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Meet the Reading Scheme Artistic Team:

Author:   

Cari​dad Svich is a US Latina playwright, translator, lyricist and editor. She received the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for her play The House of the Spirits, based on the novel by Isabel Allende. Her works have been presented across the US and abroad at diverse venues, including Denver Center Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Repertorio Espanol, 59East59, McCarren Park Pool, 7 Stages, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Teatro Mori (Santiago, Chile), ARTheater (Cologne), and Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. She has been short-listed for the PEN Award in Drama three times, including in the year 2010 for her play Instructions for Breathing. Among her key works:12 Ophelias, Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man's Blues, Any Place But Here, Iphigenia...a rave fableFugitive Pieces, In the Time of the Butterflies (based on Julia Alvarez’s novel), Magnificent Waste, and the multimedia collaboration The Booth Variations. She was recently profiled in American Theatre magazine. She has edited several books on theatre including Trans-Global Readings and Theatre in Crisis? (both for Manchester University Press) and Divine Fire (BackStage Books). She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance & press, associate editor of Routledge/UK's Contemporary Theatre Review, Drama Editor of literary journal Asymptote(www.asymptotejournal.com) and contributing editor of TheatreForum. She holds an MFA in Theatre-Playwriting from UCSD. Website: http://www.caridadsvich.com

Dramaturg:

Heather Helinsky received her MFA in Dramaturgy from the American Repertory Theatre/MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. At the American Repertory Theater, she dramaturged for directors Robert Woodruff, Krystian Lupa, Scott Zigler, Marcus Stern, and Sasha Marin. In season 2008-2009, she worked as Resident Dramaturg at Pittsburgh Public Theater, where she organized events for the celebration of the final play of the August Wilson Cycle as well as the premiere of Edgerton grant play Harry's Friendly Service. In season 2009-2010, she worked with director Austin Pendleton on Terrence McNally's new play Golden Age at Philadelphia Theatre Company. Heather is dedicated to developing new American plays and reads for organizations like Sundance Theatre Lab, Great Plains Theatre Conference, PlayPenn and many others. Nationally, she has been developing new plays with Constance Congdon, Caridad Svich, Tom Gibbons, Toni Press-Coffman, Rob Zellers, Ellen Struve, and Matthew Ivan Bennett. She has been a member of LMDA since 2006. Website: www.helinskydramaturgy.com

Assistant Dramaturg:  

R. Alex Davis graduated in 2009 from Bard College with a B.A. in Playwriting. His thesis play, Endless Carnations, was produced at Bard and directed by Claudia Zelevanksy. Alex is a founding member of Rogue Company, a division of Raleigh-based BARE Theater, dedicated to the performance of classical texts. As an actor, he has also performed the works of Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Brecht, and others in numerous theatrical productions. In 2010, Alex co-produced a festival of plays by Jean Genet, including his own adaptation of Genet's Deathwatch, at Triskelion Arts in BrooklynMost recently, he worked as a production assistant on Phillip Glass and Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach. Other recent projects include the solo performance Schizocity, a devised-theater adaptation of Zachary Mason's Lost Books of the Odyssey, and a dance piece entitled BOYS. Alex currently lives in Brooklyn.

Photo courtesy of the US Coast Guard