A place for playwrights to write, collaborate, experiment, and grow.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS:
Karen Li (She/Her) is a Baltimore based performer with a Theatre and Dance double degree from UC San Diego.
Recent work in the DMV area includes Exclusion (Arena Stage), Babel (Contemporary American Theater Festival), AAPI Voices (Kennedy Center), The Boundary (Submersive Productions), Black Super Hero Magic Mama (Strand Theater), and the AAPI Women’s Voices Festival (Strand Theater). Other favorite theater credits include The Great Leap (Perseverance Theatre), Sunset Park (Theaterlab), Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (La Jolla Playhouse), and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (Chinese Pirate Productions for San Diego Comic-Con). Karen’s TV credits include Dancing with the Stars (Season 10).
She is a competitive ballroom dancer, a Michelin-starred sommelier, and produces immersive dinner theatre as the founder and artistic director of Consume & Company.
Her latest play, alight, sweet hearted, will appear at Strand Theater in April 2024 as part of their upcoming season.
ABOUT THE PLAYS:
Marincello by Karen Li
Marincello asks how we can break the cycle of economic and social forces that compel immigrants and the children of immigrants to leave their homes and families in search of security. Marincello follows two generations in two families (and one 19th century ghost) searching for the motherlode - whether it’s gold, hidden treasure, or stable housing in the impossible market of Marin County, California.
Momo Mullings (they/she/he) is an interdisciplinary Liberian-Jamaican writer and artist devoted to the strange and ominous. Their work takes chunks of flesh and bone and asks the viewer to find it beautiful.
They were one of two poets chosen to represent the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in the 2019 Baltimore Book Festival’s University Writers Series.
They create a monthly newsletter on Substack called Be Soft, Write Feral. They are the founder of Black Zine Archive (@blackzinearchive on Instagram).
Their work has been published in giallolit, High Shelf Press, Burning Jade Magazine, SWWIM, and Inkwell Black.
Eat, Lolo, Eat by Momo Mullings
Eat, Lolo, Eat searches for the boundaries of rage and vengeance. Lolo, a young, fat, Black woman, has been good all her life. She speaks when spoken to and smiles when smiled at. Speaking up for herself isn’t something she knows. Not about her best friend’s death, not pressures from her mother, and not the demonic entity that has claimed Lolo and is pushing her to satisfy more and more disturbing cravings.
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We support the development of new, full-length plays by playwrights in the Greater Baltimore region for Greater Baltimore audiences by providing the essential safe space, time, and structure for artists to experiment and bring their new plays into the world.
Selected playwrights receive a stipend ($2,000) along with feedback, hands-on support, and readings of their work.
Each Horticulture Playwrights Workshop cohort is made up of two playwrights, a dramaturg, and two directors connected with each playwright for the duration of the Workshop. The year-long program of meetings and readings sets manageable deadlines and creates ample room for a long iterative creative process. The input of the dramaturg and directors is key to the playwrights’ writing process: the dramaturg helps the playwrights to explore the thematic and structural options for their plays, while the directors help the playwright to understand how the script would function as the basis for a live production - the ultimate goal of a playwright.
Playwrights hear their work out loud twice over the year: first at closed table reading with actors at the midway point and in the final public Staged Readings after rehearsals. These readings provide new feedback from the performers and audiences and offer the playwrights the chance to gain a new perspective on their work. From beginning to end, the process adapts to serve the needs of the playwrights as their scripts develop.
Please join our mailing list for updates.
Questions? Contact Program Director Abigail Cady: abby@sistersfreehold.org
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The Horticulture Playwrights Workshop originated as the Playwrights Fellowship at Cohesion Theatre Company. In 2021, it became a program of Sisters Freehold.
PAST PLAYWRIGHTS
2022-23: Sharea Harris & Julia Marks
2020-21: Francisco Benavides & Lyra Yang
2018-19: Laura Fuentes & DJ Hills
2017-18: R. Eric Thomas & Aladrian Wetzel
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Horticulture seeks to help writers from the Baltimore area develop a so-far unwritten idea into a full-length script.
Experience with playwriting is not required.
Applicants must be 18 or older.
Completed or partly-written projects will not be considered.
Horticulture serves artists living in or within a 60-minute drive of Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Emerging Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), women, and gender-nonconforming theater artists are especially encouraged to apply.