Clarence Gilyard, his son Max, and I organized the party! Brandon Burke filmed these clips and sent them to me, and I edited the video. Although I was not able to attend, from all accounts it was a banger of a party with a live band and a lovely meal.
The Neil Simon Festival invited me to be on the Board of Directors back in the day and I served as their blogger first, then later as the Entertainment Director for the Players, and finally as the Board Chair of the Board of Directors.
They recently rebranded as The American Crossroads Theatre.
I put together this blog post about our 20th Anniversary Gala just before I was cancelled from my job.
Jenny Marie Hatch
The Plays You Want to Write, Unfettered and Uncensored
As a creative development lab, the FAIR Playwrights Think Tank is a place where ideas, partial works, and completed works are discussed in conjunction with elevating the playwright in both a private and public position that is highly respected as intelligent and significant.
The playwrights who are members of this group are thoughtful of and deeply aware of the nature of life and the meaning of the human condition. We are not only creators of theatrical works for performance, but we are also involved in public roles in which we are able to bring clarity and neutrality into areas of outreach, education, publication, and engagement.
What We Do
Under the umbrella of the FAIR Playwrights Think Tank, members are thought-partners who are willing and eager to participate with others in a way that enables the individual writer to follow his or her unique processes and goals. Our aim is to help hone thinking in order to enable the coalescing of ideas into performable, producible, and publishable works for the theater. Our intent is to elevate the playwright to a position of significance, prominence, and acumen.
In the Short Term
Playwrights Think Tank offers a machine shop in which writers can use existing tools and build new ones by which we can shape ideas into works for the theater.
In the Long Term
Playwrights Think Tank aims to spearhead events, debates, publications, studies, and performances that are sobering and earnest; works that make a difference by illuminating the humanness in humanity.
How We Do It
The playwrights in FAIR Playwrights Think Tank are jointly interested in:
Raising our role and profile as thought leaders by way of our focused work in understanding the human condition. We are adept at investigating, exploring, and researching the philosophical, psychological, and sociological nature of “things” as they were, are, and might be. As writers, we are interested in elevating the role of playwrights as thinkers who are keenly aware of the individual as primary and purposeful in the world narrative. This reflects the playwright’s focus on the tenet that character is the key component in a theatrical story. As such, the writers in Playwrights Think Tank are honest, truthful and loyal to individual character as the starting point of story. We have a clear and wholistic understanding of numerous subjects that might include history, mythology, theology, science, and literature. It is through a pure and unfettered inquiry into the meaning of what it is to be human that we have a unique and broad understanding of all matters of study through which the individual is involved in living. In this way, we contend that playwrights bring to life and express through the work of writing plays that which is “us,” (the predicament, the beauty, the agony, the absurdity) of the human condition, whether comedic or tragic.
Raising our personal awareness of our own writing in four areas:
The creation and ideation of a work
The development and writing of a work
The rewriting of a work
The staging, production, and performance of a work.
In summary:
As playwrights, we seek to explore our work through discussion and thought to enable a deep look into structure, theatricality, character, theme, and story/plot. To do this, we approach our work as professionals, and we are able to distance ourselves personally from our creation, as well as objectively view others’ works in a professional manner and not in a way that promotes personal and subjective preferences, attitudes, and ideology. As a group, we are able to discuss our and others' works without the influence of social/political/theological trends, group-think, and personal bias.
End
I joined this amazing group a few months ago and have grown so much as a writer! I cannot decide if I want to call myself a Playwright or a Screenwriter. My book Paradox has been turned into a screenplay first and will eventually be crafted into a Broadway Style musical. This past week I finished the script and had this sense of accomplishment settle on me.
I have been working on various projects for years, and worked with partners on two of the musicals. But life being what it is, none of those shows were finished and I lost contact with both partners.
I give the FAIR think tank all of the credit for helping me to find the gumption to actually finish my musical. I really believe in this story and hope to see the movie produced sooner than later.
I have nine or ten musicals in various stages of production, a few are simply ideas floating around in my mind. I am so excited to use the completion of Paradox as a jumping off point to step out confidently as a Playwright.
Jenny Marie Hatch
PS I am seriously thinking about turning my book A Tale of Two Therapists into a courtroom drama as my next project. This book is simply the transcripts of podcasts I produced around the Hamblin vs. Utah case and the Mandy Bachman travesty.
Here is all of my work from the past week starting with my Paradox Screenplay.
Enjoy!
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