Playwright Roger Q. Mason Awarded McNight Nationwide Residency

Acclaimed Black Filipinx playwright and Kilroys Checklist honoree Roger Q. Mason has been awarded the McKnight Nationwide Residency and Fee from the distinguished Playwrights’ Middle in Minneapolis, MN. Mason will journey to Minneapolis to create a brand new play, obtain growth assist, and interact with native artists and Playwrights’ Middle workers and fellows.

Mason is an award-winning author, performer and educator who makes use of the lens of historical past to disrupt the biases that divide reasonably than unite us. Whereas in Minnesota, Mason plans to develop a brand new efficiency work known as MAHOGANY HALL. The piece will have fun and look at the life and legacy of Lulu White, some of the (in)well-known madams of Storyville, the crimson gentle district of turn-of-the-century New Orleans.

“The McKnight Residency will present me with the inventive neighborhood essential to construct a mission with rigor and depth of aesthetic experimentation that’s MAHOGANY HALL,” stated playwright Roger Q. Mason. “We’re trying on the intersection of theater, historical past, sexuality, music, and neighborhood. I’ve completed vigorous analysis, ethnographic inquiry, and experiential training ideation to arrange for this second and I’m so honored to return residence to Playwrights’ Middle and write this story down so the world can see it. And we get to indicate it too on the finish, which shall be thrilling!”

“I’m so excited to welcome Roger Q. Mason to our Twin Cities creative neighborhood!” stated Playwrights’ Middle Director of Fellowship Lynde Rosario. “Whereas this Fellowship acknowledges a nationally established author based mostly exterior of Minnesota, their time with us is geared towards collaboration and community-building. From what I do know of Roger Q. Mason, collaboration and community-building are two issues they accomplish that fantastically, with a spirit of generosity and care.”

The intent of the McKnight Nationwide Residency and Fee is to assist a longtime playwright from exterior of Minnesota who demonstrates a sustained physique of labor, dedication, and distinct creative imaginative and prescient. The Recipient of the Residency and Fee will create a brand new play which shall be developed with Playwrights’ Middle by means of a collection of workshops and can culminate in a public studying of the play. Recipients is not going to be required to maneuver to Minnesota however can have alternatives to have interaction with native artists and Playwrights’ Middle workers and fellows all through their time period. One of many targets of this program is to create dialogue between Minnesota-based artists and people exterior of the neighborhood. Advantages embody: a $15,000 fee, as much as $12,250 in workshop funds to assist the event of the play, and a public studying.

Roger Q. Mason (they/them) is a author and performer who makes use of the lens of historical past to disrupt the biases that divide reasonably than unite us. Their playwriting has been seen on Broadway (Circle within the Sq. Studying Collection), Off and Off-Off-Broadway, and regionally. Mason’s World Premiere of Lavender Males was lauded by the Los Angeles Instances as “evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris and Michael R. Jackson.” They’re a recipient of the inaugural Catalyst Fellowship, awarded by the Dramatists Guild Basis, in celebrations of theater makers whose work impacts social justice and civic change by means of artwork. As a filMMAker, Mason has been acknowledged by the British Movie Institute, Lonely Wolf Worldwide Movie Pageant, SCAD Movie Pageant, AT&T Movie Award, and Atlanta Worldwide Movie Pageant. Their movies have screened within the US, UK, Poland, Brazil, and Asia. Mason holds levels from Princeton College, Middlebury Faculty, and Northwestern College. They’re a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and an alum of the Ma-Yi’s Writing Lab, Web page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group, and Major Levels Writing Cohort. Mason presently produces a memoir/cooking phase on Instagram known as Cooking with Q: A Playwrights Information to Telling My Hassle. Beforehand, they co-hosted the podcast Sister Roger’s Gayborhood and hosted This Method Out Radio’s Queerly Yours: Portraits in Braveness. Mason has served as lead mentor of The Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s Starship Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship, and the Shay Basis Fellowship. They’re presently on school at CalArts. Instagram: @rogerq.mason

Playwrights’ Middle sustains, develops, and advocates for playwrights and their work to appreciate their full creative potential. By way of the follow of inclusive theater-making, Playwrights’ Middle fosters engagement in the direction of an equitable, empathetic, and boundlessly imaginative world. The Middle serves playwrights by beginning and sustaining careers, creating new work, and connecting playwrights to theaters. Every year on the Middle, fellows and Core Writers obtain greater than $450,000 in direct assist, 70+ new performs are workshopped, playwrights join with 100 producing theaters by means of partnership packages, and over 2,500 member playwrights from all over the world discover sources to attain their creative imaginative and prescient. Since its founding in 1971, the Playwrights’ Middle has grow to be one of many nation’s most beneficiant and well-respected theater organizations, serving to launch the careers of quite a few nationally acknowledged artists akin to August Wilson, Lee Blessing, Jordan Harrison, Carlyle Brown, Craig Lucas, Jeffrey Hatcher, Melanie Marnich, Kira Obolensky, and Larissa FastHorse. Work developed by means of Middle packages has been seen nationwide on such phases as Yale Rep, Woolly Mammoth, the Guthrie, Goodman, and lots of others.

The McKnight Basis, a Minnesota-based household basis, advances a extra simply, inventive, and ample future the place folks and the planet thrive. Established in 1953, the McKnight Basis is deeply dedicated to advancing local weather options within the Midwest; constructing an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the humanities and tradition in Minnesota, neuroScience, and international meals programs.

Picture credit score: Playwright Roger Q. Mason by Bronwen Sharp