Gibson, McLaughlin, Miyagawa et al. to Participate in Conversation Series

Award-winning playwrights Melissa James Gibson, Ellen McLaughlin, and Chiori Miyagawa will be among the writers appearing at Shape Shifting: Contemporary Women Playwrights Re-imagine Homer, Shakespeare, and Chekhov. Presented by Ripe Time and New Dramatists, the series features a reading from the writer’s play, excerpts from the texts that inspired each play, and a spirited conversation about the politics and aesthetics of adaptation. The series will be held Tuesdays from October 30 until November 13 at New Dramatists.

Additional participants include Rachel Dickstein (Betrothed, Innocents), Karen Hartman (Gum, Going Gone), Morgan Jenness, and Caridad Svitch (Lucinda Caval, Magnificent Waste).

Gibson won an OBIE Award for her play [sic], and additional works include Suitcase, Brooklyn Bridge, and Current Nobody, which was a 2005 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist. McLaughlin’s plays include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, and Iphigenia and Other Daughters. Audiences may know McLaughlin for originating the Angel in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Miyagawa has travelled from death row (Broken Morning) to England (Comet Hunter) conducting research for her plays.

Ripe Time is devoted to producing ensemble driven theatre infused with rich language, visual power, and physical rigor. Upcoming in 2008 will be a production of Antigone adapted by Dickstein and Miyagawa. This collaboration with New Dramatists continues Ripe Time’s Exchange series, a program committed to promoting conversation about form and craft in contemporary theatre-making.

For more information please visit www.ripetime.org