#ENOUGH presents The Inciting Incident: Playwriting in a Moment of Change - Panel Discussion

#ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence presented The Inciting Incident: Playwriting in a Moment of Change - Panel Discussion livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 9 June 2020 at 9 a.m. HST (Honolulu, UTC-10) / 11 a.m. AKDT (Juneau, UTC-8) / 12 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC-7) / 1 p.m. MDT (Denver, UTC-6) / 2 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC-5) / 3 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC-4).

Join #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence and a panel comprised of award-winning and nationally recognized playwrights Idris Goodwin, Lauren Gunderson, David Henry Hwang, Robert Schenkkan, and Karen Zacarías, for a discussion on what it means to be a playwright in this unprecedented moment, and the intersection of playwriting, arts activism, and engaging the next generation.

Our series takes its name from Idris Goodwin’s column for the American Theatre website at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In it, Goodwin grappled with what it means to be a playwright right now, writing:

“[T]his ain’t the intermission. It’s the show. On this stage, in this world, we, the men and women who are merely players, in our various roles, are waking daily in different plays all together. This is the moment where everything changes. We are in the inciting incident.”

In our conversation we will discuss...

• What does it mean to create in a moment of change?
• How can playwriting and live theatre be an agent of change?
• And how do we encourage the next generation to embrace activism through making art, especially through the theatre?

ABOUT #ENOUGH: PLAYS TO END GUN VIOLENCE

#ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence puts America's young people at the center of the conversation on gun violence through the transformative power of storytelling. Part one of the project is a playwriting competition for middle and high school students (grades 6-12) to write and submit 10-minute plays on the topic of gun violence by June 20, 2020. The top plays will be selected by playwrights Lauren Gunderson, David Henry Hwang, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Robert Schenkkan, and Karen Zacarías, and #ENOUGH culminates in an evening of simultaneous staged readings across the country of these plays on December 14, 2020 - the 8th anniversary of Sandy Hook.

To date over 100 plays have been submitted with over 40 readings confirmed for Dec 14, including readings at partner theatres across the country, including Goodman Theatre, Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Alliance Theatre, and Atlantic Theatre, among others.

For more information: www.enoughplays.com

For more information on how to submit a play by June 20th: www.enoughplays.com/writing

Moderator:

Michael Cotey (Producer, #ENOUGH)

Panelists:

Idris Goodwin

Idris Goodwin is a multidisciplinary arts leader and creative community builder. Across two decades Idris has forged a diverse career as an award-winning playwright, Break Beat poet, director, educator, and organizer. His critically acclaimed plays like And In This Corner Cassius Clay, How We Got On, and Hype Man: A Break Beat Play are widely produced across the country at professional theatres, college campuses, and non-traditional spaces alike. He's been honored to receive developmental support from institutions like The Kennedy Center, The Eugene O'Neill Conference, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arena Stage, and The Playwrights’ Center. In addition to the recently released poetry collection Can I Kick It?, he’s had several publications from Haymarket Books including Inauguration co-written with nico wilkinson, Human Highlight: Ode To Dominique Wilkins, and the play This Is Modern Art co-written with Kevin Coval. He’s appeared on HBO Def Poetry, Sesame Street, NPR, BBC Radio, and the Discovery Channel. Idris served two seasons as Producing Artistic Director at StageOne Family Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky. Passionate about cultivating new audiences in the arts, Goodwin actively serves on both the advisory boards of Theatre for Young Audiences USA and Children's Theatre Foundation Association.Idris is the newly appointed Director of The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, where he taught in the department of Theatre and Dance and was voted Teacher of the Year.

Lauren Gunderson

Lauren has been one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015 topping the list twice including 2019/20. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon. Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You; Exit Pursued By A Bear; The Taming and Toil And Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists; The Book of Will; Silent Sky; Bauer; Natural Shocks; The Wickhams and Miss Bennet) and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book Dr Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon is available from Two Lions/Amazon. LaurenGunderson.com

David Henry Hwang

David Henry Hwang’s stage works includes the plays M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Kung Fu, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Elton John & Tim Rice’s Aida (co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival) and Disney’s Tarzan. Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, and a two-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the most-produced living American opera librettist, whose works have been honored with two Grammy Awards. He co-wrote the Gold Record Solo with the late pop icon Prince, and has worked since 2015 as a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair. Hwang serves on the Board of the Lark Play Development Center, as Head of Playwriting at Columbia University School of the Arts, and as Chair of the American Theatre Wing, founder of the Tony Awards. M. Butterfly recently returned to Broadway in a revival directed by Julie Taymor, which marked Mr. Hwang’s eighth Broadway production. His newest work, Soft Power, a collaboration with composer Jeanine Tesori, premiered in May 2018 at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre, where it won 6 Ovation Awards, including Best New Production, and San Francisco’s Curran Theatre. Soft Power is currently running at the Public Theater. Photo credit: Gregory Costanzo.

Robert Schenkkan

Pulitzer Prize, Tony, and WGA Award winner, three-time Emmy nominated writer. Author of eighteen plays: The Investigation; A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts, Building the Wall, All the Way (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Steinberg, and Edward Kennedy Awards), The Great Society, Hanussen, Shadowplay, By the Waters of Babylon, Handler, A Single Shard, Devil and Daniel Webster, Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates, Final Passages, The Marriage of Miss Hollywood and King Neptune,Heaven on Earth, Tachinoki, The Dream Thief, and The Kentucky Cycle (Pulitzer Prize, Tony and Drama Desk nominations). Film: Hacksaw Ridge and The Quiet American. TV: All the Way, The Pacific (three Emmy nominations, Writers Guild Award), The Andromeda Strain, Crazy Horse, Spartacus. Robert is a New Dramatists alum, a member of NTC, EST, the Dramatists Guild council, and a board member of The Lilly Awards and The Orchard Project. He is currently working with John Doyle on a new musical, The 12.

Karen Zacarías

KAREN ZACARÍAS was recently hailed by American Theater Magazine as one of the ten most produced playwrights in the US. The Copper Children directed by Shariffa Ali will have its’ world premiere at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2020 and Destiny of Desire directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela continues its’ sold-out run at Cincinnati Playhouse, Milwaukee Rep, and The Guthrie. Other award-winning plays include Native Gardens, The Book Club Play, Legacy of Light, Mariela in the Desert, The Sins of Sor Juana, and the adaptations of Just Like Us, Into the Beautiful North, and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. She is the author of ten renowned TYA musicals and the Marvel play Squirrel Girl Goes to College, and the librettist of several Ballets. She is one of the inaugural resident playwrights at Arena Stage, a core founder of the Latinx Theatre Commons - a large national organization of artists seeking to update the American narrative with the stories of Latinos -, and she is the founder of the award-winning Young Playwrights’ Theater (YPT). YPT was cited by the Obama administration as one of the best arts-education programs on the nation. Karen was just voted 2018 Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine for her advocacy work involving the arts. She is an inaugural 2019 Sine Fellow for Policy Innovation at American University and was selected by The League of Professional Theatre Women to receive the 2019 Lee Reynolds Award given annually to a woman in theater who has helped illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change. She also was awarded the 2019 Medallion by the Children’s Theater Foundation of America for her advocacy for youth and the arts and a 2019 speaker at TEDEX Broadway . Karen lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and three children. www.KarenZacarias.com

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