1994 : 1995 : 1996 : 1997 : 1998 : 1999 : 2000 : 2001 : 2002 : 2003 : 2007

Link to company quotes from WORDBRIDGE '02

Another remarkable WORDBRIDGE: remarkable in that the 2002 playwrights included three returning writers (one for the third time!) among the seven gifted writers at the Lab; the Tribute to Playwrights featured a WB 2000 script called DIANALOGUES.; Another former 2000 playwright returned to the lab as a Guest Artist and a sixth returning playwright was brought in to attend a reading of his 2001 script at American Stage where eight WORDBRIDGE scripts were featured in the theatre's New Visions 2002 season AND... Southern Theatre magazine featured WORDBRIDGE in a four page cover story in its Spring issue.

Remarkable too was The Tribute To Playwrights performance, featuring nine illustrious WB Guest Artists, by WB '00 playwright, Laurel Haines. Two roles were filled by local WB alumni who stepped in to save the day after last minute cancellations by Johnny Phillips and Kimberly Scott. The WB'02 company totaled 59 artists (45 returning) including 11 students, two new Guest Artists and one new Resource Artist. Resource Artists enriched the lab with movement classes, mask work, original music composed for plays and workshops in clowning, improvisation, and risk taking. The Company heard readings from a new novel by David Kranes and a play by K.C. Davis commissioned for Greenbrier Valley Theatre.  Killing Women by Marisa Wegrzyn was selected for Fall production by the Eckerd College Theatre Troupe - directed by Ellen Graham.

WordBRIDGE Company 2002
(click on photo to enlarge)

 Athena
Athena is on her last legs, a storm is brewing, and everyone is gathered around Casper and Holly's barbecue grill with cheap charcoal, hostility and frustration. Where will the lightning strike?

Lucia Del Vecchio graduated from Hollins University in 1998 with a BA in Theatre Arts. She will graduate in May with an MFA in Theatre Arts/Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. Her play MAN & WIFE was workshopped at WORDBRIDGE '00. She has had two productions at the University of Texas; Bethlehem in April '01 as part of the New Works Festival, and theevolutionofwoman in November 2001 as part of the UT theatre season.

Savage
There is a thin line between civilized and Savage. When one man crosses that line, all inhibition disappears, and his standard life, with its standard job and standard dreams, descends into chaos.

Shawn Overton is the author of more than forty plays, most being of the ten-minute and one-act varieties. Savage is his fourth full-length play, and he is currently working on two others, a historical drama about the first Islamic Jihad, and a musical about synastesia. Shawn has won multiple awards for both his acting and writing, and is currently enmeshed in the MFA playwriting program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Besides his school work, Shawn is also currently serving as literary manager for The Asylum, a small Las Vegas Theatre that specializes in new play development and production.

Lions Lost in Translation
Investigates a single day in the life of a literature professor as he attempts to deal with the news of his wife’s serious illness. It is written as if it had been purposely and ineptly translated from English to another (unspecified) language-and then translated back from that language into English.

Erik Ramsey shares teaching duties with Charles Smith in the Ohio University MFA Playwriting Program and is also head of BFA playwriting. His plays have been produced around the country, and several of his short works have been published by Samuel French and Dramatic Publishing, and in 2002 the Orange County Weekly praised his play Exploded View (originally workshopped at WORDBRIDGE in 1996) as a "dazzlingly smart, powerful and off-center diagram of life... far and away the best small theater production of the year" in the Los Angeles area. As a professional new play dramaturg he has consulted on the development of a number of award winning plays -- most recently Julie Jensen's Dust Eaters, nominated by the American Theatre Critics Association for best new play produced outside New York in 2005, and one of four finalists for the PEN USA 2006 Literary Awards for Drama. He is Vice Chair for the New Play Programming for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (Region III), and his two textbooks, "The Art of Theatre: Then and Now," and "Experiencing The Art of Theatre" have recently been published by Thomson/Wadsworth (2006).

Ken's Last Day
Takes place on a western construction site, sometime in the early 1970's. Two brickmasons and a laborer work, converse and interact on a hot summer Friday afternoon. Ken, one of the masons, has been employed laying brick all his life and is finally retiring at the end of that work day.

Joseph Sorenson is a native Utahn, born number five of nine siblings. Following high school graduation (1972) he tried college for one semester and hated it very much. He just wanted to get married, get a job and make some money! Building construction offered a living wage (two-fifty an hour) and an open sky over his head, so he entered the ranks as a lowly hod carrier and found that it suited him very well. Twenty five years later Joseph felt the urge to try school again. He was working for the USU carpenter shop and felt compelled to take an occasional class since it was so convenient. Eventually he accumulated enough credits that it seemed silly not to finish up, so he gritted his teeth (still hated school) and committed to getting a degree. Ken's Last Day is one of the fruits of this midlife growth spurt.

Killing Women
A dark comedy about hit-women in the workplace. The boss is retiring and Abby is gunning to replace him. Who will she have to kill to prove her
worth?

Marisa Wegrzyn is a junior at Washington University in St Louis, MO. She was a 2001 WORDBRIDGE playwright. Killing Women was workshopped in November with Dramaturg/Playwrights Carter Lewis and Julie Jensen and will be produced by Washington University's Performing Arts Department this April as winner of the A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Prize. Her WB'01 play POLAR BEARS ON US 41 was performed as part of the Eckerd College Theatre season last April.

Scribble
Follows the life of Carl Long, an awkward man who has a gift of speed reading and total recall that perplexes him and amazes others. When Carl becomes the most successful contestant on a popular quiz show, he finds the attention hard to deal with and longs for someone to understand and connect with him. Scribble is a profound look at what happens when people fail to see what is behind the cover.

Jeff White is a recent graduate of the University of Tulsa with a B.A. in Theatre where he studied acting, playwriting, and lighting design. Jeff’s play Scribble was produced in September 2001 at TU and was entered into the American College Theatre Festival. His monologue, THE CURSE OF THE NICE GUY, will be published in a collection entitled MONOLOGUES FOR MEN BY MEN edited by Michael Wright and Gary Garrison. Jeff’s credits as an actor include roles in BASH, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN BODIES GROWS GREATER EVERY DAY , WIT, THE WAY OF THE WORLD, RASHOMON, OUR TOWN, MISALLIANCE, EQUUS, THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, COMEDY OF ERRORS, and THE WAITING ROOM. Jeff, also a guitar player, has written and performed songs for the educational television show HeadJam produced in Tulsa, Ok.

Subway Connection
A comedy outlining the differences between the sexes and the meaning of life. It ultimately raises the question, what is really in that bag?

Yasmine Wilt is a Freshman at Eckerd College. She lives approximately 855 feet from Bininger Theatre in Zeta Complex, Hendersen dorm, where she revises and tweaks her writing. Yasmine is a theatre and writing major and is hoping to pursue a career in playwriting.