Oh my gosh, how excited are we about next week’s ONSTAGE reading in Ithaca? I’ll tell you – we’re SUPER excited! Darcy Martin Rose of Acting Out NY and Cynthia Henderson with Performing Arts for Social Change are doing a fantastic job of making bringing our playwright’s magic to NY!
Which is why we’d like to introduce you to these fabulous writing women now! Read all about our playwrights below, and then make sure to mark your calendars for 5 pm on April 25th at 5 pm at Acting Out NY (171 E. State St., #119 Center Ithaca
Ithaca, NY).
Denise St. Pierre‘s first short play, “Bette Davis Eyes,” premiered at the Bishop’s University New Plays Festival in 2012, and ran at the 2014 Toronto International Fringe Festival in the Site-Specific category. Her second short play, “Sehnsucht,” premiered at the New Plays Festival the following year and is currently licensed by YesPlays.com. Last year, her monologue “The Beginner’s Guide to Gardening” was a finalist in LDBI’s Planting the Seed Festival, and was read and staged in Ithaca, Los Angeles, and Prescott. Denise, a born and bred Canadian, graduated from Bishop’s University in 2013, where she studied under noted Canadian-American playwright George Rideout and served a term as the editor of The Mitre, North America’s longest-running literary journal. She now lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY, where she works at a literary agency.
Donna Hoke’s work has been seen in 27 states and on five continents. Her full-length plays include THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR (currently playing in Romania, and opening April 11 at Dangerous Theatre in Denver), SEEDS (Artie award winner), FLOWERS IN THE DESERT (AACT top 20 finalist, opening March 14 in Oxnard, CA), and SAFE (winner of the Todd McNerney National Playwriting and Naatak National Playwriting Contests, current finalist Great Gay Play and Musical Contest, opening March 2016 in Buffalo, NY); she’s also authored more than two dozen short plays that have had hundreds of productions. Donna is also the Western New York regional representative for the Dramatists Guild; a New York Times-published crossword puzzle constructor; author of Neko and the Twiggets, a children’s book; and founder/co-curator of BUA Takes 10: GLBT Short Stories. In 2012, 2013, and 2014, she was named Buffalo’s Best Writer by Artvoice, the only woman to ever receive the designation.
Celine Song is a 2014-2015 Ars Nova Play Group member, a 2012 Edward F. Albee Foundation Writing Fellow, a 2014 Great Plains Theatre Conference Playlab Playwright, a 2014 resident at Yaddo, and a IATI Theater’s 2015 Cimientos Playwright. Her plays include The Feast, Family, and Tom & Eliza. MFA: Columbia
C.J. Ehrlich‘s award-winning plays have enjoyed over 100 productions in many states, notably of undress and panic, and around the world, from NYC to Kealakekua, HI to Wogonga Australia. Some favorite partners: Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Fest (NYC), Boston Theatre Marathon (MA), Little Fish (Los Angeles), Source DC, Heartland (IL), OnStage Atlanta, The Last Frontier (Valdez, Alaska), Grin Theatre (Liverpool UK), Boqete Players (Panama), Pakriti Foundation (Chennai, India). C.J.’s full-length comedy collaboration THE CUPCAKE CONSPIRACY (with Philip J. Kaplan) opened Rover Dramewerks 2015 season.
C.J.’s plays are published in several Smith & Kraus annual Best Ten-Minute Plays anthologies (2011-2015), and she is a dual Heideman Award finalist. A proud member of the Westchester Collaborative Theatre and the Dramatists Guild, C.J. lists among her greatest achievements teaching her sons the fine art of the spit take. Sample pages and more at www.CJ-Ehrlich.com.
Eugenie Carabatsos is currently pursuing her MFA in Dramatic Writing, studying under Rob Handel. Her plays have won BroadwayWorld’s Award for Best Play in South Carolina 2013, the Trustus Theatre Festival, the Mountain Playhouse Comedy Writing Competition, the Venus Theatre Festival, the Variations Theatre Group UnChained Festival, and the Edward Hopper House Two-on-the-Aisle Competition. Her short screenplay is the winner of the Cinequest Film Festival Short Screenwriting Contest 2015. Eugenie graduated from Wesleyan University in 2010, with a BA in English.
Kay Poiro is an award-winning screenwriter and internationally produced playwright. Her stage plays have been performed across the United States and around the world, including London, Sydney, Toronto, and India. Most recently, her T.V. pilot “Brewster Commons” won Best Short Screenplay at the 2014 Harlem International Film Festival. Her upcoming events include productions in New Jersey, Sasketchewan and Johannesburg, South Africa. Kay is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and lives in Maryland. *Kay’s play Seeds of Rebellion was a LBDI ONSTAGE Finalist last year!*
