To Everyone Who Loves Theater!

It is my pleasure to talk to you about our fall conference. The Board has taken a big step in an old but new direction - ITA is still workshopping new scripts, but with a different focus and in different ways.

The deadline was much earlier this year to allow more time and attention to the judging process and the planning process. Focusing exclusively on developing the playwrights of Indiana's scripts, the conference this year will feature two full-length scripts to be workshopped the entire weekend and performed Sunday morning. This will give two playwrights more than a ten-page sample of how their scripts might play, and to allow them to take away a more fully realized vision of a script that could actually be developed after the weekend. We are eager to send plays originating in Indiana out into the world!

Full-length Submissions

• Rachel Sherwood Roberts
  Gentry's Auction
• Sara Ward
  Between Scylla and Charybdis

Other Recognized Playwrights

• Bob Kronemyer
  Reality Ends Here
• Chris White
  Mud Lotus
• Mike Smith
  Rick and Liz
• James Frey
  Joust of Giants

The amounts of the Frank and Katrina Basile Emerging Playwrights Scholarship Awards will be announced at the conference.

In addition, to assist as many Indiana playwrights as possible along the developmental process, several dozen scripts have been selected for COLD READINGS during the weekend. We are excited that so many playwrights will benefit from hearing different voices for their characters and, more importantly, feedback from the actors/readers/observers.

Cold Readings

• Amina S. McIntyre
  Doin' the Work

The cold readings will be moderated by seasoned directors, and the playwrights will take away a response sheet from the readers and observers for specific feedback. I have benefited so many times from this kind of experience, and I truly hope that each playwright understands that the conference happens for this very activity. Playwrights working at different levels all can take away helpful responses.

To this end, the ITA Board looks forward to theater people all over Indiana coming together for this important happening. If you are an actor, we really need you. If you are found in theater audiences, we need you. If you are a director, you can give a different kind of response and input after the cold readings. If you are a set designer or light tech, costumer or musician, we need your responses to these 10-page excerpts bubbling over with raw creative moments during the cold readings.

Cat Parker, our Facilitator from New York, will be present to respond to the two full-length scripts, to speak with all the playwrights, to enlighten us all on the state of theater elsewhere. Cat is an experienced professional who works with new scripts.

During the Open Forum, you will be able to ask questions of a playwright, a director, a designer, an academic program director, and others in the theatre profession. How do you begin a play? What is the first thing a director looks for in a new script? How can set construction problems be solved? How do I get a reading in New York? What about grants?

We have much to share with each other, and I promise you will come away from IT WORKS! with a recharged passion for theater.

RUTH TYNDALL BAKER, CHAIR `08 ITWORKS!
I welcome your phone calls: (260) 422-3486.

ITA is reaching out to you! We are presenting works in regions outside the Indianapolis area by our Indiana playwrights.
Contact the ITA office to find out how you can be a part of the creative process by hosting one of these exciting events!

Could your script be selected for reading at ITA?
Submit your script for consideration!