Grand Concourse Symposium moderated by Heidi Schreck

Video on demand is not available for this event. 

Playwrights Horizons presented the Grand Concourse Symposium on Saturday 15 November where playwright Heidi Schreck moderates a panel featuring  Annie Baker, Sister Nancy Chiarello, and Angela Alaimo O’Donnell livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Saturday 15 November at 21:00 GMT (London) / 4 p.m. EST (New York) / 3 p.m. CST (Austin) / 1 p.m. PST (Vancouver). In Twitter, use #howlround to chat. Follow @PHNYC and @HowlRoundTV for updates. 

The Symposium Series was inaugurated to explore the work we produce in a greater cultural context. Supplementing our regularly-programmed series of post-performance discussions—which provide opportunities for our audiences to engage with our playwrights—Symposium events allow writers to lead a conversation with a panel of unique experts to address topics surrounding their work. This season, we continue the tradition in the hope of extending the conversations elicited by our productions beyond the stage and into the community.

About the panel: 

Heidi Schreck (Moderator) is a playwright and two-time Obie Award-winning actor. Her first play Creature was produced in New York in by New Georges and Page 73 in a well-received production directed by Leigh Silverman; her second There Are No More Big Secrets, directed by Kip Fagan, premiered at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, and was a  New York Magazine and Time Out New York’s Critic’s pick. Most recently, The Long Wharf produced her dark recession-era comedy, The Consultant, which was developed at Playwrights and also directed by Fagan. A former Page 73 Playwriting Fellow and Sundance artist, Heidi is currently working on commissions for South Coast Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan Foundation, and True Love Productions. Grand Concourse marks her return to Playwrights Horizons after appearing as an actor in Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation (Theatre World Award) in 2010. She has also performed extensively at theatres such as The Public (Shakespeare in the Park), Manhattan Theatre Club, Two-Headed Calf, The Foundry, Clubbed Thumb, The Women’s Project, The Roundabout, Williamstown, Berkeley Rep and Center Theatre Group. On television, Heidi has appeared on "The Good Wife," "SVU," and Showtimes' "Nurse Jackie," where she has also worked as a writer. Heidi is Playwrights Horizons’ first Tow Foundation playwright in residence.

Annie Baker's (Panelist) full-length plays include The Flick (Playwrights Horizons, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Obie Award for Playwriting), Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons, Obie Award for Best New American Play, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Aliens (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Obie Award for Best New American Play), Body Awareness (Atlantic Theater Company, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play/Emerging Playwright), and an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, for which she also designed the costumes (Soho Rep). Her plays have been produced outside of NYC at South Coast Rep, the Guthrie, Victory Gardens, Artists Rep, Huntington Theater Company, Seattle Rep, Studio Theatre in DC, Hyde Park Theatre, Kansas City Rep, Marin Theater Company, A Red Orchid, and over 100 other theatres across the country. Her work has also been produced internationally in England, Australia, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, Latvia, and Russia. She is a member of New Dramatists, MCC’s Playwrights Coalition and EST, and she is an alumna of Youngblood, Ars Nova’s Play Group and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Recent honors include a residency at the Signature Theater, USA Artists Fellowship, New York Drama Critics Circle Award, Lilly Award, Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship, Yaddo fellowship, and a Master Artist Residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. A published anthology of her work, The Vermont Plays, is available from TCG books.

Sister Nancy Chiarello (Panelist) runs The Dwelling Place of New York City, founded in 1977 by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, NY. In the spirit of St. Francis, The Dwelling Place provides food, shelter and support to homeless women. Each resident is welcomed with love and respect regardless of their race, religious beliefs or sexual orientation. The 15-bed transitional shelter has helped thousands of women build healthy, independent lives. 

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell (Panelist) is a poet and professor at Fordham University in New York City where she teaches English, Creative Writing, and American Catholic Studies. She also serves as Associate Director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. O’Donnell is the author of 5 books of poems. Her most recent book of poems, Waking My Mother, a collection of elegies focused on the relationships between mothers and daughters, was published by Word Press in Fall 2013. Her previous book, Saint Sinatra & Other Poems (May 2011), has been nominated for the Arlin G. Meyer Prize in Imaginative Writing.

About HowlRound TV

HowlRound TV is a global, commons-based peer produced, open access livestreaming and video archive project stewarded by the nonprofit HowlRound. HowlRound TV is a free and shared resource for live conversations and performances relevant to the world's performing arts and cultural fields. Its mission is to break geographic isolation, promote resource sharing, and to develop our knowledge commons collectively. Participate in a community of peer organizations revolutionizing the flow of information, knowledge, and access in our field by becoming a producer and co-producing with us. Learn more by going to our participate page. For any other queries, email [email protected], or call Vijay Mathew at +1 917.686.3185 Signal/WhatsApp. View the video archiveof past events.