Rachael Carnes of Eugene, Oregon, Mark Harvey Levine of Indianapolis, and Scott C. Sickles of New York City will speak about playwright preparation during the Jan. 3, 2021 virtual bimonthly meeting of the Indiana Playwrights Circle.
The meeting begins at 5 p.m. EST on the Zoom virtual meeting platform. Admission is free, but people are asked to register through Eventbrite. The Zoom link will be provided after registration. This event is free and open to the public.
Practical Suggestions for Playwrights:
Carnes, Levine and Sickles will offer practical suggestions about preparing to write plays, preparing to submit plays to production and publication opportunities, and preparing playwrights to self-promote themselves and their work. An informal networking session will follow.
“Writers often set annual goals for themselves in the number of scripts they write and submit during a calendar year. Additionally, several will explore online platforms or update currently owned platforms to promote themselves,” said Andrew Black, founder of the Indiana Playwrights Circle.
“Rachael, Mark and Scott are immensely gifted playwrights who also understand the work involved after a script is complete. Attendees will learn several key strategies and tactics they can incorporate into their own playwriting methods.”
About the Speakers:
Rachael Carnes received a 2020 Oregon Literary Fellowship, and had more than 50 productions in 2019, across the U.S., U.K., Canada and Asia, with recent invitations to develop work at the William Inge Theatre Festival (2018), the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Playwriting Intensive (2019), the Midwestern Dramatists Center Conference (2018 & 2019), the Mid-America Theater Conference (2019 & 2020), the American Association for Theatre in Higher Education New Play Development Series (2019), the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (2019), the Ivoryton Playhouse Women Playwrights Initiative (2019), the Parson’s Nose Theatre’s Women Playwright Series (Winter and Fall, 2019), the Cambridge U.K. WriteON Festival (2019), the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival (2019) and the Great Plains Theatre Conference (2020 – moved to 2021, due to Covid.) Her work is seen in many literary journals, and has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize.
Mark Harvey Levine has had over 1800 productions of his plays everywhere from Bangalore to Bucharest and from Lima to London. Indianapolis productions include numerous appearances in “A Very Phoenix Xmas” and in last year’s “A Very Bryan Xmas.” His plays have won over 45 awards (including First Place in Fat Turtle’s “Quaranteeny Play Festival”) and been produced in more than ten languages. Full evenings of his plays, such as “Cabfare For The Common Man,” “Didn’t See That Coming” and “A Very Special Holiday Special” have been shown around the world, including a multi-year tour of Brazil. A Spanish-language film of “The Kiss” (“El Beso”) premiered at Cannes and aired on HBO and DTV (Japan). His work has been published in over two dozen anthologies by Smith & Kraus, Applause, Routledge and Vintage. He lives in Indianapolis, where he teaches playwriting at the Indiana Writer’s Center.
Scott C. Sickles is an LGBTQ/biracial Korean American writer. His plays have been performed in New York City, across the U.S., and internationally in Canada, Australia, the UK, Hungary, Singapore, Indonesia, and Lebanon. Plays include: Nonsense and Beauty (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis; 2018 Edgerton New Play Award; 2020 ATCA Steinberg Award Finalist), Marianas Trench (2019 O’Neill Finalist), Pangea (O’Neill Semifinalist), Composure (Winner, 2016 New York Innovative Theatre Award; 2018 Lambda Literary Award Finalist), Intellectuals (Smith & Kraus’ New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2007), Lightning From Heaven (1999 Beverly Hills Theater Guild/Julie Harris Playwriting Award); Beautiful Noises (Smith & Kraus), murmurs (Samuel French); and Turtles and Bulldogs (Applause). Five consecutive Writers Guild of America Awards for the daytime drama General Hospital, eight Emmy nominations. Most recently, he published Playing on the Periphery: Monologues and Scenes for and About Queer Kids, available on Amazon. Member, Dramatists Guild, New Play Exchange. www.ScottCSickles.com
Indiana Playwrights Circle is a writing group for playwrights of all experience levels; membership is not limited to Indiana residents. It is affiliated with the Indiana Writers Center.