MFA Alum News Digest: Biechler

Recently, 2007 MFA playwriting alum Merri Biechler taught at the New South Young Playwrights Festival in Atlanta. She participated in the 2008 WordBRIDGE Playwrights' Lab at Clemson University this past June. Her play for Young Audiences "Dolley Madison and the Secret History Club", which was commissioned by the White House Historical Association, received a workshop at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Her play "Occupation" was a finalist in Perishable Theatre's 14th Annual International Women's Playwriting Festival. Her play "Bombs, Babes and Bingo" is currently a semi-finalist in the 2009 P73 Playwriting Fellowship. Biechler's "Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver", which was originally written while she was an MFA student, continues to gain momentum: in addition to the more than $35,000 the play has received in grant funding over the past two years, it continues to be performed and developed as a teaching tool for medical students and professionals. On October 17 it will be performed for the American Cancer Society Board of Trustees and for the Consortium of Geriatric Academic Programs. In part due to her efforts with this play and additional professional consulting for playwrights on similar projects, Biechler has become a leading expert on theater as a pedagogical tool for medical and social welfare issues.

MFA Alum News Digest: Jacqmin

2007 MFA Alum Laura Jaqmin's AND WHEN WE AWOKE THERE WAS LIGHT AND LIGHT (a commission from Victory Gardens Theater and the script that earned her the 2008 Wasserstein Prize) will be the first play featured in Northlight Theatre’s 2008-2009 Interplay Reading Series. The play will also be read at Second Stage Theatre in New York this November. SKI DUBAI was produced at Center Stage NY this summer by her company, At Play Productions. With the other three writers in the company, Laura helped write WORK (four intercut monologues about bizarre jobs, including a lobster killer and a citrus dyer) that will be produced in Ars Nova’s A.N.T. Fest this November. ALBERTA/EINSTEIN was read in Steppenwolf’s First Look Repertory in August. PLUTO WAS A PLANET was produced this summer at Around the Coyote in Chicago. SPACE will be produced in the side project’s CUT TO THE QUICK festival of one-acts later this fall, and is set to be published by Playscripts, Inc., in 2009. 10 VIRGINS will be published by Playscripts, Inc. in 2009. Two other ten-minutes, PARKERSBURG (which was produced in Sketchbook 8 at the Steppenwolf Garage this summer, and which will be produced in Estrogenius at manhattan theatre source this fall) and MENUS (which was produced by At Play Productions at the Atlantic Theater this spring) will be published in a forthcoming volume by Smith & Kraus. Jacqmin is now an adjunct faculty member at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI, where she teaches playwriting.

MFA Alum News Digest: Reingold at EST & HBO

Jackie Reingold's one-act A VERY VERY SHORT PLAY was produced in the Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon 2008, and will be published by Smith & Kraus. Another one-act, 2B (OR NOT 2B), will be in MATCH GAMES, short plays about romance, produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2009. Jackie is now on the writing staff for HBO's IN TREATMENT, starring Gabriel Byrne.