Theater News

Boston Children’s Theatre Artistic Director Burgess Clark to Pen New Play for BCT in the Childhood Home of William Inge

Clark will head to Independence, Kansas, this fall to start a playwriting residency program.

Boston Children's Theatre Artistic Director Burgess Clark
Boston Children’s Theatre Artistic Director Burgess Clark

Boston Children’s Theatre Artistic Director Burgess Clark has been selected to participate in the prestigious Playwrights-in-Residence program at the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas, Inge’s hometown. Founded in 1982 and named after the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of the American classic Picnic, the residency is designed to nurture and promote American playwriting.

Clark will live at the historic William Inge home for a total of three months, beginning this coming September, while writing scripts for readings at the William Inge Theatre and teaching playwriting at Independence Community College and Cherryvale High School.

“The Inge Center is thrilled to renew our ongoing relationship with Burgess Clark as one of our William Inge House Playwrights-in-Residence,” said Peter Ellenstein, artistic director of the William Inge Center for the Arts. “Burgess was an early winner of the William Inge Theatre Festival’s Otis Guernsey New Voices Award (1996), and returned to the Inge Festival in 2002 to help pass on the legacy. We are very excited to have Burgess in residence. His work is sensitive and impactful, and we hope his time in Independence and our workshop of a new play will be as valuable to Burgess as we know it will be for us.”

In addition to his work for the William Inge Theatre, Clark has expressed intentions to develop a new work to bring back to Boston Children’s Theatre: “It is truly an honor to have the Inge Center recognize Boston Children’s Theatre’s commitment to developing and producing new works for children,” said Clark. “To work and live in the home of one of America’s premier playwrights is a tremendous opportunity, and I look forward to creating and writing my next project for BCT students and audiences while staying at this renowned artistic institution.”

To read TheaterMania’s profile of Burgess Clark, click here.