The Declaration of Love project: upcoming livestream and podcast series

27 Sunday Sep 2020

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audio anthology, audio fiction, Clayton Center, collaborative writing, declaration of love, livestream, writing short plays

In January of this year, a million years ago, I was formally introduced to our community at the State of Arts and Culture in Wake County event.

You can read more about that experience and my Piedmont Laureate Remarks in my first blog post:

2020: we begin with love for writers and writing

Here is a snippet of what I said then:

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.

My intention for the year was to amplify love and joy for local playwrights and the writing process. 2020 has proven to be a year of unexpected, formidable and heart-breaking challenges, and yet, I have witnessed pockets of love and joy that sustain me, our creative community, and our work as writers.

One such pocket of love and joy is The Declaration of Love Project: an audio anthology written, performed, and created by over 30 Triangle-area artists. It is a project that I have undertaken as Piedmont Laureate to live out my intention for this year. I hope it does so.

In July, my co-producer Aurelia Belfield and I commissioned eleven NC playwrights to craft short audio scenes based on the prompt “Declaration of Love.”

Recorded remotely by local actors, the finished scenes will be lightly sound designed, and released to the public in podcast form later this year.

If you would like to hear more about Declaration of Love, please join us for the livestream from the Clayton Center on Tuesday, September 29 at 7pm.

Here’s the event link

Aurelia and I will be talking generally about DOL, how it came together and why we think projects like this one are valuable. And, we’ll be showing 6 of the 11 pieces in various forms (mostly unfinished because we don’t want to give it all away before the release!).

Here’s the event link (again!)

If you are available, we’d love for you to tune in on Tuesday and give the project an audience boost.

Featured actors for this event: Aurelia Belfield, Lakeisha Coffey, Thaddaeus Edwards, Sai Graham, Trevor Johnson, Kyma Lassiter, Yolanda Rabun, AhDream Smith.

Featured playwrights for this event: Aurelia Belfield, Lakeisha Coffey, Thaddaeus Edwards, Michael Ivory, Jr, Tamara Kissane, Robin Carmon Marshall.

I’ll be sharing more details about the Declaration of Love in the coming weeks. For now, please share the link, mark your calendars, and get your popcorn ready. (Actually, a quieter snack would be better. 😄)

Sending you love and good writing vibes,

Tamara

14 playwrights + 13 theatre companies = multitudinous perspectives on the 19th Amendment

19 Wednesday Aug 2020

Posted by Tamara in Carrie Knowles, playwriting, Tamara Kissane

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Tags

10 minute plays, 19th Amendment, play festival, podcast, women, writing short plays

According to ourdocuments.gov, the 19th Amendment of the United States Constitution was “passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920.” It goes on to say “the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.” The Amendment “prohibits the state and federal government from denying citizens of the United States the right to vote on the basis of sex”.

To mark the 100 year anniversary of ratification, Burning Coal Theatre Company in partnership with The League of Women Voters of Wake County and thirteen other theatre and/or opera companies from across central North Carolina will present The 19th Amendment Project, a collection of 14 short plays written about the passage of the 19^th Amendment 100 years ago and its impact on our society.

Each of the short plays will be released virtually, one at a time, between August 17 – August 30, 2020. The plays will all be available until September 30, 2020. For more info: call 919.834.4001 or https://burningcoal.org/the-nineteenth-amendment-project/.

I’m honored and humbled to be a name on this roster of playwrights for my 10 minute piece THUNDERCLAP.

THUNDERCLAP description: Parents Rachel and Jake are stoked that their daughter, Alice is now 18 and can vote, but she doesn’t believe that her vote will actually help. Content warning: language and sexual violence.

This week, I’m grateful to have been given space to talk about this project in podcast form and in print. Big thanks to journalists Lauren Van Hemert and Byron Woods for listening to me go on about writing generally and writing 10 minute plays more specifically, setting a play in the current moment, the future of theatre and what voting means to me.

If you’d like to listen or read, please see the info below. And then grab your tickets for The 19th Amendment Project. The other playwrights are amazing (including 2014 Piedmont Laureate Carrie Knowles) and it has truly been an impressive collaborative effort across our theatre community.

ALSO, VOTE. #votevotevote

RDU ON STAGE PODCAST

Do you know about THE 19th AMENDMENT PROJECT?
Want to hear me confess my love for Geraldine Ferraro?

Listen to this podcast from RDU on Stage and the ones to follow!

This is the 1st episode in a nine part series featuring playwrights and creatives working on The 19th Amendment Project. Lauren speaks with the wonderful Playwright Hannah Benitez (The 19th), Dianna Wynn with the League of Women Voters, Jerome Davis, the Artistic Director of Burning Coal, ….and ME saying things (a lot of things!) about my play Thunderclap, what voting means to me, the conflict I feel about celebrating the 19th Amendment, and the present and future of theatre (just a few small topics!).

All this week and next, RDU on Stage will be spotlighting the playwrights behind this collection of plays. (Here’s the podcast interview with Carrie Knowles: Episode 73: Carrie Knowles get Arthurian with Ladies are Waiting)