MEET AWARD-WINNING PLAYWRIGHTS AT
HERMITAGE COMMUNITY EVENTS
The Hermitage Artist Retreat is pleased to invite the public to two community programs featuring prize-winning playwrights-in-residence Doug Wright and Regina Taylor. Doug Wright’s program will be held on Monday, December 11th at 5:00 pm at Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 S. Palm Avenue in Sarasota. He will read from The Play That Saved My Life, followed by a conversation with the audience. On Sunday, December 17th, at 5:00 pm, Regina Taylor will read her piece Resistance, in which she recalls the storms in her life: integrating a school in Texas as a child, and facing a very divided present-day America. Regina’s program will be at the Westcoast Black Theatre, 1646 10th Way, Sarasota. The programs are both free but due to limited space at each venue, reservations are required. To rsvp for the programs, please contact the Hermitage at 941-475-2098, ext. 8 or email [email protected].
“The Hermitage is very excited to share these extraordinary artists with the community,” remarked Bruce E. Rodgers, Hermitage executive director. “Their successes in creating through playwriting and performing on stage and in film and TV, make them highly recognizable and admired. We look forward to hearing about what they are creating for the future.”
Doug Wright was recently represented on Broadway by the musical War Paint. His earlier plays include I Am My Own Wife (Tony Award, Pulitzer Prize), Posterity, and Quills (Obie Award), as well as books for the musicals Grey Gardens (Tony Nomination), The Little Mermaid and Hands on A Hardbody. (Drama Desk Nomination). Films include the screen adaptation of Quills (Paul Selvin Award, WGA) and production rewrites for director Rob Marshall, Steven Spielberg and others. Acting credits include two appearances on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and the films Little Manhattan and Two Lovers. He is president of The Dramatists Guild and on the Board of The New York Theater Workshop. He has received grants from United States Artists and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and is a graduate of Yale University (BA) and New York University (MFA). He has taught or guest lectured at the Yale Drama School, Princeton University, Julliard and NYU.
Actress/director/playwright and Golden Globe winner Regina Taylor is best known to television audiences for her role as Lily Harper in I’ll Fly Away. She has received a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series, three NAACP Image Awards and two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Other honors include Peabody Gracie and Chicago Film Critics Oscar Micheaux awards. Her first television role was as student Minnie Jean Brown, one of the Little Rock Nine in Crisis at Central High starring Joanne Woodward. Other television roles include Dig, The Unit, Elementary, first African American lead in a Masterpiece Theatre movie Cora Unashamed, Strange Justice (starring as Anita Hill) FEDs, The Education of Max Bickford with Richard Dreyfus and A Good Day To Die starring Sidney Poitier. Taylor’s film credits include The Negotiator, Courage Under Fire, A Family Thing, Clockers, Losing Isaiah, and Lean on Me. Taylor was also the first black woman to play Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. Other theater credits include The Tempest (L.A. Dramalogue Award), Machinal, The Illusion and Jar the Floor. As an Artistic Associate of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Regina Taylor is one of its most produced playwrights. In 2015, she directed her play stop.reset. (www.stopreset.org), which went on to premiere at Signature Theatre in New York City where she is a Residency Five playwright. Other playwriting credits include Crowns (four Helen Hayes awards), Oo-Bla-Dee, (Steinberg-ATCA new play award) and Drowning Crow, (Broadway, Manhattan Theatre Club), Magnolia, and The Trinity River Plays (Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award).
“These readings are the first two in a series of programs featuring nationally-renowned playwrights coming to work at the Hermitage,” said Hermitage Co-Founder and Program Director Patricia Caswell. “They will be speaking at different theaters around Sarasota. It’s free to be on our email list and receive invitations. Hope you can come to them all.”
The Hermitage is a not-for-profit artist retreat located at 6660 Manasota Key Road in Englewood, FL. It invites accomplished painters, sculptors, writers, playwrights, poets, composers and other artists from all over the world for residencies on its beachfront historic campus. Many of the artists are Pulitzer Prize, Tony, Emmy, Grammy and MacArthur Award winners. Artists often interact with the community during their stay and as a result, Hermitage artists touch thousands of Gulf Coast residents with unique and inspiring programs each year. Hermitage community programs are partially sponsored by the Florida Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Council of Arts and Culture and the State of Florida (Section 286.25, Florida Statutes). In addition, the Hermitage awards and administers the Greenfield Prize, an annual $30,000 commission for a new work of art, rotating among visual art, music and drama. The Hermitage also partners with the Aspen Music Festival and School to award the annual Hermitage Prize to a composition student during the Festival. For more information about The Hermitage Artist Retreat, call 941-475-2098, ext. 5, or visit the website at www.HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
