A quick blog post to encourage you to attend an upcoming event and to listen to two wonderful podcast episodes with Triangle-based playwright, Jacqueline E. Lawton!
Jacqueline E. Lawton is a playwright, dramaturg, producer, and advocate for Access, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the American Theatre. Her produced plays include: Blood-bound and Tongue-tied; The Hampton Years; Intelligence; Mad Breed; and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a dramaturg for PlayMakers Repertory Company. She is also Dramatist Guild’s Regional Representative for North Carolina.
Jacqueline E. Lawton, photo by Jason Hornick
UPCOMING EVENT:
Jacqueline’s play, XIX, was commissioned by the Women’s Theatre Festival in celebration and reckoning with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment (the 100th anniversary is this year!). XIX is a socio-political drama about the role of Black women in the women’s suffrage movement.
Please make a note on your calendar to attend the virtual reading of excerpts of XIX on July 11 at 7:30pm as part of the Women’s Theatre Festival. Click here for more information. Post-show discussion will be facilitated by dramaturg Jules Odendahl-James, with panelists JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell (XIX director); Jacqueline E. Lawton (XIX playwright), youth voting advocate Isabel Lewis; Dr. Gloria Thomas, the director of UNC’s Women’s Center, and the President of the League of Women Voters of Wake County, Dianna Wynn.
LISTEN UP:
And, listen to two podcast episodes featuring Jacqueline E. Lawton on Artist Soapbox. You’ll hear Jacqueline and guests JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell and Jules Odendahl-James talk in detail about the new play development process. So much helpful and powerful information in these episodes! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
The wonderful guest trio of Jacqueline, JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell and Jules Odendahl-James dig into playwriting topics such as translating a historical event into a contemporary piece, deciding what story to tell and who should be the center of the story, the development process and the roles of the director, dramaturg and playwright and much more.
ARDEO is a one act play inspired by research and personal narratives of health practitioners and patients at UNC-CH’s North Carolina’s Jaycee Burn Center. This play explores how patients and doctors communicate with each other; how health practitioners communicate with the public; and how theatre artists can be of service to patients, doctors and the larger public.
Jacqueline and Jules touch on the field of narrative medicine, the particular development process of ARDEO, the value of partnering the dramatic arts and science, and opportunities to create those collaborations. Speaking of collaborations, Jules and Jacqueline discuss their work together as theatre-makers and the awesomeness of dramaturgs and dramaturgy especially for new plays in development.
Be well, friends,
Tamara
Piedmont Laureate 