The Barbara Walton Playwrights' Arena
The Barbara Walton Playwrights’ Arena is a year-long program focused on investigating artistic process and dramaturgical practice. Now in its sixth installment, the program is facilitated by Dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke. This season, the program is focused on six advanced students or recent alumni playwrights from Georgetown and Howard Universities.
Cohort Six and Faculty
Housed in the Davis Performing Arts Center, the Georgetown University Theater & Performance Studies Program features a nationally recognized faculty of leading scholar/artists and professional practitioners, with a dynamic interdisciplinary major that emphasizes the interaction of artistic and analytic inquiry. The Program’s distinctive curriculum integrates the political and international character of Georgetown, a commitment to social justice, and high-quality, cutting-edge production seasons, including world premieres. In 2012, Backstage selected the Program as one of the top five college theater programs outside of New York. The Theater & Performance Studies Program provides unique focus on adapting, devising and developing new work, interdisciplinary research-to-performance projects such as senior theses, cross-cultural performance studies, and innovative approaches to design and multi-media, as well as playwriting, directing, dramaturgy, ensemble, and solo performance. The Program invests in a distinctive array of professional partnerships, and collaborations including the Laboratory of Global Performance and Politics, an initiative with the School of Foreign Service.
Howard University, a culturally diverse, comprehensive, research intensive and historically Black private university, provides an educational experience of exceptional quality at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels to students of high academic standing and potential, with particular emphasis upon educational opportunities for Black students. Moreover, the University is dedicated to attracting and sustaining a cadre of faculty who are, through their teaching, research and service, committed to the development of distinguished, historically aware, and compassionate graduates and to the discovery of solutions to human problems in the United States and throughout the world. With an abiding interest in both domestic and international affairs, the University is committed to continuing to produce leaders for America and the global community. Excellence, leadership, service, and truth are our core values. Howard’s aim is to forward the development of scholars and professionals who drive change and engage in scholarship that provides solutions to contemporary global problems, particularly ones impacting the African Diaspora.
Cohort Five
Audrey Cefaly
Annalisa Dias
Paige Goodwin
Psalmayene 24
Alan Sharpe
Cohort Four
For the fourth iteration, The Barbara Walton Playwrights’ Arena partnered with local playmaking organizations and collectives, surfacing and strengthening their art-making methodologies and company identity.
The Welders
Rorschach Theatre
Cohort Three
Kelly Renee Armstrong
Jennifer Barclay
J. Shawn Durham
Jennie Berman Eng
Marian Licha
Mary Hall Surface
Cohort Two
Steven A. Butler, Jr.
Patricia Davis
Joshua Ford
Mary Stone Hanley
Liz Maestri
David Mitchell Robinson
Inaugural Cohort
Norman Allen
Randy Baker
Jacqueline E. Lawton
Heather McDonald
Danielle Mohlman
Shawn Northrip
Arena Stage is thankful to the family of Mrs. Barbara R. Walton (1920-2003), a DC-based playwright who also served on our Board from 1957 to 1965, for their support of our efforts to foster emerging playwrights and new work.