Most recently her play QUEEN was
produced at Victory Gardens in Chicago.
- NASSIM SOLEIMANPOUR, a
multidisciplinary theatre maker from Tehran, currently based in
Berlin, Germany. His plays have been translated into more than 25
languages, and performed across the globe.
- PAOLA LÁZARO is a
playwright and actor born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She
holds a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from SUNY Purchase College and
an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University. Her play TELL
HECTOR I MISS HIM premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company in fall
of 2017, and THERE’S ALWAYS THE HUDSON was recently workshopped at
Sundance. Paola is part of the 2015 Emerging Writers Group at The
Public Theater.
- REGINA TAYLOR, a playwright
whose credits include OO-BLA-DEE (Recipient of the American Theatre
Critics Association New Play Award), DROWNING CROW (Manhattan
Theatre Club), THE TRINITY RIVER PLAYS (Dallas Theater Center and
the Goodman Theatre; Recipient of the 2010 Edgerton Foundation New
American Play Award), MAGNOLIA, THE DREAMS OF SARAH BREEDLOVE, A
NIGHT IN TUNISIA, ESCAPE FROM PARADISE, WATERMELON RINDS, and
INSIDE THE BELLY OF THE BEAST. Taylor's critically acclaimed CROWNS
continues to be one of the most-performed musicals in the country,
and is the winner of four Washington, D.C. Helen Hayes awards.
Beyond support for playwrights, the fund will sustain live and
in-studio production of the newly created plays, and recordings of
these productions will be made available for Audible listeners in
2018. Audible’s inaugural productions are Latin History for Morons,
written by and starring John Leguizamo on Broadway and David Cale’s
Harry Clarke, starring Billy Crudup at the Vineyard Theatre
off-Broadway.
For more information, please contact
AudibleTheater@audible.com.
Among the acclaimed performers who have narrated works of
literature for Audible are Nick Offerman, Sean Penn, Zachary
Quinto, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lily Collins, Emma Thompson, James
Franco, and Jesse Eisenberg. In 2013, Audible Studios won its first
Grammy Award, for its production of Janis Ian’s memoir, Society’s
Child, and also won the Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year, for
Colin Firth’s performance of Graham Greene’s The End of the
Affair.
Audible invented and commercialized the first digital audio
player in 1997, and has since been at the forefront of the
explosively growing audiobook download segment. In 2017, listeners
around the world downloaded over two billion hours of Audible
content.
ABOUT AUDIBLE, INC.
Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary
(NASDAQ:AMZN), is the leading provider of premium digital spoken
audio content, offering customers a new way to enhance and enrich
their lives every day. Audible was created to unleash the emotive
music in language and the habituating power and utility of verbal
expression. Audible content includes more than 400,000 audio
programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters,
entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business
information providers. Audible is also the provider of spoken-word
audio products for Apple’s iTunes Store.
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Audible.comEsther Bochnerbochnere@audible.com
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