Monday, March 2, 2015 | 7:30pm (doors at 7pm) 
HB Playwrights Theatre, 124 Bank Street, NYC
All are welcome! Meet & Greet Reception to follow
$10 suggested donation | $5 HB students & staff
Join Shawn René Graham of The Field to learn about their resources for theatre artists!
Founded by artists for artists, The Field is dedicated to providing strategic services to thousands of performing artists and companies in New York City and beyond. They foster creative exploration, steward innovative management strategies, and are delighted to help artists reach their fullest potential.
Shawn René Graham, Artist Services Manager, The Field, is a freelance writer and dramaturg from San Jose, California who has worked with many writers including Keith Josef Adkins, Nilo Cruz, Steve Harper, Nambi E. Kelley, Eduardo Machado, Walter Mosley, Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori Parks, John Henry Redwood, Guillermo Reyes, Paul Rudnick, Steve Harper, Susan Sontag, Dominic A. Taylor, Edwin Sanchez, and Judy Tate. She has been a guest dramaturg at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Crossroads Theatre Company’s Genesis Festival, the New Professional Theatre, and African American Women’s New Play Festival and on many panels including, National Endowments for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Artist Grants Panel in Playwriting and the Mark Taper Forum’s New Works Festival and is currently the resident dramaturg of The American Slavery Project’s: Unheard Voices collaboration. Ms. Graham has worked in dance, serving as dramaturg for The Errol Grimes Dance Group’s RED, MRS. ROBESON IN MOSCOW, SUNDAYDAY, PRISM TO A DREAM and BY THE SEA at the Henry Street Settlement’s Harry De Jur Playhouse. She is also the Director of Literary Programs for the Classical Theatre of Harlem and founder of All Creative Writes, an artistic assistance service designed to provide individual artists and performing arts organizations with administrative, fundraising and writing support. Ms. Graham holds degrees from the California State University, Los Angeles and the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. She lives in Harlem, NY.
David Johnston (moderator). David Johnston is Executive Director for Exploring the Metropolis (EtM). An arts administrator, playwright/librettist and screenwriter based in New York City, he worked at Culture Finder and New York Foundation for the Arts. At NYFA, he was part of the initial team responsible for conception of NYFA Source and helped to administer the New York Arts Recovery Fund. He joined EtM in 2002, and became Executive Director in the fall of 2012.
For EtM, when the organization was known as NYC Performing Arts Spaces (NYC PAS), he oversaw the NYC Music, Dance and Theatre Spaces website programs and special projects. He served as liaison with government and foundation funders, and conducted outreach with local arts service organizations and councils. In 2007, along with Founder/Director Eugenie C. Cowan, he led a strategic planning process which led to transfer of NYC PAS, completed in September 2010. He was Project Director for the 2010 study of dance rehearsal space needs “We Make Do, More Time is Better but Budget is King,” and is Project Director for the Queens Workspace Initiative. He also developed and administers EtM’s Con Edison Composers’ Residency, now in its sixth year.
David has a degree from the College of William and Mary and a certificate from the Professional Workshop at Circle in the Square. He is an award-winning playwright whose work has been produced in New York, Cape Cod, Los Angeles, Washington, London and Germany. He is an active member of the Dramatists Guild, Actors Equity, Blue Coyote Theater Group, BMI Librettists Workshop, and is a Resident Artist with American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program. Current projects include the chamber operas “Why Is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me?” with composer Jeffrey Dennis Smith for ALT, “Daughters of the Bloody Duke” with composer Jake Runestad for Washington National Opera, and the short film “Monsura is Waiting,” directed by Kevin Newbury.
This program is made possible by the the National Endowment for the Arts New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
