John Walch

ND Activity

• Board of Directors

  Board of Directors

  Each fiscal year four current resident playwrights are appointed to the Board of Directors by the Writers' Executive Committee. The playwright board members enjoy full voting and decision-making powers minus the financial requirements of non-playwright directors. They provide a valuable and artist-centered perspective on the governance of New Dramatists.

• Composer-Librettist Studio

  Composer-Librettist Studio

  Our annual Composer-Librettist Studio focuses simultaneously on music-theatre development and the principles of collaboration, teaming five writers with five composers and five performers to develop brand-new works of musical theatre. At the end of the Studio, each playwright has worked with each composer and 25 new music-theatre pieces have been created by the group.

• Lippmann Family "New Frontier" Award

  Lippmann Family "New Frontier" Award

  Created as a memorial to the late John Lippmann, a much-loved and respected New Dramatists board member, the Lippmann Family "New Frontier" Award seeks to assist playwrights in opening up new frontiers of the imagination, through travel and adventure.

• Loewe Award

  Loewe Award

  The Frederick Loewe Award is an annual award (selected by an outside committee) in music-theatre given to a New Dramatists playwright and his/her composer partner for the development of a new music-theatre work.

• Nocturnal Commissions

  Nocturnal Commissions

  Nocturnal Commissions is a marathon evening of instant theatre, New Dramatists style. First, the opportunity to commission new plays by New Dramatists resident and alumni playwrights is auctioned to the highest bidder; second, the writer and their winning bidder meet for a lightning-fast commission; third, each writer has about 20 minutes to create a new short theatre piece, monologue, or song; fourth, the plays are rehearsed upstairs while the audience has dinner downstairs; and last, all the evening's commissioned pieces are presented by a first-rate company of actors and directors.

• Pen & Swill

  Pen & Swill

  Pen & Swill is a catch-all phrase for events designed to stimulate discussion among the resident playwright company on artistic and professional issues. Some are private-just for resident writers-most are open to the public, and they almost always include drinks and snacks.

• Writers' Executive Committee

  Writers' Executive Committee

  The Writers' Executive Committee is a voluntary grouping of resident playwrights who meet throughout the year to discuss and make decisions concerning the work of New Dramatists and to help guide the organization.