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| Address | 949 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts United States |
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| Public transit | Babcock Street |
| Owner | Boston University |
| Type | Regional theater |
| Opened | 1981 |
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Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) is a small professional theatre in Boston, Massachusetts and the home of Boston University's MFA Playwriting Program. [1] As a venue, BPT rents its space for the rehearsal, reading, and production of new plays.
BPT was founded in 1981 by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott when he began teaching poetry and playwriting at Boston University. Under the leadership of Walcott's student Kate Snodgrass, the program expanded from a one-year Master of Arts to a three-year Master of Fine Arts degree. The program's alumni have been produced in regional and New York houses, as well as in London's West End. [2]
In 2022, Kate Snodgrass retired as artistic director after 35 years of working at Boston University. Megan Sandberg-Zakian succeeded her as BPT's artistic director and playwright Nathan Alan Davis as the head of the MFA Playwriting Program. The building's front theater was subsequently dedicated the Kate Snodgrass Stage; the proscenium-style theater at the rear of the building—BPT's original performance space—is the Derek Walcott Stage. [3]
In 2014, Boston Playwrights' Theatre produced its first season of thesis plays by current MFA candidates under the name @Play Festival of New Work in collaboration with Boston University. [4] In 2016, Boston Playwrights' Theatre made official this partnership with Boston University's School of Theatre and the BU Graduate School of Arts & Sciences on a series of MFA Playwriting thesis plays acting as a showcase for pieces written by graduating students in BU's MFA playwriting program. In a major change for BPT, almost all of the onstage and backstage talent is provided by students in BU's theater school, who work closely with the playwrights throughout the year. [5]
In alternating seasons, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre will resume its practice of featuring three plays, written by alumni or faculty of the program and employing professional actors, designers and playwrights to stage them. [6]
The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in every discipline of the theatre – acting, design, directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, technical design and production, and theatre management. It was known as the Yale School of Drama until its endowment by David Geffen in 2021.
The Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) is an off-Broadway professional theatre company founded in 1999 at the Harlem School of the Arts. Producing on average 2–3 productions a year as well as implementing extensive educational programming, CTH remains the only year-round theatre company operating on an Actors' Equity Association LORT contract in Harlem. Its season selections present a world repertory ranging from Euripides to Derek Walcott, featuring classical and new playwrights. Since its founding, CTH has put on over 40 productions.
The Boston University College of Fine Arts(CFA) is the performing, cinematic, and media arts school of Boston University. Founded in 1872 with the establishment of the College of Music, it is an institution that trains artists, scholars of the arts, and filmmakers. Since the College of Fine Arts is integrated into Boston University, students at CFA may choose courses in the other undergraduate colleges at Boston University. CFA students can also apply for the Boston University Collaborative Degree Program (BUCOP), where students simultaneously earn undergraduate degrees at CFA and in one of 14 undergraduate colleges of the university. The college offers a study abroad program in London, England, and Dresden, Germany. Students can spend a semester at the Royal College of Music, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, or at the Hochschule für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber".
Naomi Iizuka is a Japanese-born American playwright. Iizuka's works often have a non-linear storyline and are influenced by her multicultural background.
Lydia R. Diamond is an American playwright and professor. Among her most popular plays are The Bluest Eye (2007), an adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel; Stick Fly (2008); Harriet Jacobs (2011); and Smart People (2016). Her plays have received national attention and acclaim, receiving the Lorraine Hansberry Award for Best Writing, an LA Weekly Theater Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the 2020 Horton Foote Playwriting Award from the Dramatists Guild of America.
Boston Arts Academy (BAA) in Boston, Massachusetts, USA is Boston's first and only high school for the visual and performing arts and is a partnership between Boston Public Schools and the ProArts Consortium. ProArts, a group of six arts colleges and universities in the Boston area, pushed the city to open the school, which was founded in 1998. The Consortium continues to support the school with performance space, music lessons and free college-level classes to BAA students.
Ken Urban is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and musician based in New York. He is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and leads the Music and Theatre Arts Program's dramatic writing program. Urban is also a resident playwright at New Dramatists and an affiliated writer at the Playwrights' Center.
John Kuntz is an American actor, playwright, director, and solo performer. Kuntz is the author of 14 full-length plays, a founding company member at Actors' Shakespeare Project, has taught at Emerson College, Suffolk University, and Concord Academy, and is currently an associate professor of theater at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He was an inaugural playwriting fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company and a fellow at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in 2007. Kuntz is the recipient of six Elliot Norton Awards, two Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Awards, and New York International Fringe Festival Award, among others.
Young Playwrights' Theater (YPT) is a not-for-profit theater arts-based education organization in Northwest Washington, D.C. It provides interactive in-school and after-school programs presenting and discussing student-written work to promote community dialogue and respect for young artists.
The Huntington Theatre Company is a professional theatre located in Boston, Massachusetts and the recipient of the 2013 Regional Theatre Tony Award, under the direction of Managing Director Michael Maso. It is notable for its longstanding artistic relationship with African-American playwright August Wilson.
Alice Tuan is an Asian American playwright, teacher and performer.
Willy Conley is an American deaf photographer, playwright, actor and writer.
Judy GeBauer is an American playwright. Born in Long Beach, CA, she grew up in the Bay Area and spent several years abroad. Her love for acting and writing began early. By third grade, she had written several neighborhood plays and she was appearing in children's theatre productions, playing the Queen of Hearts, a spider, a clown, and a toy soldier. She moved with her family to Denmark during her junior high years and attended an international school and a private girls school in Copenhagen. With her mother and brother she traveled through Europe, the Middle East and Asia before returning to California.
Lila Rose Kaplan is a 21st-century American playwright. She currently lives in Somerville, MA, where she was a Huntington Playwriting Fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company (2012-2014) as well as a Next Voices Playwriting Fellow with New Repertory Theatre (2015-2016).
Sheri Wilner is an American playwright.
Martín Zimmerman is an American bilingual playwright.
Kate Snodgrass is an American theater director and playwright. She is the artistic director of Boston Playwrights' Theatre. She is a professor of the practice of playwriting in the English Department of Boston University. Snodgrass won the 2012 Elliot Norton Award for Excellence.
Kirsten Greenidge is an American playwright. Her plays are known for their realistic language and focus on social issues such as the intersectionality of race, gender, and class. Her sister is the historian Kerri Greenidge.
Ronan Noone is an American playwright based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Josh Wilder is an American playwright whose work has been performed regionally across the United States and is best known for The Dandelion Plays, a work-in-progress play cycle inspired by Wilder’s experience growing up in inner city Philadelphia. His play, Leftovers, won The Great Plains Theatre Conference’s Holland New Voices Playwright Award in 2014. Wilder received a B.F.A. in acting from Carnegie Mellon and an M.F.A. in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.
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