Script Session with Marissa & Chip: "Emma"
For this session, we'll be joined by playwright Kate Hamill!
Join us for this series of rich discussions around plays we love, led by Marissa Wolf and Chip Miller, and occasionally joined by special guest artists. Dig deep into our 2020-2021 season long before the play hits rehearsal. Investigate the playwrights’ use of language, imagery, and structure. Discover the script's resonance and relevance right now. All you need to participate is a love of theater!
Advance registration is required to join the zoom session (limited spaces available). Shortly after you register, we will follow up with pages of this unpublished script to review before the session.
About Emma by Kate Hamill
From the acclaimed playwright of Bedlam’s Sense & Sensibility!
Beautiful, rich, vain, and irrepressibly witty, Emma has just discovered her newest “project” — finding a match for the sweet, but modest Harriet Smith. But her best-laid plans are turned upside down when her subjects won’t cooperate. Kate Hamill’s newest Austen adaptation brings her upbeat, contemporary lens to this iconic romantic story of love’s confusion. A fresh, fast-paced take on Austen’s headstrong heroine, this screwball comedy packs a moving punch, with surprises aplenty.
Kate was named 2017's Playwright of the Year by the Wall Street Journal. She has been one of the 10 most-produced playwrights in the country, 3 seasons running (2017-2020); in both 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, she wrote two of the top 10 most produced plays. Future productions on the UPCOMING page, including 4 world premieres in 2019/2020: Dracula at Classic Stage Company, Emma at the Guthrie, Prostitute Play at Cygnet Theater, and Scarlet Letter at South Coast Rep. Her previously-produced plays include Sense and Sensibility (Bedlam; in which she originated the role of Marianne) - Winner, Off-Broadway Alliance Award; Nominee, Drama League Award; 265+ performances off-Broadway; "Top Ten Theater of 2014" - Ben Brantley; "the greatest stage adaptation of this novel in history” - Huffington Post. Other plays include Vanity Fair (in which she originated the role of Becky Sharp; Nominee, Off Broadway Alliance Award; WSJ Critic's Pick), Pride and Prejudice (in which she originated the role of Lizzy Bennet; Nominee, Off Broadway Alliance Award; "Best Theater of 2017", Huffington Post; WSJ Critic's Pick), Little Women, and Mansfield Park (originated role of Mary Crawford).
Her plays have been produced off-Broadway, at A.R.T., Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Guthrie Theatre, Seattle Rep, PlayMaker’s Rep, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Dallas Theater Center, Folger Theatre (8 Helen Hayes Award nominations; Winner, best production - S&S) & more. Kate’s Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice,Vanity Fair, and Little Women are published by DPS. She is currently working on an adaptation of The Odyssey (commissioned by A.R.T.) as well as several new original plays - including Love Poem, In The Mines (Sundance Semi-Finalist; now collaborating with The Bengsons on this piece), Em (Red Bull New Play finalist), the Prostitute Play (O'Neill Semi-Finalist), and The Piper (O’Neill Finalist, PlayPenn Haas Fellow play).
Marissa is currently in her second season as artistic director of Portland Center Stage at The Armory, where she recently directed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. Marissa previously served as associate artistic director/new works director at Kansas City Repertory Theatre and artistic director of Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco. Select directing credits include Fire in Dreamland by Rinne Groff (The Public Theater; world premiere at KCRep); Man in Love by Christina Anderson and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Simon Stephens (KCRep); 77% by Rinne Groff (San Francisco Playhouse); Precious Little by Madeleine George (Shotgun Players); The Lily’s Revenge (Act II) by Taylor Mac (Magic Theatre); and The Late Wedding by Christopher Chen (Crowded Fire). She’s been nominated for Best Director by Broadway World San Francisco and the Bay Area Critics Circle. Marissa held the Bret C. Harte Directing Fellowship at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and has a degree in drama from Vassar College, with additional training from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Chip is a director and producer, currently in the role of associate producer at Portland Center Stage at The Armory. They were previously the artistic associate/resident director at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Directing: Hedwig and the Angry Inch and the world premiere of Redwood (Portland Center Stage at The Armory); School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, Welcome to Fear City, Sex with Strangers, A Raisin in the Sun (Kansas City Repertory Theatre); Becoming Martin by Kevin Willmott (world premiere, The Coterie Theatre); dwb: driving while black (Lawrence Arts Center); 4:48 Psychosis (The Buffalo Room). Chip has developed work with playwrights including Kevin Willmott, Kara Lee Corthron, Brittany K. Allen, Catherine Trieschmann, Darren Canady, Andrew Rosendorf, Michelle T. Johnson, and Michael Finke. They have developed work at The William Inge Theater Festival, NYU Steindhard’s New Plays for Young Audiences, Portland Center Stage at The Armory’s JAW, Orlando Shakes’ Playfest, Midwest Dramatists Center, and Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s OriginKC: New Works Festival. Education: B.F.A., NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
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