Charlotte’s Premier Festival of New Works
nuVoices was created by Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte to honor and encourage emerging playwrights of the American Theatre, as well as develop the next generation of regional artists. The nuVoices Festival is a springboard to catapult new plays to the national stage through our existing relationship with the National New Play Network. This year’s workshop will be held July 7th – 14th, 2019. The residency will encompass a four-day public festival that will feature two public, script-in-hand readings for each of the four plays selected. Following the end of the festival, a festival winner, who will be determined by a panel of audience members, arts professionals, and ATC staff, will be invited by the theatre to have a full production mounted in the 2020-2021 season.
Our 2019 nuVoices Participants
Diana Burbano’s GHOSTS OF BOGOTA is the story of three siblings, now late 20s to late 30s, who return to their parents’ birth country when their grandfather dies. GHOSTS is a universal story about family secrets, told through a very specific Latinx lens, and a story about that unique immigrant experience of never feeling fully at home in any country that can claim you.
Diana Burbano (Playwright), a Colombian immigrant, is an Equity actor, a playwright and a teaching artist at South Coast Repertory and Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble.
Diana’s plays focus on female protagonists and social issues. Written work includes Policarpa (Living Room at the Blank 2018, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Brown Swan lab 2017), Fabulous Monsters (Latinx Play Festival, San Diego Rep 2017), Caliban’s Island (2017 Headwaters New Play Festival), Enemy|Flint which premiered in April at Rio Hondo College, and Linda, (in English and in Spanish), which has been seen all over the world.
As an actor she originated the roles of Ama de Casa in the Spanish version of Menopause the Musical, Thumb in Imagine, and Ana Guerrero in Jose Cruz Gonzales' Long Road Today/El Largo Camino de Hoy at South Coast Repertory. She was in Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Latinx Play Project 2016 cohort. She is currently in Center Theatre group’s 2018-19 Writers Workshop, and under commission by Alternative Theatre Ensemble. www.dianaburbano.com
B Coleman is a high achieving, first generation college student who is suffering under the weight of her own expectations. When the opportunity arises to win a prestigious scholarship, she seeks out a letter of recommendation from the most popular faculty member on campus, Harrison Jones, a former member of the Black Panther Party, current Black Studies professor, and prolific author. Harrison sees potential in B and agrees to give her his recommendation after he takes her under his wing as a mentee. As B and Harrison’s relationship develops into an undefined, entangled web Harrison attempts to maintain his reputation, and B attempts to find light in the shadow of a famous man.
Tyler English-Beckwith (Playwright) is a recent graduate of the Dramatic Writing MFA program at NYU. She holds a B.A. in African and African Diaspora Studies and a BA in Theater and Dance from The University of Texas at Austin. Originally from Dallas, Texas, Tyler currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. Her plays include Mingus which was a 2019 O’Neill Finalist, first prize winner of the 2018 KCACTF Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and finalist for the 2018 Goldberg Playwriting Prize. Her play TWENTYEIGHT, received a world premiere in 2017 at The Vortex in Austin, Texas where it received Honorable Mention on The Austin Chronicle’s Top Ten Plays of 2017. She is currently writing and directing an afro-futurist interactive film project for Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, NM. Tyler hopes to create worlds, in her writing, where black women live beyond the basic means of survival and have the audacity to be autonomous.
A tragic accident leaves Lola, a newly adopted baby from Uganda, in the middle of a fierce custody battle between estranged sisters Mary and Sarah. The fight exposes ulterior motives, covert racism and some uncomfortable truths about international adoption. The search for answers, instigated by Fran, a Black playwright and Sarah’s partner, follows a trail of hypocrisy and denial on all sides, challenging faith, family and identity. The wake of the questioning ultimately brings together a group of adoptees from Africa that bear witness to Lola’s story and eventually tell their own; determined to be heard as human beings, and not seen as tools for redemption.
Amy da Luz (Playwright) Amy's latest play, COMING BACK FOR ME was selected for a residency this August with The New Theatre Concepts Lab at UNCG. The play was shortlisted for the 2019 Play Penn Conference and was an official selection for the She L.A. Play Festival. Her play THEMBA, was awarded a Regional Artist Project Grant from the Arts Council of Winston Salem and Forsyth County for a 2018 workshop production. Her play BOXES AND BAGGAGE won the 2018 North Carolina New Play Project Award and Amy was the recipient of the Mark Gilbert Playwriting Award. Her play SKELETONS was a semi-finalist in the 2017 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Women’s Work Festival in NYC, and the Bridge Initiative Festival in the Southwest. The play was selected and produced as part of the inaugural Broadway Bound Theatre Festival in NYC. Amy is an actor (AEA, SAG), Director and Teaching Artist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina A&T. She received her M.F.A. in Acting from UNCG. www.amydaluz.com
Kamilah Bush is a dramaturg, playwright and educator originally from North Carolina. Kamilah was the Artistic Apprentice at Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC And is currently the Literary Associate at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL. Her play WHAT. was recently produced at The Black Lady Theatre in Brooklyn, NY, after receiving a reading as part of The Quick Silver Theatre Company’s Citizen One Reading Series. She holds a BFA in theatre education from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Christmas Eve, 1987. Lynnette "Squeaky" Fromme has escaped from prison and is trying to find her way back to the only man who ever understood her. Inspired by true events, Girl with Gun offers a new take on the life of the most notorious member of the Manson Family and attempted assassin of Gerald Ford. A play about girls, and what we make of them.
Nora Leahy (Playwright) is a Chicago based playwright whose work has been developed and/or produced at Lean Ensemble Theater (Hilton Head, SC); The Shuler Theater (Raton, NM); The New Colony (Chicago, IL); The Greenhouse Theater (Chicago, IL); Victory Gardens (Chicago, IL); and Jackalope Theatre Company (Chicago, IL). Her newest play, YOUR FATHERS, WHERE ARE THEY? AND THE PROPHETS, DO THEY LIVE FOREVER? is being adapted from the novel by Dave Eggers for Jackalope Theatre Company, and her play BADLANDS will be presented in a staged reading at the 2019 Philadelphia Women's Theatre Festival in August. Her TYA plays WONDERLAND and THE JUNGLE BOOK were commissioned by the Santa Fe Trail School for the Performing Arts and produced by The Shuler Theater (Raton, NM) and Hilton Head Prep (Hilton Head, SC). Additional plays by Nora include: IF YOU FORGET ME (2018) and THE BRIDGE (Woodward Newman Drama Award Finalist, 2017). Nora currently serves as the Managing Director of Jackalope Theatre Company and was named One of the Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago by NewCity Magazine in 2019.