Newsletter (January 3, 2025)
Happy New Year Edition
Wishing All the Best for the NPTC Family in 2025
As we begin a new year (and start trhe second half of our 33rd Season) our hopes for Peace, Prosperity and Understanding are extended to colleagues, friends and supporters, and to those around the world who are struggling for the bare necessities of survival. Art remains one of the most powerful tools we have to combat ignorance and hate, and we are grateful for all those who support our ongoing mission to use Theatre as an agent of change. In 2025, NPTC will continue to bring forth voices that are erased, ignored or silenced, and to cultivate a broader network of willing listeners, including internationally. We welcome all those who wish to join us on this journey.
2024 Year In Review
It has been an amazing year for New Perspectives. We began in January in the midst of our 32nd Season with a revitalized Women's Work Full-length LAB as Uzunma Udeh became its Program Manager. A new protocol to get more scripts completed and the addition of a second reading festival proved extremely productive by the end of the year. Teresa Fischer returned as a resident director/dramaturg and Bianca Lopez joined the team. On February 11th we welcomed six new members to the Short Play LAB and introduced the theme of HotSpot to the writers and directors. Long-time resident directors Jenny Greeman and Dani Ortiz returned, joined by Jennie Reich Litzky, Bianca Lopez and Malini Singh McDonald. Writers were Morgan Barnes-Whitehead, Christine Benvenuto, Anel Carmona, Chelyn Cousar, Stephanie Kline and Taylor Steele.
In March we restarted the ON HER SHOULDERS Reading Series with DIDO: the Tragic Queen of Carthage by Charlotte Von Stein with a newly translated script by Lynn Marie Macy and directed by Melody Brooks. Then we took a quick trip to Bogotá, Colombia with Amalia Oliva Rojas' It's Not So Bad in My Brain performing in the Festa Alternativa. If that wasn't enough, we also began planning meetings for a new project, The Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Forum, which builds on our Theatre From the Streets project and is being led by Melody Brooks, Linda Chapman, Joan Firestone and Malini Singh-McDonald.
While the LABs and Forum planning continued, we received an invitation from the National Parks Service in April to perform STEAL AWAY by Rick Balian, one of our World Voices signature pieces at the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Maryland for a September festival. In May we presented the Sweet Noise Festival of new plays from the Full-length LAB featuring 40 actors, with scripts by Daphne Greaves, MJ Perrin, Jane Denitz Smith, and Zakeia Tyson-Cross. Amalia Oliva Rojasconducted a workshop on bringing scripts to submission quality. On June 9th we invited 21 actors to participate in table readings of the six scripts from the Short Play LAB. Dramaturg Arminda Thomasdiscovered a long-lost play for the June 18th ON HER SHOULDERS reading. One is a Crowd by Beah Richards is a powerful script and we were pleased to welcome Adrienne Williams back to NPTC to direct it.
July was the beginning of our 33rd Season and it was a month of rehearsals and production tasks for the Meganne George Women's Work Short Play Festival, which performed August 5-10. In September we traveled to Maryland to perform STEAL AWAY, directed by Ray Rodriguez, with Elizabeth June returning to NPTC after many years to again play Harriet. CK Allen, another NPTC veteran, was joined by newcomers Asa Page and Ash Winkfield to complete the cast. We were privileged to meet some of Harriet Tubman's descendents while we were there! Shreya Ambatti, a former intern, returned to NPTC after her graduation to become Program Manager for the International Theatre Forum. Her first task was to find a web platform designer and supervise its construction. In October, Program Assistant Niranjani Reddi coordinated the evaluation process for the 2025 Women's Work Short Play LAB, with over 45 applications received. Niranjani started with us as a Spring 2024 intern.
A celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Women's Work Project kicked off the second Sweet Noise Festival November 15-17 with scripts by Gena Bardwell, Deniz Khateri, and Lynn Marie Macy. Jennie Reich Litzky became a resident director in both LABs and Kathy Curtiss stepped in to direct one of the plays, as she does periodically. Sonya Hayden conducted a workshop on collaborating with composers. The next day, November 18th, we received notice that the NYS Council on the Arts had awarded us a $40,000 grant for 2025! On December 5th Malini Singh McDonald directed a reading of The Discovery by Frances Sheridan for ON HER SHOULDERS; December 9th was the Finalist interview for the 2025 Short Play LAB. Our annual Holiday Open House was a great success on December 15th, and then we all took a break. We are in the testing phase of the International Theatre Forum platform, and will be launching the program to the public this coming March.
Throughout the year we have been working on It CAN Happen Here! - Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theatre Project. The script builds on a draft play by Susan Quinn, who authored a biography of Hallie Flanagan, and her husband Dan Jacobs. Melody Brooks and Katrin Hilbe have been working as dramaturgs to expand the piece into a full multimedia production which will perform in March at the Culture Lab LIC. Tess Howsam, Artistic Director of Culture Lab, is the Production Designer. We are excited to share all of the details on this project in the next few weeks!
We could not have achieved all of this without the unflagging support of General Manager Catharine Guiher who, among other tasks, manages the entire internship application process. This year we worked with 19 amazing young people out of more than 100 inquiries and applications. Program Associate Penelope Deen managed our social media presence with the help of these interns and she also stepped in wherever a production assistant was needed. Ashley Hajimirsadeghi, also a Program Associate, manages the website, some regular weekly social media posts, and other technical issues pertaining to both. Ashley and Penny also began their work at NPTC as interns!