Jessica Huang Named 4 Seasons Residency Playwright
BY AMERICAN THEATRE EDITORS
PUBLISHED IN AMERICAN THEATRE ON OCTOBER 2, 2019
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Playwright Jessica Huang has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the 4 Seasons Residency. In collaboration with National New Play Network (NNPN), four organizations will collaborate in supporting Huang over the course of a year. The participating institutions are the National Winter Playwrights Retreat in Creede, Colo.; Ignition Arts in Oklahoma City, Okla.; Seven Devils Playwrights Conference in McCall, Idaho; and Tofte Lake Center in Ely, Minn.
The 4 Seasons Residency’s mission is to support writers who are examining the American experience in their work. The program is committed to investing in diverse voices and giving time and space to writers who will add to the canon of meaningful roles for women.
Huang’s year-long residency will begin in winter of 2020, and the experience will culminate with NNPN’s Showcase of New Plays.
“It’s an honor to be the inaugural 4 Seasons resident and I look forward to creating new work about climate change, women’s rights, and Asian American history with the support and collaboration of HBMG, Ignition Arts, Seven Devils, and Tofte Lake Center,” said Huang in a statement. “Over the years, I have been lucky to receive several opportunities to work on my plays with the support of retreat centers; these periods of stillness and deep creative focus have been instrumental in focusing, reenergizing, and inspiring complexity and deep honesty in my work. I am overwhelmed by the abundance of the 4 Seasons Residency—four distinct and beautiful suspended moments to think, explore, and encourage new work to arise from the quiet.”
Huang’s works include The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin (History Theatre commission & premiere, 2017 Kilroy’s List, 2018 Barry and Bernice Stavis Award), Purple Cloud (Mu Performing Arts premiere), and Transmissions in Advance of the Second Great Dying (Mixed Blood Theater commission). She has commissions with Manhattan Theatre Club, TimeLine Theatre Company, Theater Masters, History Theatre, and Theater Mu. Her work has been developed, commissioned, and/or produced by Atlantic Theater Company, New York Theatre Workshop, the New Group, New York Stage and Film, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, and the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists, among others. She is a MacDowell Fellow, two-time Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow, and Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow, and has received awards from the Sloan Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council/McKnight. Huang co-founded and co-directs Other Tiger Productions. She has been a member of the Civilians R&D Group, and is a member of Two River Theater Emerging Playwrights Group, Ars Nova Play Group, Page 73’s Interstate 73, and is the 2019 resident playwright at Chance Theater. She attends the Playwrights Program at Juilliard.