Join us Saturday, February 19 from 11am-1pm ET for a free online experience led by C1's Mellon Foundation Resident Playwright Kirsten Greenidge with special guest host Luis Alfaro, a Chicano playwright, Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, and Associate Artistic Director at Center Theatre Group.
Carve out some dedicated space to write while sharing in virtual community with other writers and partaking in writing exercises in the tradition of María Irene Fornés.
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.
>> Learn more about María Irene Fornés:
- The Rest I Make Up, a documentary by Michelle Memran
(available to stream via Kanopy and Vimeo)
- "La Maestra Fornés Has Left the Room, But What a Room!"
by Luis Alfaro, published in American Theatre Magazine
>> About Luis Alfaro
Luis Alfaro is a Chicano playwright born and raised blocks from USC in the Pico-Union district of downtown Los Angeles. Luis is the Associate Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group, the resident theatre company of the Music Center of Los Angeles County, home of the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre and Kirk Douglas Theater. Luis is the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, popularly known as a “genius grant,” awarded to people who have demonstrated expertise and exceptional creativity in their respective fields. He has also received recognition from; the PEN America/Laura Pels International Foundation Theater Award for a Master Dramatist; United States Artist Fellowship; Ford Foundation’s Art of Change Fellowship; Joyce Foundation Fellowship; Mellon Foundation Fellowship, and the Annenberg Artist-in-Residence for the city of Santa Monica; among others. He is the only playwright to have received two Kennedy Center ‘Fund for New American Play’ awards in the same year. Luis spent six seasons as the inaugural Playwright-in-Residence of the ninety-year-old Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2013-2019); a member of the Playwright’s Ensemble at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre (2013-2020); a resident artist at the Mark Taper Forum (1995-2005); an inaugural member of the Latinx Playwrights ‘Circle of Imaginistas’ at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (2021). and has worked with the Ojai Playwrights Conference since 2002. His plays and performances include Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, Mojada, Delano, Body of Faith, Straight as a Line, and have been seen at regional theatres throughout the United States, Latin America, Canada and Europe. Luis spent over two decades in the Los Angeles Poetry and Performance Art communities. He is an Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Southern California (USC). Previously, he taught at California Institute of the Arts (Cal-Arts), and in the Writers Program at UCLA Extension. He has an Emmy-nominated short film, Chicanismo (Best Experimental Film, San Antonio CineFestival, Best Short, CineAccion San Francisco) and an award-winning recording, down town, on SST/New Alliance Records (Best Spoken-Word Release, National Association of Independent Record Distributors).
>> About Kirsten Greenidge, C1 Resident Playwright
Kirsten Greenidge’s work presents African American experiences on stage by examining the nexus of race, class, and gender. Kirsten (she/her/hers) is currently a Mellon Fellow/Howlround Artist in Residence at Company One Theatre in Boston Massachusetts, where she helps run Company One’s PlayLab Circuit program. 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.
>> 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.