Each year, up to three plays by WTP affiliate playwrights are competitively selected by an outside panel to be part of the Ethel Woolson Lab Season. Each play/playwright is given a 25 hour developmental workshop through the course of one week, culminating in a rehearsed, stage reading for the public. Each playwright is partnered with a support team of artists designed for the needs of the play. All EWL rehearsals and readings take place in the Alliance Theatre 3rd Floor Black box.
2018 EWL panel of readers: Margaret Baldwin, Daryl Lisa Fazio, Mia Kristin Smith, David Kote, Nichole Palmietto and Edith Freni. We would also like to thank the Alliance Theatre and board member Christopher Moses for the continuing support.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS:
MALCOM TARIQ is a Cave Canem fellow from Savannah, Georgia. A graduate of Emory University, he is currently a Rackham Merit fellow at the University of Michigan where he is completing a PhD in English and a graduate certificate in African American and Diasporic Studies. He is the author of Extended Play (Gertrude Press, 2017) and his poetry has also appeared in CURA, Vinyl, HEArt Online, Nepantla, Tinderbox, and Blueshift Journal. Malcolm was a 2016-2017 playwright apprentice at Horizon Theatre Company. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia and sometimes at NowhereSouth.com.
RACHEL GRAF EVANS is a writer and theatre artist most interested in silenced and forgotten stories. Atlanta Playwriting: SUIT YOURSELF (WTP Courtroom Drama CLE @ AE); INCH BY INCH (Synchronicity’s Stripped Bare program); PEACH COBBLER (The Weird Sisters’ Dangerous Women); THE RIGHT KIND OF MARIGOLD (WTP 24 Hour Plays); [IF YOU DON’T KNOW] THE PLEDGE (OMPF); THE HANDMAID RHIANNON; NEWFOUND MASCOT; HER NAME IS HUNTER (Horizon Theatre Apprentice Showcase). RGE currently serves as the Dramatists Guild Young Ambassador for Atlanta, as the Alliance Theatre’s Literary Intern, and is a proud member of Working Title Playwrights and the Dramatists Guild. 2016-2017 Horizon Theatre Playwright Apprentice. Stay tuned at www.rachelgrafevans.com
ABOUT THE PLAYS:
PHEROMONE
by Rachel Graf Evans
Date: MAY 6th, 730PM
Director Amber Bradshaw
Dramaturg Pam Joyce
by Rachel Graf Evans
Date: MAY 6th, 730PM
Director Amber Bradshaw
Dramaturg Pam Joyce
Assistant Dramaturg/Director Ibi Owolabi
Six years into her relationship with Paulie, Olive can’t help but wonder if things are growing stale because the chemistry literally isn’t there. What matters more in a successful relationship: biology or commitment? Somewhere in a dilapidated warehouse in Atlanta, a new kind of party is just getting started. Wear a t-shirt for three days, put it in a ziploc bag, bring it to the party, fall in love. An awkward olfactory inquiry into the nature of attraction, betrayal, and the quirky characters we meet in our quest to find true love.YESTERDAY: TODAY
by Malcolm Tariq
Date: JULY 22nd, 7:30PM
Director Cynthia Barker
Dramaturg Dr. Angela Farr Schiller
Spring 1991. Theresa learns that the body of her husband, the victim of a racially motivated murder 40 years ago, has recently been discovered in the small Georgia hometown that she and her older sister, Sarah, fled. This news comes as an even greater shock to her middle-aged daughters, Lynn and Marie, who believed their father died under different circumstances. Theresa must decide whether she wants to risk facing past traumas by returning to reclaim the man the Jim Crow South took from her. As secrets unfold and power dynamics shift, this family of women must convince Theresa of the right thing to do.
Six years into her relationship with Paulie, Olive can’t help but wonder if things are growing stale because the chemistry literally isn’t there. What matters more in a successful relationship: biology or commitment? Somewhere in a dilapidated warehouse in Atlanta, a new kind of party is just getting started. Wear a t-shirt for three days, put it in a ziploc bag, bring it to the party, fall in love. An awkward olfactory inquiry into the nature of attraction, betrayal, and the quirky characters we meet in our quest to find true love.YESTERDAY: TODAY
by Malcolm Tariq
Date: JULY 22nd, 7:30PM
Director Cynthia Barker
Dramaturg Dr. Angela Farr Schiller
Spring 1991. Theresa learns that the body of her husband, the victim of a racially motivated murder 40 years ago, has recently been discovered in the small Georgia hometown that she and her older sister, Sarah, fled. This news comes as an even greater shock to her middle-aged daughters, Lynn and Marie, who believed their father died under different circumstances. Theresa must decide whether she wants to risk facing past traumas by returning to reclaim the man the Jim Crow South took from her. As secrets unfold and power dynamics shift, this family of women must convince Theresa of the right thing to do.
2017 RECIPIENTS OF THE EWL
THE CLUB
by Sonhara Eastman
Directed by Justin Anderson
Dramaturgy by Addae Moon
Stage Manager: Tisha Whitaker
March 26th, 7:30pm at the Alliance 3rd floor Black Box
At an African-American social club in Brooklyn in the 1970’s, Chief, well-loved bar owner and his brother Roland, fight to keep their doors open as reverse migration causes the thriving locale to morph into a ghetto. Despite the changing conditions and Roland’s desire to follow a new path, Chief and the locals fight to save their collective space. Through the support of community, they come to understand that the Club is more than just a bar; it’s a family that will never be forgotten.
RIDING BICYCLES IN THE RAIN
by Erin Considine
Directed by A. Julian Verner
Dramaturgy by Daphne Mintz
Stage Manager: Robert Putnam
August 27th, 7:30pm at the Alliance 3rd floor Black Box
In a sleepy suburban town in Texas, free-spirited Brady returns home to take care of her father, who has just had heart surgery. Brady wants nothing more than for her father to make a speedy recovery so that she can return to her guilt-free, unattached life – when she meets James, a young mormon on a mission trip to the Lone Star State. Brady and James discover parts of each other and parts of themselves as they ponder God, Armadillos, and the possibility of falling in love…while things fall apart.
MEDICA
by Daryl Lisa Fazio
Directed by Amber Bradshaw
Dramaturgy by Patricia Henritze
Stage Manager: Tisha Whitaker
November 19, 7:30pm • Alliance 3rd floor Black Box
In a surgical tent, on the frontlines of a 30-year war, two isolated physicians use their wits, skills, and imaginations to keep the soldiers alive. Initially only in a battle with shrapnel, hunger, and their own diehard senses of empathy, the women are soon faced with a new “enemy” when a third doctor arrives and knocks their world off its axis. Magic and science fiction collide in this story about healers, identity, and approaching God.
Working Title Playwrights 