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1994 : 1995 : 1996 : 1997 : 1998 : 1999 : 2000 : 2001 : 2002 : 2003 : 2007 Link to WordBRIDGE 1996 Plays & Playwrights "I'm writing this at the end of one of the most successful and engaging programs I've had the privilege to participate in. Not only were the plays strong but the playwrights themselves proved an incredible group of gifted people. I was amazed at how confidently they embraced this program. Not only did their own work grow but their comments to their peers were articulate and insightful and, most importantly, delivered with compassion. The Guest Artists and Resource people were also very generous with their talents and provided an array of disciplines from which the writers could draw....This experience has left me with great enthusiasm about the future of the American Theatre. We're going to be all right. I know it now." "For two weeks, the world stops and we think about nothing but plays. We don't get paid, we don't sleep, we work too hard, we travel to a foreign land where we don't know anyone, we miss other classes, we miss our regular jobs, we spend day after day working to make each play as good as it can be. Why? Because we love it? No. Because we need it. Because we eat the stage like our food; it sustains us, it fills us. Sometimes we are hungry and we can't get enough to eat. That's the risk of being an artist. Without art, we starve. So we create this place, this WordBRIDGE, where we come and we try to pass the tray around and we feed each other because we all know it: we look in each other's eyes and we understand the need, the love, the wanting, and we do it despite the gamble that we might be hungry again an hour later." "I came to Florida with a play which I was certain I would never find the heart for rewriting or a direction in which to take it that would be challenging dramatically. But from the first day at WordBRIDGE, hearing David Kranes' Keynote speech, and throughout the next couple of weeks, I found myself inspired and encouraged, and was able to take a play which I had considered almost a dead project, and rejuvenate it in ways that I had never thought possible. WordBRIDGE provided an environment where I felt I could safely explore those inspirations and take risks to discover even more, which I might not have done otherwise. Being able to talk to the numerous and varied resource artists was incredibly invigorating...The luxury of having access to other perspectives from people who understand the process of making good theatre brings so much into a piece of work. In addition, connecting with others is a wonderful reminder and reassurance that we do not work in a vacuum, but are partly in the business of creating collaborative art within the theatre and with the community at-large." "Of all the things we need to live, theatre ranks pretty far down the list. And yet, imagine a world without it. Of all the things theatre needs to live, imagine it without new plays. Worse, imagine it without a generation of new playwrights to lead us into the next world, or next millennium. WordBRIDGE is as necessary to theatre, and the spirit of artistic endeavor, as is the Sunshine Skyway Bridge whose likeness appears on the logo: without it, all is just disconnected shorelines." "As a student writer, the opportunities I have to work with professional actors and directors are few and far between. The actors helped me through improvisation and movement to create several new scenes which now steer my play into a more compelling direction. And the dramaturg (Susan Mendelsohn) is someone I shall correspond with for many years to come, I hope. She gave me the objective insight I needed to empower myself by asking the right questions when I was ready to hear them. The result was that I did an enormous amount of rewriting and further exploration on my script which I now believe to be reasonably marketable." "Before heading down to WordBRIDGE'96, I was intrigued at the idea of working without the net of production and the impressive array of creative possibilities that the process might have in store for me. I knew that in this scenario the playwright was the focal point and not the actor. How freeing it was to improvise on material that may or may not be finished, and how gratifying to feel that one's creative work can actually aid the author in uncovering hidden aspects of character and bring them to light in the form of fresh material. My desire and expectations were exceeded, and the memory of what I believe to be remarkably fine work by all involved will never diminish. True quality never does." "I want to thank you again for the incredible WordBRIDGE experience. You have created an atmosphere where creativity, friendship, and respect thrive and that is remarkably unique. As for me, I'm not sure where I am with my play at this point. I suspect that I'm probably somewhere in the center after WordBRIDGE. I know the brief two weeks I spent with you allowed me to discover "paths" or "bridges" that all the graduate school in the world would never have taught me. WordBRIDGE is a journey of self-discovery. An opportunity to search out, not only a new and better script, but a new and better you. This process called WordBRIDGE has been more than just a journey of self-discovery for me. It has been a reaffirmation of all that I believe to be true about life. There still are good-hearted people left in this world. People who aren't out just to make a buck, but people who will sacrifice anything and everything to follow a dream. People who are willing to spend their whole lives trying to make that dream a reality, and people who love that dream so much that they will not only cultivate it in others, but also help those others to make their dreams become a reality. These are the people of WordBRIDGE. People that I am honored to call my friends." "I have learned a great deal in the last two weeks...Maybe I should begin by writing about all of the incredible people I have met, or the friends I have made, or how fortunate I was to be involved with such great plays, or how lucky I was to observe how great directors work, or how great it was to hear the responses of these incredibly intelligent people called dramaturgs, or the book I read that helped me discover what went into a play, or the helpful answers I received when asking professionals career questions, or the creativity I witnessed first-hand by everyone involved in the process, or making music with bongo drums, or watching the intense energy that would come out of a guy named Kevin, or knowing that my work was helping someone create magic, otherwise known as art, and everything else in between. I don't know if what I am writing is making sense, but I do know that my WordBRIDGE experience was a treasure that I was fortunate to discover." "So this is a final statement, something to sum up, to characterize my entire experience during the WordBRIDGE class. I suppose I should begin at the beginning, when the class began three weeks ago, but that's not really where the experience begins for me. It's much earlier than that. We always bring our past into the new. Sometimes the past and the present intertwine, issuing forth a promised future.....I came into the class with a long history of silence. Gradually my mouth is opening to speak... Words drip on the edge of the tongue.....WordBRIDGE has made theatre appealing to me again by changing its definition. It is a challenge but not a competition, a place to explore the self, not to hide it." "To me, WordBRIDGE isn't just about making the most wonderful plays in the world or making us as students fabulously famous. ...To me it's about spending endless hours fixing up before everybody gets here, and it's about spending the evening laughing with Megan(playwright) in the copy room trying to get that goofy machine to work. It's about going to A Taste of Ashes rehearsal and having a wonderfully exhausting improv because Michael and I just spent an hour yelling at each other... It's about trying to be a really good stage manager for Cathey Sawyer(director) and trying to bring Sylvia to life for Jessica(playwright). To me WordBRIDGE is about being called in at the last minute to go to the final rehearsal of Serpent God, where I find out I'm going to be dancing at the final reading without any practice and being scared out of my pants, but still willing to do it. WordBRIDGE is about...watching the playwrights bond and the professionals give us all they've got. It's about dancing like crazy...at the final party, and it's about spending Saturday night crying because everybody is gone." "I've learned to celebrate the beauty of convergence. Two weeks ago, dozens of minds from all over the continent united in Bininger Theatre lobby. Their energy felt overpowering and intimidating. How could I, an Eckerd College theatre student, hold my own against these heavy-weights? By the end of the first day, my defenses were down. From the playwright to the director to the dramaturg to the resource artists to the actor flies an exchange of ideas. Watching this synthesis, I learned the value of my own opinion.....What have I learned at WordBRIDGE? It is not an easy question--at least it does not have an easy answer. Some of the lessons have hit me over the head like a blunt instrument, daring me to ignore them. Some of the lessons resonate so deeply in my heart, they burn." |