VA Thespian Update
VA Thespians Kudos & Happenings
February: Thank you for joining us!
We would also love to share out about your productions on our social media pages. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @vathespians so we can follow you back/keep track of your happenings. You may see your school or show featured soon. Please send 1 headshot/picture of your Thespians in action and 1 paragraph about your program to executivedirector@vathespian.org so we can brag about you next.
VTF 2022 Highlights
Student Scholarship Opportunity below! Due Feb 18th!
Supporting Up-and-Coming Playwrights & Authors
Smaller scale, smaller budget
Rachel Rubin Ladutke
Rachel Rubin Ladutke is a produced and published playwright, who occasionally directs. She founded a non-profit theatre company, TwinFish Productions, in NYC right after college.
Through TwinFish Rachel produced, directed, and sometimes wrote (and/or acted in) a dozen AEA productions in five years.
Some of the titles include: Grace Notes, Clary’s Exodus, Belles of the Mill, Richmond Underground, her newest full-length play, The Understanding, The Wickham Way is a contemporary play with music, Pool of Tears, (very loosely based on “Alice In Wonderland”, and more! Click here to read about her works.
Rachel lives in NJ with her husband, two children, and lots of pets. She holds a B.A. in English Dramatic Literature and Theatre from Wheaton College (Massachusetts), and an M.A. in Theatre from Hunter College/C.U.N.Y. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the International Centre for Women Playwrights. With a playwright friend, she recently started an online twice- weekly “Writing Sprints” group, and a weekly online “Opp Swap” where writers discuss marketing techniques and opportunities. E-mail: RachelWrites67@gmail.com
John Wells
Retired theatre teacher,
John Wells worked at Loudoun County High School for nearly four decades. He wrote his first play, COMPETITION PIECE, in 1991. The play was quickly published by Samuel French (now Concord Theatricals). By the time of his retirement in 2020, he had written close to 20 plays of varying length and subject matter. Although he has written several commissioned pieces, his works were performed primarily by his students at LCHS. He received several awards, including when he produced his own one-acts at the annual VHSL One Act competition. He is a two-time winner of both the Virginia Theatre Association and Southeast Theatre Conference H.S. play competitions in 1995/96 and 1999/2000. Notably, the ’99-2000 play was his original work, INVISIBLE MAN, produced six times at the VHSL State level competition. He was honored in 2000 and 2007 as an “Agnes Meyer Teacher of the Year” Finalist and in 2006 received the Virginia Theatre Association “Lifetime Achievement Award”. In 2010, three of the 16 plays produced at the VHSL A/AA State level competition were written by John. And between 1989 and 2019, nearly 20 of John’s students were invited to the New Voices for Theatre Summer Playwriting Institute. He was also honored numerous times as an Excellence in Education honoree in Loudoun County. In 2019, John became one of the first ever Certified Master Educators named by Virginia Theatre Association. He continues to live with his wife in Round Hill, Virginia.
You can get access to his works here: Frog Valley Publishing
FrogValley@aol.com or (540) 338-3224.
Ask for Sharon. She handles all the inquiries about the plays and production costs.You can also see his list of plays.
Ronald Rand
Starring around the world in his second decade as Harold Clurman, the "Elder Statesman of the American Theatre" in his solo play, LET IT BE ART! - Rand has received ovations in twenty-five countries and twenty states at over 75 theaters, festivals, universities, and colleges, at the World Theatre Olympics across India, and in three Off-Broadway critically-acclaimed productions. Best-selling author of "Acting Teachers of America" and "CREATE!" – he has been a Visiting Professor at over forty universities and colleges, and the US State Department chose Rand twice as a Fulbright Specialist. His many films and television credits include roles in A Marriage-O’Keefe & Stieglitz with Christopher Plummer, The Royal Tenenbaums, Family Business, Quiz Show, Homeless opposite Yoko Ono, and Saturday Night Live. Rand is the Librettist of IBSEN, the first opera ever written about Henrik Ibsen, and he wrote the screenplay, GROUP PARADISE, the first film about the 1930’s famed Group Theatre. Recently he just published another book with Sunbury Press called SOLO TRANSFORMATION ON STAGE: A Journey into the Organic Process of the Art of Transformation. Christopher Plummer said it is “An unforgettable journey of passion, insight, and discovery..." LetItBeArt.com & IBSENopera.com
Teacher Tool of the Month: Technical Theatre!
Virtual Planning Mtgs,
Stunning Scenes,
& Lots of Group Selfies!
HomeStories for Classrooms
Out of Eden Walk/ National Geographic
What are HomeStories?
Join this group to grow your classroom communities & connect with others similar or different from yourself.
See some interactive resources below:
-HomeStories survey (fill this out for us to better provide more resources and opportunities for you),
-Padlet (a place to share a video-based story of yourself and start to build our network), &
-Template Lesson Plan (to start this trend and initiative of storytelling in your classrooms. This resource belongs to National Geographic. You are receiving special permission to access it. Please do not share out on social media, just with fellow educators.)How to Find out More...?
Email: executivedirector@vathespian.org
Website: https://www.vathespian.org/mission.html
Location: Winchester, VA, USA
Phone: 703-554-3416
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaThespians
Twitter: @thespians1
Need information to share about Thespians or VTF?
Here is a Festival Guide for students or new troupe directors.