NPX Recommend-a-thon

NPX Recommend-a-thon

The June Recommend-a-thon will be held on site at the LMDA Conference in Kansas City. If technology permits, we will offer a Zoom option for participants who are unable to make it to this year’s conference. Stay tuned for more information as the conference nears!

This event is a co-work session intended to build community among dramaturgs as we advocate for playwrights and new work by writing robust and intentional recommendations on the New Play Exchange. It offers the opportunity to block off two hours on your calendar to devote to the specific task, whether you are exploring NPX as a beginner, searching and browsing for plays to recommend, or ready to write up recommendations for plays you have already identified. We hope you'll join us! 

(This event is open to LMDA members and non-members, but we encourage you to join LMDA or renew your membership!)

The goals of the upcoming event are to advocate for playwrights and new work, and to build community among dramaturgs. It also offers us the chance to block out time on our calendars to dedicate to the impactful work of engaging and uplifting artists on NPX. We know how everyone’s day can fill up with email and other tasks – this event asks you to mark off 2 hours exclusively for NPX. You’ll be amazed at what you can get done in a few short hours!

This idea for this initiative arose during Gwydion Suilebhan’s presentation at the LMDA Conference in Banff, with multiple contributors later adding suggestions and refinements during our on-site Advocacy Committee meeting. Because the Banff conference aligned with the summer solstice and encouraged us to think about our relationships with land, we decided we would attempt to hold these events four times a year, to mark these important dates in the Earth’s revolution around the Sun. 

We will come together as a dramaturgical community on Zoom and take two hours together to uplift the work of playwrights we admire by individually writing recommendations. We will convene as a group at the beginning and the end of our session to share our experiences. We will also follow up with a short survey so that we can refine and expand the experience for future iterations.

Sign up here!

All are welcome! Please share with your dramaturgically minded friends! If you are an NPX aficionado, great! If you have just now heard of the NPX, great! And if you are somewhere in the middle, great! We will set up different ways of engaging to meet the needs of everyone in the Zoom Room. You might come with a list of scripts you are ready to recommend, or you might spend the time searching for scripts that interest you. 

To participate, you will need to have your own NPX subscription account, available for a nominal annual fee. A limited number of LMDA members can receive a coupon code for this; contact Lindsey Barr (admin@lmda.org) if you are a member interested in this option!

The session will be loosely structured as follows:

  • Introductions: We continue the LMDA practice of welcoming everyone into the room with a quick and fun prompt. (20 minutes)
  • Best practices for NPX presentation by Lynde Rosario. (10 minutes)
  • First working session: We divide into selected groups. Each person will state their intention for the first working session. Then it’s cameras off, mute buttons on, and everyone works independently for 30 minutes. 
  • Second working session: Still in our selected groups, each person briefly shares how their session went and states a new intention. Cameras off, mute buttons on, and another 30 minute session. 
  • Reflections: We come back to the full group to share reflections and responses. (30 minutes)

Proposed Groups:

  • Introductory: This is a group for folks who want to learn more about the NPX, set up their reader profiles, and learn how to navigate the system. 
  • Searchers and Browsers: This is a group for folks who want to seek out new plays. For example, they might use this time to identify a set of scripts to read later, or to find a script to read during the working session. 
  • Recommenders: This group will have specific scripts in mind to recommend, or can browse to find scripts they may have already read, heard, or seen. They will spend the bulk of the time writing and posting recommendation(s). 

Past NPX Recommend-a-thons:

Sign up here!

Questions? Email advocacy@lmda.org

Bios:

Karen Jean (KJ) Martinson is VP of Advocacy for LMDA and Assistant Professor of Dramaturgy at Arizona State University. Current projects include working as Project Dramaturg for the original devised piece of physical theatre, Anthropocene, which opens November 3 at the Galvin Playhouse on the ASU campus and finishing her monograph Make the Dream Real: World Building Through Performance by El Vez, The Mexican Elvis. 

Dan Smith serves on the Advocacy Committee of LMDA and is Associate Professor of Theatre and Interim Head of Theatre Studies and Management at Michigan State University. He recently completed terms as Editor of Theatre/Practice and Focus Group Representative for ATHE’s Dramaturgy Focus Group. Current projects include dramaturging a new play development workshop at MSU and finishing his monograph, Dramaturgies of Translation: Collaboration, Culture, and Critique. 

Tags: 
Programs

User login