2019 Conference

NTC members from all over the country gathered in New York City for the 2019 Annual Meeting with sessions at The Players in Grammercy and in midtown at The Lark.

View 2019 Program

Award Recipients

Person of the Year
Robert O'Hara

Outstanding Theatre Award
New Georges

Stavis Award
Donetta Lavinia Grays

Paul Green Award
Jeremy O. Harris

Emerging Professional Award
Deadria Harrington

New Members

New Members take the stage at The Players for their "rants."

Ten new members were inducted into the National Theatre Conference this year:

John Ammerman
Robert Caisley
Cheryl Faraone
Alexander Gelman
Leslie Ishii
Marya Sea Kaminski
Robert Ramerez
Robert Richmond
Ann Marie Shanahan
Nicole Watson

LEARN MORE ABOUT ALL OUR NEW MEMBERS HERE.

The new members introduced themselves in a session entitled "Rants," moderated by NTC Vice President, Randy Reinholz.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6

Twitter Feed: News About Each Other

Last year, members indicated a desire to better know one another. This year, Nicole Hodges-Persley curated a session in which members were invited to share who they are and what they are doing with fellow NTC members in fast and fun Twitter-sized exchanges intended to encourage members to form relationships and kick start possible artistic connections including NTC’s Pipeline Initiative.

Nicole Hodges-Persley

Members participate in the Twitter Feed session

EDI: Walking the Talk

Cindy Melby Phaneuf moderated a discussion with Donna Walker-Kuhne, Courtney Sale, Robert Shenkkan and NTC members on strategies to move EDI forward.

Why is EDI so challenging in practice?
What gains have been made in recent years?
What methods have been most effective?
What goals are we hoping to achieve?

This session continued our groundwork discussion from the Idea Café in the 2018 meeting of the membership.

Cindy Melby Phaneuf, Robert Schenkkan, Courtney Sale & Donna Walker-Kuhne

Members work together in groups during the EDI session

Act Locally, Think Globally

Celebrating the impact of regional work of the membership that resonates on a national and global level, the panel of Nicole Hodges-Persley, Lisa Wolpe and Gary English discussed their work at home and abroad, with Paul Steger moderating.

Lisa Wolpe and Gary English

Paul Steger, Nicole Hodges-Persley, Lisa Wolpe & Gary English

The President's Reception

Continuing conversations with friends – at The Players in the Great Hall & Kintsler Room.

Paul Steger, David Fuller

Linda Burson & Sherry Eaker

Anita Gonzalez, Nicole Hodges-Persley, Nicole Watson and Lorca Peress

Jere Hodgin

Mindi Dickstein, Deborah Brevoort, Laurie McCants, David Feldshuh

Randy Reinholz and Risa Brainin

Sherry Eaker

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7

Outstanding Theatre: New Georges

Established in 1996, the Outstanding Theatre Award recognizes outstanding achievement by a not-for-profit theatre.

New Georges, founded in 1992, is a strategically small company with a national reputation for taking a first look at new and experimental plays, and as a responsive home for adventurous women and trans/gender-nonconforming theater artists. Over 27 years we have transformed the landscape for women in the American theater and established a boundary-pushing aesthetic based in exuberant theatricality, heightened language and structural innovation. The playwrights and directors who’ve made a home here have always challenged the prevailing narrative, and now claim visibility in every corner of our culture: in theater communities and productions nationwide, in TV writers’ rooms, on film sets, on bookshelves, on Broadway. Today, we serve the largest ongoing working network of women/tgnc theater artists in New York City with career-transforming productions; The Room, our workspace and the hub of our activities for 25 years; play and artist development programs rooted in collaboration and designed to encourage artists to get up from the table and out from behind music stands, fostering the 3D experimentation essential to highly theatrical plays; and the cultivation of an artistic community (now 260 artists strong) and the collaborations that arise within it.

Mindi Dickstein interviews New Georges Artistic Director Susan Bernfield and Managing Director Jaynie Saunders Tiller

Stavis Playwright Award and Interview: Donetta Lavinia Grays

Recognizing an outstanding emerging playwright, the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award was established in 1988 to honor thework of playwright Barrie Stavis. Each year, NTC sends out a call to artistic directors and literary managers of theatres and play development organizations across the country inviting submissions.

Director Valerie Curtis-Newton (at right) moderates a conversation with Playwright Donetta Lavinia Grays

LAST NIGHT AND THE NIGHT BEFORE
BY DONNETTA LAVINIA GRAYS
When Monique and her 10-year-old daughter Samantha show up unexpectedly on her sister’s Brooklyn doorstep, it’s the beginning of the end for Rachel and her partner Nadima’s orderly lifestyle. Monique is on the run from deep trouble, her husband Reggie is nowhere to be seen, and Samantha becomes ever haunted by the life in southern Georgia she was forced to leave behind. Poetic, dark and often deeply funny Last Night and the Night Before explores the power, necessity, and beauty of loss.

Actors Erin Cherry, Lisa Strum, Bianca Jones, Keona Welch and Sharod Choyce present a reading from LAST NIGHT AND THE NIGHT BEFORE by Stavis Award winner Donetta Lavina Gray, directed by NTC member Valerie Newton Curtis

Award Luncheon at The Players

Paul Green Awardee Jeremy O. Harris and Person of the Year Robert O'Hara

Emerging Professional Awardee Deadria Harrington

NTC Presidents Past and Present (L-R): David Fuller, Michael Hood, Risa Brainin, Cindy Melby Phaneuf, Dan Carter and Jim O'Connor

Stavis Winner Donnetta Lavinia Grays

New Georges Managing Director Jaynie Saunders Tiller and Artistic Director Susan Bernfield with the Outstanding Theatre Award

Jeremy O. Harris talks about his career, his mentor Robert O'Hara and their Broadway show "Slave Play"

Person of the Year: Robert O'Hara

The Person of the Year Award honors an individual who has made an outstanding and noteworthy contribution to the theatre. Robert O'Hara, NTC's 2020 Person of the Year, and the award-winning director of Slave Play, Jeremy O. Harris (recipient of NTC's 2020 Paul Green Award), joined us for a lively conversation about his life and career moderated by NTC Board member Chuck Morey.