It took me 50 years to become a playwright, but I’ve worked with new plays in some way most of my adult life. Trained as an actress at the University of Utah, I played a role in one of David Kranes’s new plays–a highlight in my acting career. Leaving the university setting, I nurtured young playwrights, teaching in elementary level fine arts and gifted programs. I learned that everyone has a story inside, just waiting to be shared. I captured pre-school children’s plays as they spoke them, and then brought them to life. I taught playwriting to elementary, middle and upper school students at Waterford School, Sandy, Utah. I received a Utah Humanities Council Grant to create a story-telling curriculum at a high-security youth facility, which evolved later into a playwriting course. I spent years in the BYU Playwrights, Directors, Actors Workshops as a director, dramaturg and actor, collaborating on other playwright’s plays.
A National Endowment for the Humanities grant to study at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English one summer changed my life. In the creative hot bed of Bread Loaf, Dare Clubb’s playwriting class ignited my passion for playwriting. Of course, it helped that people like Tony Kushner visited Bread Loaf almost every summer to lecture or have new work read by the professional company. I read a role in the opera libretto he was working on. I watched rehearsal after rehearsal as David Henry Hwang developed Golden Child. I knew I had to write. A short play I wrote for Dare’s class won a Utah Arts Council playwriting contest. Judith Royer encouraged me through involvement in KCACTF in our region as a student director, dramaturg, and playwright.
Currently, I teach playwriting online for Brigham Young University, using Gary Garrison’s Perfect 10 as our text. BYU supports my administrative work as KCACTF NPP Chair, Region VIII, and as New Play Development Workshop Co-Coordinator for ATHE. Sometimes it feels as if I do more teaching and administrating than writing, but getting short plays produced–e.g., at the Manhattan Theatre Source and the Westcliffe Colorado Center for the Performing Arts–has motivated me to set aside time to write.
I’m excited about serving as Dramatists Guild Rep for Salt Lake City, meeting members, hearing about new plays being produced, and making plans for events in our area. Please feel free to e-mail me with ideas or questions.
Salt Lake City
It took me 50 years to become a playwright, but I’ve worked with new plays in some way most of my adult life. Trained as an actress at the University of Utah, I played a role in one of David Kranes’s new plays–a highlight in my acting career. Leaving the university setting, I nurtured young playwrights, teaching in elementary level fine arts and gifted programs. I learned that everyone has a story inside, just waiting to be shared. I captured pre-school children’s plays as they spoke them, and then brought them to life. I taught playwriting to elementary, middle and upper school students at Waterford School, Sandy, Utah. I received a Utah Humanities Council Grant to create a story-telling curriculum at a high-security youth facility, which evolved later into a playwriting course. I spent years in the BYU Playwrights, Directors, Actors Workshops as a director, dramaturg and actor, collaborating on other playwright’s plays.
A National Endowment for the Humanities grant to study at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English one summer changed my life. In the creative hot bed of Bread Loaf, Dare Clubb’s playwriting class ignited my passion for playwriting. Of course, it helped that people like Tony Kushner visited Bread Loaf almost every summer to lecture or have new work read by the professional company. I read a role in the opera libretto he was working on. I watched rehearsal after rehearsal as David Henry Hwang developed Golden Child. I knew I had to write. A short play I wrote for Dare’s class won a Utah Arts Council playwriting contest. Judith Royer encouraged me through involvement in KCACTF in our region as a student director, dramaturg, and playwright.
Currently, I teach playwriting online for Brigham Young University, using Gary Garrison’s Perfect 10 as our text. BYU supports my administrative work as KCACTF NPP Chair, Region VIII, and as New Play Development Workshop Co-Coordinator for ATHE. Sometimes it feels as if I do more teaching and administrating than writing, but getting short plays produced–e.g., at the Manhattan Theatre Source and the Westcliffe Colorado Center for the Performing Arts–has motivated me to set aside time to write.
I’m excited about serving as Dramatists Guild Rep for Salt Lake City, meeting members, hearing about new plays being produced, and making plans for events in our area. Please feel free to e-mail me with ideas or questions.
cnelson@dramatistsguild.com