Directed by Radha Blank, English, 129 minutes, USA, 2020
Zoom ID: 94104436406
Live captioning will be provided.
Panelists:
Dawn Simmons (Artistic Director, Front Porch Arts Collective; Executive Director, Stage Source)
Dawn Simmons is the co-founder and artistic director of the Front Porch Arts Collective, a black theater company committed to advancing racial equity in Boston through theatre. She also founded New Exhibition Room in 2008 to produce provocative, political, and affordable theater events. She is also the Executive Director of StageSource, an arts service organization focusing on work force development and sector improvement in theatre across New England. Dawn is originally from Buffalo, NY, where she received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Buffalo. She went on to study playwrighting at Boston University and directs for regional theatres such as The Front Porch Arts Collective, WAM Theatre, The Nora Theatre, Greater Boston Stage Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Bad Habit Productions, Fresh Ink Theatre and Lyric Stage Company. More recently, she served as the Director of Performing Arts at the Boston Center for the Arts.
Lyndsay Allyn Cox (Senior Director, Programs & Experiences, Boston Center for the Arts)
Lyndsay Allyn Cox (she/her/hers) is a freelance actor and director and the Senior Director of Programs and Experiences at the Boston Center for the Arts. She holds a BA in Theatre Performance from Appalachian State University. In 2019 Lyndsay was selected by WBUR’s The ARTery as one of the 25 millennials of color impacting Boston’s arts and culture scene. As an actor, Lyndsay is committed to the development of new work. She has had the opportunity to work with playwrights at all levels of their careers. Most recently she has the opportunity to work with Kirsten Greenidge on her new play Our Daughters, Like Pillars. Lyndsay has worked with several regional theatre companies including: The Huntington Theatre, Geva Theatre, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage, The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Greater Boston Stage Company, Company One, and the Front Porch Arts Collective. Lyndsay is currently working on a directing project for the Women & Science Theater Festival at Central Square Theater. Lyndsay is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association, the American Montessori Society and is a certified yoga instructor. LyndsayAllynCox.com
Kirsten Greenidge (Andrew W. Mellon/Howlround Playwriting Fellow, Company One Theatre; Acting Chair, Theatre Arts, Boston University)
Kirsten Greenidge’s plays are best described as works that place hyper realism on stage as they examine the nexus of race, class, gender, and the African American experience. Recently recognized as playwright laureate of Boston, she is the author of BEACON, LITTLE ROW BOAT, FEEDING BEATRICE, OUR DAUGHTERS, LIKE PILLARS, GREATER GOOD, BALTIMORE, BUD NOT BUDDY (an adaptation of the children’s novel by Christopher Paul Curtis, with music by Terence Blanchard) THE LUCK OF THE IRISH, and MILK LIKE SUGAR, which was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award and received an Independent Reviewers of New England Award, a San Diego Critics Award, and a Village Voice Obie Award, among others. She’s enjoyed development experiences at the Family Residency at the Space at Ryder Farm, the Huntington’s Summer Play Festival, Cleveland Playhouse as the 2016 Roe Green New Play Award recipient, The Goodman, Denver Center, Sundance, Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, Sundance at Ucross, and the O’Neill. Kirsten is currently working on commissions from the Huntington (COMMON GROUND with Melia Bensussen), La Jolla Playhouse (TO THE QUICK), and Oregon Shakespeare American Revolutions Project (ROLL, BELINDA, ROLL). A recent PEN/Laura Pels Playwrighting Award recipient and current Andrew W. Mellon/Howlround Fellow in residence at Company One Theatre, she is an alum of New Dramatists, a member of the Honor Roll, and has proudly graced the Kilroys list of New Plays by women and women identified playwrights several years running. She attended the Playwright’s Workshop at the University of Iowa and Wesleyan University and oversees the BFA playwrighting track at Boston University’s School of Theatre where she is currently acting co-chair of Performance and acting chair of Theatre Arts.
Moderator: Dani Snyder-Young (Assistant Professor of Theatre, Northeastern University)
Dani Snyder-Young, Assistant Professor of Theatre at Northeastern University, is a scholar/artist whose work focuses on theatre and social change, applied theatre, and contemporary US activist performance. Her most recent book, Privileged Spectatorship: Theatrical Interventions in White Supremacy (Northwestern University Press) examines white spectatorship of mainstream anti-racist theatrical events. Her first book, Theatre Of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change (2013, Palgrave Macmillan), examines the limits of theatre in making social change in order to engage in a productive discussion of theatre’s strengths -and weaknesses- and theatre artists’ opportunities to make change in an unjust world. She has published essays in Theatre Survey, Theatre Topics, Theatre Research International, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre Research, Qualitative Inquiry, Youth Theatre Journal, and the International Journal of Learning. Dani’s artistic work as a director and dramaturg focuses on political theatre, community based performance, new play development, and adaptations of classical texts for diverse audiences. At Northeastern, she directs plays centering the voices and experiences of women. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association. Prior to joining the Northeastern faculty in 2017, Dani previously taught at Illinois Wesleyan University, New York University, and Pace University. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MA and PhD from New York University.
You can watch the film The Forty-Year-Old Version on your own time before the panel, or join the screening.