"Cultures collide in virtual space" with IAN ROWLANDS (Wales, UK)

What do you hope to gain from this project?

Inspiration as different genres / cultures collide in virtual space.

Who is your greatest writing influence?

My influences are outside the theatre. At 13, it was Jack Kerouac, in my thirties it was Umberto Eco then Baudrillard. Increasingly, Peter Sloterdijk, having been introduced to him by a Dutch colleague, Jeroen van den Berg, with whom I’m collaborating upon a production, Fragments of Journeys Towards the Horizon, to be staged internationally in 2016

Describe your writing room / process.

As I wrote, in an essay inspired by a comment once made by Amanda [Feldman, Lead Coordinator of The Around-the-Globe Chain Play] (and included in Historia, NoPassport Press, NY - a collection of plays I wrote whilst in NY).

‘The house in which I write these few notes is built upon a Roman wall on land once owned by a pre-Reformation monastery. I exist in a palimpsest of history. In the main, most Europeans do. In Europe it appears that there is no ‘No-space’. Here, no single thing is ‘virgin’. For no single thing is free of historic association; layered history is lived as life in the Old World.’ The room is a small back room; a book lined bubble (see Sloterdijk)

My process is haphazard / shards of time snatched in between the school run and the quotidian demands of life

How old or young are you?

Too old, but blessed by my children’s youth and surprised by my eternal anger at injustice, which drives my need to keep dreaming of Utopia for my children.

"All is not what it seems" with playwright, JC NIALA (Kenya)

How were you contacted to participate?

I was contacted to contribute through The Theatre Company in Nairobi, Kenya.

Who is your greatest writing influence?

My greatest writing influences are the magical realists who thankfully remind us all is not what it seems. 

What makes a great play in your country?

In Kenya, the populist plays make people laugh and the profound plays make people think. Both types of plays are considered great if they speak to the essence of how Kenyans see themselves.

How do you wake up?

I wake up at 4am full of excitement and anticipation to get to my writing desk and the to watch the sunrise. 

JC Niala (Kenya) is an award-winning playwright whose plays have been performed and aired on radio in Kenya and the UK. Her play The Strong Room was shortlisted by Wole Soyinka in BBA Africa Performance 2010. She is also a producer and founder of KikoPro. KikoPro specializes in publishing diverse Children's Books and Adult Non Fiction Books. 

"I still get surprised at every little thing around me."--an interview with MARIANA LEVY (Argentina)

What do you hope to gain from this project?

I'm excited about the experience of being part of a creative process that I can't control. Sometimes writing is lonely and you depend only on your own mind and imagination. It's also quite nurturing to get to read the almost raw work of playwrights from parts of the globe I have never even visited...

Who is your greatest writing influence?

Right now: Woody Allen, Paul Auster and Vince Gilligan.

Describe your writing room / process.

I drink a lot of water or different non-alcoholic drinks, Diet Coke, Mate (Argentinian drink, it is like tea, but much more fun, Google it!), I get really thirsty when I think! I have two cats and I like them to be around when I'm writing, preferably close but not on top of my computer...I Google a lot, I ask my friends for ideas for a particular situation or character, I watch movies again or re-read books that I think might put me in the mood for what I'm writing. And when I'm about to finish, a song appears that gives meaning to the whole material. The last days of writing involve listening to that particular song thousands of times while I write.

How old or young are you?

I'm 33. I feel really old for certain things, it still amazes me that fully formed people can be 15 years younger than me... And then I feel amazingly young for other things. I'm still scared about being an adult and I still get surprised at every little thing around me. 

Mariana Levy (Argentina) was born in Buenos Aires. She is currently a playwright, scriptwriter, stage director, and professor. She majored in Literature and Playwriting. She was a member of "Omega", a philosophy and dramatic structures research group. Her plays Misil Children, El Condor, La carne de tu ex en el freezer, and Funde a Negro have been performed in different theatres in Buenos Aires. She is a professor at ENERC Film University, where she teaches and researches dramatic structures in modern TV Series. She does many other things and is usually super funny: to bad this dull bio was written by her evil twin. 

marianevy@gmail.com www.twitter.com/marianevy

Check us out on BroadwayWorld.com!

Annual AROUND THE GLOBE CHAIN PLAY to Culminate with Free Reading, 3/27

Click HERE to read the full article.

The reading is less than a month a way...don't forget to reserve your tickets HERE

Meet the "slightly peripatetic" ANDREW TEMPLETON (Canada)

What do you hope to gain from this project?

I love these sorts of interactive playwriting experiences and creating work on the fly. My main expectation was to have fun and I did. 

Who is your greatest writing influence?

No single person, so in alphabetical order: Caryl Churchill, Will Eisner, Henrik Ibsen, Jack Kirby, Robert Lepage & William Shakespeare. This list could change radically, depending on the day. 

What makes a great play in your country?

I'm not sure how to answer this. At the moment, in the independent sector, we've seen the raise of devised, creation-based work. the text for this type of work does not come out of the traditional, playwright working in isolation process. Often the subject of the work is the creators themselves (in a strange hybrid of performance art and reality television). To my mind, the single best work that I've seen come out of this area of exploration has been Winners & Losers by Marcus Youssef and James Long, which is simply amazing and the show I'd suggest anyone to see to understand what's going on in Canada right now. 

There are some interesting regional variations as well, at least in English Canada. In my hometown of Vancouver, there is a strong pull towards creating visually interesting shows; in Toronto the focus is still much more language-based.

Describe your writing room / process.

At the moment, slightly peripatetic. I share a small apartment with another writer. I have a power station, where all my files are kept. I often work at the dining table or stretched out on the sofa. I've started using shared, creator spaces and I like them. It feels like going to the office, which I think is important to the psyche. 

Andrew Templeton (Canada) Originally from Vancouver and now based in Toronto, Andrew has had plays produced in Vancouver, Toronto and London (UK). With an interest in creating works that explore and test the use of genre, he is currently working on Angus Drive, a re-imagined murder mystery based on a real cold case from the 1920s. Past credits include: What You Want: Toronto (MachineFair/Theatre Passe Muraille); Babylonia (Radix, part of the Free Fall Festival), What You Want (MachineFair), Fever (Radix, part of HIVE 3), Biographies of the Dead & Dying (productions in both Vancouver and Toronto), This Mortal Flesh (Jessie nominated for Outstanding Original Script), Portia, My Love (Jessie nominated for Outstanding Original Script), Howard Johnson Commits Suicide  (London, UK); Branwell Alone (London, UK), Ken Dolls (also adapted for television) and Hazardous Cows (also adapted for radio). He was also one of the winners of the 2011 Vancouver-based Crazy8’s competition with the script Funny Business (directed by Russell Bennett). He is currently working on his first feature length screenplay and is in the planning stages of writing and directing a short film scheduled for production later this year.

Kicking Off 2015...Playwright KRISTOFFER DIAZ (NYC, USA)

What do you hope to gain from this project?

It's just great to connect with writers from across the world, collaborating to make something that crosses all imaginable borders. 

What makes a great play in your country?

Impossible to answer, as this country has a wide range of aesthetic tastes. For me, a great play is one that feels like nothing else out there.

How do you wake up?

To the sounds of my son yelling: "Daddy! Dad! It's daytime!"

How old or young are you?

37, which honestly feels ancient. 

Kristoffer Diaz (NYC, USA) is a playwright and educator living and working in Brooklyn. Full-length titles include The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety, Welcome to Arroyo’s, The Upstairs Concierge, and The Unfortunates. Awards: 2011 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award; finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; winner, 2011 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play; winner, 2011 OBIE Award, Best New American Play; and the inaugural Gail Merrifield Papp Fellowship from The Public Theater (2011). His work has been produced, commissioned, and developed at The Public Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Geffen Playhouse, Center Theatre Group, The Goodman, Second Stage, Victory Gardens, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, among many others. He is a playwright-in-residence at Teatro Vista; a resident playwright at New Dramatists; a co-founder of the Unit Collective (Minneapolis); the creator of the #freescenes project; and a recipient of the Jerome Fellowship, the Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant and the Van Lier Fellowship (New Dramatists). Kristoffer holds a BA from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, an MFA from NYU’s Department of Dramatic Writing, and an MFA from Brooklyn College’s Performing Arts Management program.

NYC World Theatre Day Coalition is excited to officially announce...

The Staged Reading of the Third Annual





Thursday, March 27th at 7:00pm

To be performed at the Lark Play Development Center
(5th Floor, 311 West 43rd Street, NYC)

Tickets are FREE
To make reservations go to nycwtdchainplay2015.eventbrite.com

The reading will also be live streamed on innovativetheatre.org/live

Starting and ending in NYC, a play is being written as it travels around the world, making 18 stops with playwrights from across the globe. Each playwright is contributing one to five pages of text, moving the plot forward from where the previous playwright left off. Our playwrights are:

Kristoffer Diaz (NYC, USA)
Andrew Templeton (Canada)
Mariana Levy (Argentina)
Mariana Hartasanchez (Mexico)
Ross Mueller (Australia)
Sarah Treem (Los Angeles, USA)
Michelle Tan (Singapore)
Purva Naresh (India)
Vera Ion (Romania)
Natalia Antonova (Russia)
Najwa Sabra (Lebanon)
Deborah Asiimwe (Uganda)
JC Niala (Kenya)
Ogutu Muraya (The Netherlands)
Lola Blasco Mena (Spain)
Oladipo Agboluaje (United Kingdom)
Ian Rowlands (Wales)
Qui Nguyen (NYC, USA)

The reading will be directed by Ana Margineanu, Co-Founder of the international, site-specific theatre company, PopUP Theatrics. Casting will be announced when the script is finalized after March 8th, 2015.

The reading will be followed by a World Theatre Day Reception, where a number of NYC theatre luminaries will read the International Theatre Institute's World Theatre Day 2015 Message.

The reading will once again be globally live-streamed, to watch click HERE >>


To watch the 2014 Around-the-Globe Chain Play click HERE >>
To watch the 2013 Around-the-Globe Chain Play click HERE >>

"if you love something, then it's important." Lana Nasser (The Netherlands)

What was your first experience of theater that converted you to wanting to pursue it as a career?

I think I was about 8 or so... I started writing little poems, perhaps to emulate my father, a university professor, poet and writer.  An event was taking place at Jordan University, and my father put me on a stage, before hundreds of students and faculty, to read my poem.  Me, a little kid, in front of all these adults ... it must have left a mark, encouraging me to write giving me the confidence to perform. 

If you could have a drink with any dramatist (living or dead) who would it be and why?

Oscar Wilde ... an eccentric character.  And Ingmar Bergman .... a master and inspiration.  

Why is theater important to you?

Why is theatre important .... I could go on about the power of theatre to change society, to reinterpret the past, scrutinize the present, and envision the future, to tackle taboos and say SOMETHING.... I could go on about the magic of the theatre, the lights, the smell of the stage, and the learning that happens to artists and audiences .... but all that comes from the head - it's been said before... the thing is, you either love it, or you don't ... and if you love something, then it's important.

What advice do you have for new playwrights?

Just write and think of how your words shape society ... what is the story you want to tell, what is the future you want to paint? remember that you know it all, and that you know nothing at all ... have fun with it, and make it truthful ... for at the end, nothing means anything, and anything could mean everything. 

Lana Nasser (The Netherlands) Writer, performer, theatre-maker and translator, with a research background in Consciousness and Dreams, and a passion for dance. Her dramatization of the ensemble playTaman Banat gave her the title of director; and an award for her monodrama In the Lost and Found: Red Suitcase gave her the title of playwright. With an underlying feminist agenda, she co-founded Aat network of women artists in Jordan, and directed their Annual International Women's Day festival since its establishment in 2010. Lana leads creative expression and empowerment courses for underprivileged women and youth, specialized journeys to sacred sites in Jordan, and artistic environmental and peace campaigns. With academic publication, creative articles, and dabbles in poetry; she is now working on her first book. Jordanian-Palestinian by origin, American by citizenship and education, she is now living in the Netherlands.

"There is something about a collective experience..." Anuvab Pal (India)

What was your first experience of theater that converted you to wanting to pursue it as a career?

I saw Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing on Broadway and that sort of changed everything.  

If you could have a drink with any dramatist (living or dead) who would it be and why?

There used to be many but as I've got older, I've realized it is much more fun to know the person through the work. The person invariably ends up being like everyone else. 

Why is theater important to you?

There is something about a collective experience that we don't share that much anymore. Theatre is perhaps the only place left. 

If you could have one of your plays produced in any country in the world, which play and which country would you choose, and why?

The National Theatre in London. I learnt a lot of stuff from those stages. 

Anuvab Pal (India) is a playwright, screenwriter, stand up comic and author. His plays include: Chaos Theory (over 250 production internationally, Finalist BBC World Playwrighting Competition 2007), The President is Coming, 1-888-Dial-India, Fatwa, Out of Fashion, Life, Love & EBITDA and The Bureaucrat. His films include Loins of Punjab (co-written with Manish Acharya) and The President is Coming. He performs his stand up regularly at The Comedy Store Mumbai. Articles and opinions as well as articles and interviews on his work have been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Time Magazine, Elle, Vogue, GQ India, The Guardian, Indian Express just to name a few. http://anuvabpal.wordpress.com/

Nina Mitrović (Croatia), "Theatre is Freedom."

What was your first experience of theater that converted you to wanting to pursue it as a career?

When I was ten a bunch of kids bullied my younger brother on a playground. The top bully got physical. Others were happy, they cheered. I took one of the swings and swung it right into the bully’s head. The gang just stood there, no one did a thing. Then the bully walked away. And that hasn’t changed til this day – I fight for what I believe in. The only difference is, now I don’t need a swing. Words do the job perfectly.

If you could have a drink with any dramatist (living or dead) who would it be and why?

Edward Albee. I know he’d challenge my mind, wouldn’t refrain from saying fuck and would make me laugh.

Why is theater important to you?

Theatre is freedom. Freedom to show another face of the world, one we prefer to keep hidden. In doing so we uncover emotion and truth. And to achieve that, you can’t compromise. You can’t settle for less. I know I won’t. If I did, I’d stop caring for it.

What advice do you have for new playwrights?

The same one I’d give to myself – trust your guts and go for it. That’s if you have talent. If not, this question is irrelevant.

Nina Mitrović (Croatia) was awarded a BA in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Drama Arts in Zagreb and an MA in Screenwriting from London Film School. Her award-winning plays and monologues have been produced professionally in Croatia, Austria, Germany, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They include: Encounter (2012), Javier (part of Zagreb pentagram project, 2009), This bed is too short or just fragments (2004.), When We Dead Slay Each Other (2004), An Instant-Powder Family (2003), Neighbourhood Upside Down (2002). Her plays have been presented at international festivals in Berlin (Berliner Festspiele - Theatertreffen Festival), London (LabFest at Theatre 503), Sibiu (International Theatre Festival), Paris, Buenos Aires, Brno (Divaldofeste Yougo Festival) and New York (Playwright's Week Festival). Her work has been translated into ten languages and published in Croatian and international magazines and anthologies. She is also the author of radio plays and radio documentaries awarded and presented at international festivals in Berlin, Milan and Zagreb.