Tag Archives: playwrights

Treats for your ears this Saturday! Listen to The Triangle Bake-Off!

13 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by in playwriting, Tamara Kissane

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Imagine you have just 2 days to write a 10 minute play using the following ingredients:

What would you write?

Might you find freedom and focus by having those restrictions?

What would your bake-off ingredients look like?

[Hint: This would be a great writing exercise for you to take on with a group of friends as a weekend writing sprint just for fun or for distraction. If you are having a tough time generating a list of ingredients, then let me know, and I’ll send you some. See below for links to the origin of the Bake-Off.]

In early April, the Women’s Theatre Festival released the list of required ingredients above, and eighteen NC playwrights stepped up to create their speedily written masterpieces.

This weekend, you can listen to their freshly baked plays!

Saturday, May 16th at 2:00 pm ALL of the submitted plays will be read back-to-back online. Listen via this link https://www.twitch.tv/wtheatrefestivalnc, then VOTE for your favorite.

A suggested donation of $5 is requested for the afternoon’s entertainment to Paypal.me/wtfestivalnc or via the WTF website.

One Audience Choice play will join four Adjudicator Choices at the Women’s Theatre Festival’s #OccupyTheStage2020 for a reading. I have the honor of working with the playwrights to continue developing their work for that event.

Bake-Off Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/216077262824790/

Read more about playwright Paula Vogel and the Bake-Off here:

Big thanks to Triangle Bake-Off director Madison McAllister and Johannah Maynard Edwards, Executive Director of the Women’s Theatre Festival for doing the heavy lifting to make this event happen. Congratulations to the playwrights and thanks to the actors and adjudicators for their good work.

Meeting voice-to-voice about writing. Fifteen podcast episodes for you.

30 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in creating, creativity, Process, Revision, Story, Tamara Kissane, Writing Advice

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Friends,

Here’s an item on my list of THINGS-THAT-BRING-ME-JOY: Talking craft with playwrights, writers, theatre-makers and artists of all mediums.

Does that bring you joy too?

For the last 2.5 years, these artist-conversations have been recorded in person and then released via the Artist Soapbox podcast for everyone who likes to listen.

It’s always been an honor and a delight to spend time with my interview guests, and shake their hands, and see their faces light up when they discuss their work.

As COVID-19 in the US has ramped up significantly over the last seven weeks and all Piedmont Laureate events were cancelled, I shifted to recording my podcast interviews online.

Though we are no longer in the same physical space, I continue to feel honored and delighted to share time with my guests and to hear their voices light up when they talk about their work. Since mid-March, I have worked to bring the voices of writers in our community to your ears as quickly as possible via the podcast.

I hope these conversations might be:

  • comforting or stimulating
  • thought-provoking or soothing
  • inspiring or sheltering
  • or whatever you need at this moment in time.

Below you’ll see fifteen podcast episodes from March 30-April 28, in case you’ve missed them.

Like the previous list from March 13-27, you’ll see a roster of incredible writers from the Triangle community including: Monét Noelle Marshall, Ian Finley, Chris Vitiello, June Guralnick, Amy Sawyers-Williams, Jack Reitz, Debra Kaufman, Allan Maule, Mark Cornell, and Cheryl Chamblee.

In addition to locally based writers, I’ve included episodes featuring playwrights and writers of audio fiction from much farther away as part of my podcast series for Howlround Theatre Commons, titled Adventures in Audio Fiction.

All of these conversations have sustained me in moments when I felt very isolated and worried. I found comfort in the connection I felt after 40 minutes of conversation with another human being about creativity, life, writing, process, and meaning.

After this intense flurry of activity (31 episodes in 7 weeks!), the Artist Soapbox podcast will be on hiatus for a bit so that I can return to my own writing, gain a more comfortable handle on my life/home/parenting responsibilities, and blog more regularly here.

If you are looking for inspiration, writing tips, vulnerability and a backstage pass to the writing process, then I hope you will enjoy listening to the episodes below.

If now is not the best time for you to listen, then they will be here when you are ready. Sending you love.

Writing-related episodes from March 30-April 28:

[Note: The episodes listed above are related specifically to writing. There are additional episodes with other creatives at www.artistsoapbox.org. Click on these links for the complete list from April 13-28,  March 30-April 10, and March 13-27. Please reach out if you need a transcript.]

2020: we begin with love for writers and writing

01 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized

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Mark Steward, Adrienne Kelly-Lumpkin, Tamara Kissane, and Charles Phaneuf with big post-event smiles at the 2020 State of Arts and Culture in Wake County event.

 

Hello, friends!

This past Wednesday, January 29, 2020, I was formally introduced to our community at the State of Arts and Culture in Wake County event. This was a beautiful gathering that included performances by Black Box Dance Theatre and the Raleigh Boychoir, as well as inspiring remarks from our local arts leaders and awards bestowed for Business Support of the Arts.

And…guess who got an award for Arts Education?

The 2017 Piedmont Laureate, Mimi Herman! Wonderful and well-deserved. Congratulations, Mimi!

Mimi also had the task of introducing me and tee-ing up my 4 minute talk.

Kermit the Frog as Tamara the terrified Piedmont Laureate.

As you might imagine, I spent a significant amount of time considering how to officially begin my year as Piedmont Laureate. What was my message? What do people need? What can I offer? [Side note: This can be a slippery slope into a psychological quagmire.]

Ultimately, I decided to KISS it — Keep It Simple Sweetheart — and extend an invitation to our community to amplify love and joy for local playwrights and the writing process. Not overly complicated, not sophisticated, but definitely genuine…and hopefully, relatable.

[Besides, it’s an election year; we need to infuse our conversation and interactions with as much love and joy as possible. Let’s start today.]

You’ll see my remarks below as they were spoken to the supportive audience at the State of Arts and Culture in Wake County event. I hope they speak to you and that you join me this year.

Piedmont Laureate events and programming are already in the works. I’ll be in touch when I have dates and venues. Stay tuned.

With gratitude,

Tamara

***

Piedmont Laureate remarks

Thank you Mimi. Thank you to the City of Raleigh Arts Commission, Durham Arts Council, Orange County Arts Commission and United Arts Council of Raleigh & Wake County for this appointment. I am thrilled and honored. This is a beautiful event and we have much to celebrate.

Let’s start with some audience participation. I’m going to ask you 3 easy questions — all three are about love. Love is easy, right? You raise your hand if your answer is YES.

  • First question: Have you ever been in love with a place? (I see from your faces there are lots of stories there!)
  • Question 2: Have you ever felt love for a piece of writing — whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, short stories, novels, a script — raise your hand if you have been moved in your heart-place by writing? (Yes!) 
  • Final question; Can you call to mind a writer you just love and appreciate for their work?

(My spouse is out there. Where are you babe, is your hand up?)

Let’s take a few seconds to feel some gratitude together for that place, that writing, and that writer you love. I’ll count to three. You emit gratitude. 1, 2, 3. (Oooh, that was lovely with an unexpected sound effect!)

Thank you for your participation.

I applied for the Piedmont Laureate position because I’m in love. In addition to my spouse, I’m in love with North Carolina and our growing region of the world. I’m in love with the people who reside here, including a multitude of creatives, artists, and writers of all genres and mediums. 

I’m in love with writing plays and audio fiction, and what’s more I love encouraging others to experience the soulful benefits, the exquisite struggle, the gentle bliss, the crucible of putting words on a page…and then sharing them…and then hearing them performed by others. Playwriting has transformed my world internally and externally. Experiencing a powerful script — whether it’s powerfully funny, gut-wrenching, or thought-provoking — is one of the greatest joys of my life. 

This year, in 2020, Piedmont Laureate programming will certainly include readings of new plays, panels, interviews, workshops, podcast episodes and events I haven’t even conceived of yet. There’s much to look forward to. But more than anything… quite simply, in 2020 I hope the Piedmont Laureate programming will continue to spread the love for the bounty of local playwrights and collaborators, and share the joy of writing including the process, the product, the pitfalls, and the promise.

If you weren’t able to put your hands up at the beginning when I asked you about the place, writing, and writer you love, then by the end of this year, I hope you’ll be able to raise both of them high.

It’s my great pleasure to serve in this capacity and I hope you’ll join me. Thank you.

***