Photo by Yohei Koinuma
The Loom 2021
Woven Theatre is committed to and passionate about creating new theatre, and that is why we annually present The Loom, a new works festival in which new plays are selected for public staged readings. Plays are carefully considered from submissions, and the selected plays and playwrights are paired with directors that choose casts and set up rehearsals in preparation for the festival. We hope The Loom will serve as a platform for playwrights to hear and better understand their plays, expose them to a larger audience, and give actors and directors opportunities to explore and express their artistry.
The main goal of The Loom is the development of new works so that playwrights may hear the work aloud, an important part of the playwriting process. The Loom is headed by Woven’s New Works Development team, Erica Jo Lloyd and River Timms.
For a history on The Loom, click here.
Tickets can be purchased here.
Join us live in person, or on Twitch and Youtube
December 3rd 2021
8:00PM
Edge of Town by Kyle J. McClokey
Directed by Jack Read
6:00PM
The Last Living Gun by Ryan Stevens
Directed by JR Robles
JR Robles
JR Robles (he/him) is an actor, writer, and director who lives in Nashville, TN.
Ryan Stevens
Ryan Stevens (He/They) is a playwright/director currently based in Chicago. They received an MA in Theatre from USC and an MFA in Playwriting from UCLA Stevens has worked with Silver Spring Stage, St. Croix Falls Festival Theatre, New American Theatre, Whiskey Radio Hour, Theatre Viscera, Festival D’Avignon, Broken Slate Productions, The Plagiarists Chicago, Philadelphia Dramatists Center, T. Schreiber Studio, and Theatre Above The Law among others. Their script Player King is published through Stagescripts, Ltd., and participated in the 2019 Great Plains Theatre Conference.
The Last Living Gun Synopsis
In a scarified America that has fractured in the wake of the end of guns, metal, and modern civilization, Rose-of-Sharon Crutcher, a survivor of America’s distant final school shooting, and her sidekick Throatpin, who yearns for the soaring adventures and unexamined, depthless entertainment of a bygone era, are on a mission to recover what may very well be the final gun in human existence. On their journey across what used to be this country, they’ll encounter street preachers, mad factory foremen, nomadic professional football teams, and the walking form of trauma itself. One part Vaudeville, one part Spaghetti Western, and one part Mad Max, The Last Living Gun is a genre- blended examination at our addiction to guns, the glory we pay to violence, and just how hard it might be to escape these nightmares.
Jack Read
Jack Read (he/him) is a director and sometimes-playwright. In Washington, DC, he served as Artistic Director of The Wheel Theatre Company, for which he directed four productions, including his own adaptation of Chekhov's Seagull. He also directed two workshopped readings at Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival. Jack specializes in Shakespeare, ensemble work, Viewpoints, and mask training. www.thewheeltheatre.org
Kyle J McCloskey
Kyle J McCloskey (He/Him/Anything Respectful) is originally from Philadelphia now residing in Chicago. His work was seen or developed at The American Playwriting Foundation, The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, The Great Plains Theatre Conference, American Theater Company, Victory Gardens Theater Company, Collaboraction Theatre Company, Stage Left Theater Company, the University of California - Los Angeles, and Loyola University Chicago. He is the recipient of the Paula Vogel Prize from the Kennedy Center, a Semifinalist for the Relentless Award from the American Playwriting Foundation, a Semi-Finalist for the Princess Grace Award, and a finalist for the Jerome Fellowship from the Playwrights Center. He is a past recipient of the James B. Pendleton Foundation Prize, and the George Burns & Gracie Allen Fellowship in Comedy. Kyle is currently developing a new play with The Road Theater’s Under Construction 2 Writer’s Group. MFA UCLA, BA Loyola University Chicago
Edge of Town Synopsis
Jo, Andi, and Vanessa all find themselves at crossroads. Vanessa is trying to find her footing. Andi is trying to fend off her demons. Jo is trying to get her damn disability. As the three women struggle individually, they find purpose and protection in the confidence of each other.
December 4th 2021
8:00PM
And the Four Last Things by Samantha Marchant
Directed by Meredith Daniel
6:00PM
Carl Flunt Would Protect You From Trucks by Scott Mullen
Directed by Josh Inocalla
Scott Mullen
Scott Mullen is a longtime Hollywood screenplay analyst and screenwriter, a two-time winner of Amazon Studios' screenwriting contest, whose thrillers THE SUMMONING, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT and BLOOD ON HER BADGE aired on TV One. His short plays have been produced hundreds of times around the world. An evening of his comic plays, A NIGHT OF S.M., had a two-week run in Hollywood. CARL FLUNT WOULD PROTECT YOU FROM TRUCKS is his first full-length play.
Samantha Marchant
Samantha Marchant is a playwright and director based in Rochester, NY. She graduated from Spalding University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing with a concentration in Playwriting. Her work has been produced on both US coasts and has had readings all across the country and in Canada. Her plays have been produced or developed with Inkwell LAB, Workshop Theater, The Pulp Stage, The Skeleton Rep(resents), Theater Three, TMDT, Post Industrial Productions, Skull and Dagger, Alleyway Theatre, and Route 66, among others. Her writing has been published in The Louisville Review, Sick Lit Magazine and Women Writing Letters Season 3 and 4. She is a Todd McNerney Playwriting Contest Finalist, a B Street Theatre New Comedies Festival Semi-Finalist and a proud member of the Dramatist Guild, Queen City Playwrights and BAWG Playwrights. She longs for what's weird and a good laugh.
Josh Inocalla
Josh Inocalla is a biracial Canadian-American. He is very familiar with "time travel" or as his therapist calls it "blacking out". For example, he told himself not to write this bio the morning after it was already sent.
Carl Flunt Would Protect You From Trucks Synopsis
A young woman is stunned when versions of herself come back in time to give her advice about her life, which she starts pushing back against.
Meredith Daniel
Meredith Daniel (she/her) is excited to embark on this adventure directing “And the Four Last Things” by Samantha Marchant for The Loom. Meredith holds a BFA in Theatre Education from Belmont University, and is a teacher, director, and performer. During the day, she can usually be found teaching her beloved middle school students as a full time theatre teacher. Meredith has a passion for developing new works, and especially loves using theatre to explore human connection
And the Four Last Things Synopsis
An angel and a devil weigh the soul of a man by reenacting his four last acts on earth with his corpse.
December 5th 2021
8:00PM
Life Jacket by Caridad Svich
Directed by Shawn Whitsell
6:00PM
Lightning Girl! by Rita Anderson
Directed by Eve Petty
Rita Anderson
Rita Anderson, an internationally-published and award-winning writer, has an MFA Creative Writing and an MA Playwriting. Rita is Dramatists Guild Regional Rep, and they went on scholarship to The O’Neill. Frantic is the Carousel was the National Partners American Theatre (NAPAT) nominee, and Rita won the Ken Ludwig Playwriting Award, the top national prize from The Kennedy Center for “Best Body of Work.” Rita has had over 100 productions and as many literary publications to include APPLAUSE’s BEST NEW 10-MINUTE PLAYS (in 2019 and again in 2020) and in their BEST NEW WOMEN’S MONOLOGUES (years 2019 & 2020) and with SMITH & KRAUS too. Early Liberty, Final Conversations, and The 27 Club (www.offthewallplays.com) are on the publisher’s “Best Selling Plays” list, and Next Stage Press published her comedy, Woman Hollering Creek, which is a “runaway Best Seller.” Rita has had work developed with The Kennedy Center, The 24-Hour Plays Project, Woven Theatre and The Loom New Works Festival, HBMG Foundation and Creede Repertory Theatre (CRT), The PlayGround Experiment, The Barrow Group, Mildred’s Umbrella (Museum of Dysfunction), Moving Parts Theatre (Paris, France), and Rita was a pilot playwright for Hyde Park Theatre Writers’ Group. Rita is Faculty at Interlochen, but the highlight of their emerging career so far was sitting on a playwriting panel with Christopher Durang. Both of Rita’s poetry books: The Entropy of Rocketman (Finishing Line Press) and Watched Pots (A Lovesong to Motherhood), have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Eve Petty
Eve Petty (she/her) is a Nashville-based actor and director. She moved to Nashville to pursue an education in acting at Belmont University. In school, she discovered her passion for directing, stage combat, and playwriting. She graduated with a BFA in Theatre Performance and Directing in May 2020. Her artistic interests include new works, combat acting and choreography, and theatre by/ for young artists. When not acting or directing, she has been discovering her passion for teaching creative drama and stage combat at Nashville Children’s Theatre. Most recently, she has been directing for Little Thistle Theatre Company, The Salon (Pipeline Collective), Act 1, and Belmont University. Now, she is excited to be directing for the Loom for the first time, and hopes to keep supporting Woven and other growing theatre companies in the Nashville community however her artistic skills are called upon.
LIGHTNING GIRL! Synopsis
LIGHTNING GIRL is a surreal fictionalization of Juliane Koepcke's
incredible life. Juliane was the sole survivor of LANSA Flight 508, which
crashed into the Peruvian rainforest after a lightning strike in 1971.
17-year-old Juliane survived the plane crash but then had to walk for 12
days to escape the Peruvian rainforest. She grew up to become a famous
biologist/zoologist like her mom-and she returns yearly to that same jungle.
And to Panguana, their ecological research station-which Juliane fought to
make a preserve.
Caridad Svich
Caridad Svich received a 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement. Her work as a playwright, translator, lyricist, and essayist has been seen in print, live and digital stages at diverse venues across the US and abroad. Key plays in her extensive repertoire include 12 Ophelias, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls…, Red Bike and The House of the Spirits (based on Isabel Allende’s novel). Theatrical digital world premieres in 2021 have included The Book of Magdalene at Main Street Theater, Houston, and Theatre: a love story at Know Theatre, Cincinnati. Memories of Overdevelopment was developed at The Goodman Theatre’s Future Labs Reading Series this summer. As a screenwriter, her first feature film (as co-screenwriter, based on her play) Fugitive Dreams has been seen at the Fantasia, Austin, Tallinn Black Nights, Manchester (UK) and Maryland Film Festivals. Among her recognitions are an American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize, the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, and National Latino Playwriting Award (which she has received twice). She has edited several books on theatre. She most recently authored a book about Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Routledge). Her second feature film Abilene (as screenwriter) is currently in post-production. Her new book Toward a Future Theatre is forthcoming from Methuen Drama in January 2022.
Life Jacket Synopsis
This is a story about two friends on a boat.
In present time (after) and in the past (before).
They live in a small town near the sea.
It is important to know that they do not live in a state of wealth.
But that they would still like to make something more out of their lives.
On this Sunday, they go out, as they have done in the past.
It is a ritual. It may have even become a routine between them.
This Sunday, something changes. Call it a spirit encounter,
Or maybe they just hit some nasty debris in the water.
Whatever the case, it is a day that will test them both.
VENUE
The Loom will be held at The Barbershop Theatre, a smaller black box theatre in Nashville, TN. Woven is part of The Barbershop Collective, an artists’ collective dedicated to creating innovative and insightful theatre and performance art. The second weekend of the 2018 festival was presented at this venue, and we are very excited to return to The Barbershop to present your wonderful plays! More information about The Barbershop can be found at http://thebarbershoptheater.com. The festival itself will be held in December; a definitive date will be given once our season has been finalized.
COVID-19 GUIDELINES
We are keeping a very close eye on how the COVID-19 pandemic continues to play out, and as such, festival dates, times, and venues are subject to change. At the Barbershop Theater, masks are required by all audience members. Proof of vaccination or a negative test is also required to enter the theater. In the event of a postponement, cancellation, or a sudden shift to a digital festival, we will be sure to let all participants know as quickly as possible.
If there are any questions about submissions or the festival, please email River directly at Adtimmswt@gmail.com.
