"What They Call Us" in the Dramatists Guild Event "Live from the Anarchist Jurisdiction"

 

The Dramatists Guild of America presents LIVE FROM THE ANARCHIST JURISDICTION tonight at 7pm EST! Join us for a Zoom reading of 76 new micro plays, including "What They Call Us" by E. M. Lewis.  Created in the style of The One-Minute Play Festival (#1MPF), these plays are a meditation on the current cultural and political moment in our country.

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_WhZ2R1GVSCSlZ9PI6s9FPg

"The Third Prisoner" - a new short play commissioned by Portland Center Stage for "Play at Home"

 A big thank you to Portland Center Stage!  They commissioned me to write something for the national "Play at Home" program -- "a series of short plays commissioned specifically for this moment of unprecedented isolation to inspire joy and connection for all."  

"The Third Prisoner" is about finding connection despite isolation, humanity and empathy in the face of despair, and hope in the darkness.  It was written in this moment, for this moment.

Thank you to actors Jimmy Garcia, Eric Pargac, Andrea White, and Davis Gilmartin for their lovely reading of my little play!  You can give it a listen by clicking here.

If you'd like to read the script for this or any of the other "Play at Home" plays, click here!

#playathomeplays

Mellon Foundation Announces Third Cohort of National Playwright Residency Program

I'm so excited to have been selected to be part of the Mellon Foundation and Howlround's National Playwright Residency Program! For the next three years, I'll be able to call Artists Repertory Theater in Portland, Oregon my home with the help and support of this program. I can't wait to see what we're going to create together!

HowlRound Theatre Commons, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has announced the third cohort of the National Playwright Residency Program. The Mellon grant funds three years of full-time salary and benefits for awarded playwrights, as well as for discretionary artistic development.

NPRP was launched in 2013. In addition to developing meaningful collaboration and relationships with resident writers, host theatres commit to mounting at least one full production by the playwright.

The New York residencies include Betty Shamieh with the The Classical Theatre of Harlem, Basil Kreimendahl with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Murielle Borst-Tarrant with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and Cori Thomas with WP Theater. Across the country, the cohort also includes J. Nicole Brooks, with Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois; Carlyle Brown with Illusion Theater and School in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Star Finch with Crowded Fire Theater & Campo Santo in San Francisco, California; Virginia Grise with Cara Mía Theatre Co. in Dallas, Texas; E. M. Lewis with Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, Oregon; Psalmeyene 24 with Mosaic Theater Company in Washington, D.C.; Regina Taylor with Repertory Theatre of St. Louis in St. Louis, Missouri; UNIVERSES (Mildred Ruiz-Sapp and Steven Sapp) with Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut; and Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay with Theater Mu in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"How the Light Gets In" wins Steinberg Award!

I'm delighted to share that "How the Light Gets In," which premiered last year at Boston Court Pasadena in California, has won the Steinberg Award from the American Theater Critics Association! I'm so proud and so grateful!

The Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award and Citations, presented by Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust and the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), recognize playwrights for exceptional plays that premiered professionally outside New York City. The 2020 prizes, which celebrate works produced in 2019, were presented online May 13. The 2020 finalists, selected by members of ATCA, were culled from a submission of 32 scripts by playwrights across the U.S. This year’s winner was How the Light Gets In by E.M. Lewis, which premiered at Boston Court Pasadena in Pasadena, California. Lewis was awarded a $25,000 cash prize.

https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/05/15/e-m-lewis-wins-2020-steinberg-atca-new-play-award/

Teaching Playwriting Workshops in April!

I'll be teaching two playwriting workshops in April 2020, both through Artists Repertory Theater in Portland, Oregon, where I'm a resident artist.

I'll take a four class "Introduction to Playwriting" course to high school students at Vancouver School of Arts and Academics in Washington State.  My colleagues Sarah Lucht, Michael Mendelson, Chris Harder, Barbie Wu, and and Lynda Hayden will also be providing workshops and classes to students there in Shakespeare, Meisner, clowning and movement, and acting styles.

If you're an adult interested in taking a playwriting course from me, I hope you'll sign up for "Rage on Stage" a three-hour workshop I'll be teaching at Artists Rep on April 22nd, from 6:30-9:30pm!

RAGE ON STAGE

Do you feel anger? Anxiety? Depression? Fear? White hot rage? You are not alone. Join us for this workshop in which we will explore how playwrights through the ages have purged their strongest personal and political rage in their work for the stage. And come prepared to write out your own primal screams, and then shape and share them!

Click here for more information on how to sign up!  All are welcome!

The Gun Show goes to Michigan!

My thoughts are with actor Jala Jackson, a student at Michigan State University, as she takes my play "The Gun Show" across the state for multiple performances in multiple venues in February and March.

For more information, click here!

For tickets, click here!

Willamette Week's "Can't Miss" Spring Art Picks includes Song of Extinction

Big thanks to Willamette Week, for including Twilight Theater's upcoming production of Song of Extinction in Portland, Oregon in its "Can't Miss!" spring art picks.

Song of Extinction

At the center of this play is the bond between a biology teacher who survived the Cambodian genocide and a student whose mother is dying of stomach cancer.  It was written by E. M. Lewis, the Oregon playwright who wrote the Antarctic epic Magellanica. Like that masterpiece, Song of Extinction is about the intersection of science and grief.  Twilight Theater Company, 7515 N Brandon Ave., twilighttheatercompany.org. 8 pm. Through May 17. $18-$24. 

Click here to find out what else they recommend!