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Productions | New Plays Program | Commissions

Commissions

The commissioning program at Marin Theatre Company encourages the creation of new work from a diverse group of passionate playwrights to be developed for our main stage and educational programs. MTC commissions original plays from writers in whose work we have a committed interest and whose voice speaks to our mission and our community. Current artists under commission include Carson Kreitzer, Dan Wolf and Tommy Shepard, and Lauren Gunderson.

  • Carson Kreitzer

    Lasso of Truth

    With support from the National New Play Network, Marin Theatre has commissioned Carson Kreitzer for a new play about the creator of the infamous comic book heroine, Wonder Woman. MTC will workshop the play with Kreitzer, partnering with renowned new play development organization, The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis.

    Carson Kreitzer’s The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer won the Rosenthal New Play Prize, the American Theatre Critics’ Steinberg Citation, the Stavis Award, and is published in Smith and Kraus’ New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2004. Self Defense or Death of Some Salesmen has been produced in Providence, Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Other work includes The Slow Drag, Valerie Shoots Andy, Heroin/e (Keep us Quiet), Freakshow, Dead Wait and Take My Breath Away. Kreitzer holds a degree in Theater and Literature from Yale University, an M.F.A. in Writing from the Michener Center, U.T. Austin, and has received grants from NYFA, NYSCA, the NEA, TCG, and the Jerome and McKnight foundations. She is an associated artist with Clubbed Thumb, and a member of the Workhaus Collective, The Playwrights’ Center and the Dramatists Guild.

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  • Tommy Shepard & Dan Wolf

    Anansi the Spider
    2011-12 School Tour show

    The African folktale is updated, re-imagined, and filled with music, beats and rhymes in this new play for elementary schoolers, specially commissioned by MTC. Using this California Department of Education recommended story as a jumping off point, Shepard and Wolf create an interactive, fresh performance that MTC will bring to classrooms and kids all over the Bay Area.

    Playwrights Dan Wolf and Tommy Shepherd are multi-disciplinary performers who combine conventional theater styles with the themes, language, music and aesthetics of hip-hop. Their collaborations include Stateless at The Jewish Theatre, Angry Black White Boy at Intersection for the Arts, and Felonious, a six-piece live hip-hop band.

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  • Lauren Gunderson

    Untitled 2012-13 School Tour show

    Building on her wildly imaginative and successful 2007-08 School Tour show, A Short History of Nearly Everything, MTC has commissioned Gunderson to write an new original play for the coming year’s School Tour. Her work tells the story of scientific and mathematical ideas in innovative and creative ways and her new commission promises to both entertain and educate elementary school classrooms.

    Lauren Gunderson received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch, where she was also a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her latest play Silent Sky premiered at South Coast Rep in April, and will run at Marin Theatre Company next year. Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Tonight was commissioned and premiered at South Coast Rep in 2009. Fire Work was developed at The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and is a 2011 winner for Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project. Her three-city rolling world premiere of Exit, Pursued By A Bear, started at Synchronicity Theatre, moved to Crowded Fire and now will move on to ArtsWest. Her first musical, The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog! is being developed with The Kennedy Center. She teaches and speaks on the intersection of science and theatre, and writes for The Huffington Post and tweets @LalaTellsAStory.

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