Join us Saturday, June 17 from 11am-1pm ET for a free online experience led by C1 Playwright in Residence Kirsten Greenidge with special guest artist Jacqueline E. Lawton.
This season, our Open Circuit programs — Field Work and Open Write — are focusing on Kickstarting Creativity. It's been a long few years, and for so many people it remains challenging to carve out time for imagination, creativity, and play. Join us for free, monthly, online sessions that offer space for reset and reconnection.
For this Open Write, we’re excited to partner with playwright, dramaturg, and producer Jacqueline E. Lawton, who will lead writers in exercises designed to spark your flame. Carve out some time to write in virtual community with other theatremakers as we get our creative juices flowing.
RSVP required; this is a Pay-What-You-Want experience with $0 minimum. All proceeds support C1's mission to build community at the intersection of art and social change.
>> About the Guests
Kirsten Greenidge (she/her)
Kirsten Greenidge’s work presents African American experiences on stage by examining the nexus of race, class, and gender. Kirsten is currently a Playwright in Residence at Company One Theatre in Boston Massachusetts, where she helps run Company One’s playwriting program, PlayLab. She is the author of Baltimore, a commission from the Big Ten Consortium at the University of Iowa, which toured to the National Black Theatre Conference; Bud Not Buddy, an adaptation of the children’s novel by Christopher Paul Curtis, with music by Terence Blanchard, which will be produced this winter at Metro Stage Company in St. Louis; The Luck of the Irish (Huntington Theatre Company; LTC3); and Milk Like Sugar (La Jolla Playhouse; Women’s Theatre Project; Playwright’s Horizons), which was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award and received an Independent Reviewers of New England Award, and San Diego Critics Award, and an OBIE Award. She is a 2016 winner of the Roe Green Award for new plays from Cleveland Playhouse for Little Row Boat; Or, Conjecture, a play about Sally Hemings, James Hemings, and Thomas Jefferson, commissioned by Yale Rep. Her play As Far As a Century's Reach toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, after being part of the Royal Exchange’s B!RTH Project. She is a proud author of Audacity, part of Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s EVERY 28 HOUR PLAYS, and she’s enjoyed development experiences at Family Residency at the Space at Ryder Farm, the Huntington’s Summer Play Festival, Cleveland Playhouse (as the 2016 Roe Green New Play Award recipient), The Goodman, Denver Center Theatre’s New Play Summit, Sundance, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Sundance at Ucross, and the O’Neill. Kirsten is currently working on commissions from Company One, La Jolla Playhouse, OSF’s American Revolutions Project, The Goodman, and Playwrights Horizons. She is an alum of New Dramatists, and has proudly graced the Kilroys list of New Plays by women and women identified Playwrights several years running. Her play Familiar`, a winner of the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival New Play Award, was presented by Harvard’s A.R.T. Institute this winter. She is an alum of Wesleyan University, and the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa. She oversees the Playwriting Program at the School of Theatre at Boston University.
Jacqueline E. Lawton (she/her)
Jacqueline E. Lawton is a playwright, dramaturg, producer, and advocate for Access, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the American Theatre. Her produced plays include: Anna K; Behold, A Negress; Blackbirds; Blood-bound and Tongue-tied; Deep Belly Beautiful; The Devil’s Sweet Water; Diola, Edges of Time; Freedom Hill; The Hampton Years; Hotel Berry, The Inferior Sex, Intelligence; Love Brothers Serenade; Mad Breed; Noms de Guerre; So Goes We; and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Lawton has worked as a dramaturg and research consultant at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Arden Theater, Arena Stage, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Ensemble Studio Theater, Folger Shakespeare Library, the Ford’s Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Horizons Theater, Howard University, the Hub Theatre, Interact Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Morgan State University, Rorschach Theater Company, Round House Theatre, Theater Alliance, Theater J, Tribute Productions, University of Maryland, Virginia Stage Company, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. As a racial equity facilitator, she has worked with Actors Theatre of Louisville, Education Theatre Association, the English National Opera, James Madison University, Maestra Music, PlayMakers Theatre Company, Theatre Communication Group, the University of Southern California, and Vagabond Theatre. Currently, she is a Dramaturg at PlayMakers Repertory. Ms. Lawton received her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a dramaturg for PlayMakers Repertory Company. She is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild of America.
>> About C1's Open Circuit Programs
C1's Open Circuit Programs are free, alternating monthly Saturday morning meetings open to all theatremakers dedicated to new work. Virtual Open Write months feature guest writers who lead attendees through exercises and writing time. Field Work months feature a professional development topic relevant to building a career as a civic-minded theatre artist, with guest artists providing a teach-in on that theme, and time for attendees work on their own materials.