Martyna Majok. (Photograph by Tess Mayer)
KETCHUM, IDAHO: Martyna Majok has been chosen because the recipient of the 2022-23 Solar Valley Playwright’s Residency. In partnership with The Neighborhood Library and The Argyros Performing Arts Heart, the residency, now in its second yr, provides a community-driven method to supporting playwrights and fostering new-play growth.
“A number of nationwide nonprofits that specialised in offering theatre artists with sources to ideate, write, and develop new work shuttered through the pandemic, leaving playwrights with far fewer creative houses to generate new work,” mentioned SVPR creative director John Baker in an announcement. “The residency grew out of a have to fill this void in a reimagined approach. We’ve leaned into being a small, nimble group that permits us to satisfy the precise wants of every playwright and interact in significant methods with the Wooden River Valley neighborhood.”
The residency begins every October with the Neighborhood Library internet hosting the author for a month-long keep on the historic Ernest and Mary Hemingway Home and Protect in Ketchum. Throughout their retreat time, the playwright begins growing a brand new full-length work for the stage. Over the course of the following yr, they proceed writing with personalized help. The playwright then returns to Idaho the next October to workshop the play and take part in a public sharing of their work on the Argyros Performing Arts Heart. Throughout each visits, the playwright will have interaction with the Wooden River Valley neighborhood via occasions, conversations, and receptions.
Obie Award-winning playwright, performer, and inaugural Solar Valley Playwright in Residence David Cale will return to Ketchum with Tony-nominated director Les Waters (Dana H.) to workshop Blue Cowboy, the full-length solo play accomplished through the residency. Cale will learn the brand new work-in-process on the Argyros Performing Arts Heart on Sept. 24.
“Solar Valley Playwright’s Residency gave me the extraordinary honor of with the ability to write within the Ernest and Mary Hemingway Home, and the chance to be away from all of the distractions of my dwelling, and absolutely think about starting a brand new play that may happen in Idaho,” mentioned Cale in an announcement. “However as soon as I used to be in Ketchum, for me, a type of magic occurred. The thought I had supposed to work on was shortly moved to 1 facet so I may work on a brand new thought which was wholly impressed by, and sprung from, my being in Ketchum.”
Martyna Majok was born in Bytom, Poland and raised in Jersey and Chicago. She was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Value of Residing, which is able to debut this fall on Broadway. Her different performs embrace Sanctuary Metropolis, Queens, and Ironbound, which have been produced throughout American and worldwide levels. She has acquired varied awards together with The Hull-Warriner Award, The Academy of Arts and Letters’ Benjamin Hadley Danks Award for Distinctive Playwriting, Off Broadway Alliance Finest New Play Award, The Lucille Lortel Award for Excellent New Play, The Hermitage Greenfield Prize, as the primary feminine recipient in drama, The Champions of Change Award from the NYC Mayor’s Workplace, The Francesca Primus Prize, two Jane Chambers Playwriting Awards, and lots of extra. Martyna studied at Yale College of Drama, Juilliard, College of Chicago, and Jersey public faculties. She was a 2012-2013 NNPN playwright-in-residence, the 2015-2016 PoNY Fellow on the Lark Play Growth Heart, and a 2018-2019 Hodder Fellow at Princeton College. Martyna is at the moment writing a musical adaptation of The Nice Gatsby, with music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett, and growing TV and movie for HBO, Plan B, and Pastel.
“I’m very grateful to Solar Valley Playwright’s Residency, The Neighborhood Library, and The Argyros for the time, area, and help to get to work in such a gorgeous and culturally important place,” mentioned Majok in an announcement. “It’s an honor to be among the many first writers of this system, together with the sensible and beautiful David Cale.”
On Oct. 25, The Neighborhood Library will host a dialog with Majok, the place she may also learn excerpts from her Pulitzer Prize-winning and Broadway-bound play, Value of Residing.
On Oct. 28, Solar Valley Playwright’s Residency will current a studying of Majok’s 2016 highly-acclaimed Off-Broadway play Ironbound, directed by MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow Samuel D. Hunter (A Case for the Existence of God) and that includes David Janeski, Nick Sacks, and Aly Wepplo.
Solar Valley Playwright’s Residency is a non-profit hybrid artist retreat, commissioning program, and new play growth lab primarily based in Idaho’s Wooden River Valley. SVPR goals to impress optimistic change inside Wooden River Valley’s neighborhood and past by giving visionary theatre artists of all backgrounds substantive time and area to concentrate on creating new work for the stage that produces conversations and studying alternatives regionally, regionally, and nationally.
