News & Events
updates
March, 2012. Pollyanna Theatre Company has a new upgraded website. I am more and more in love with WordPress. Andrew Perry has taken up the reins for the Pattern Nation series, and I'm pleased as can be about that, he's a terrific fun writer. It's great to see a story have a life beyond your imagination, and I'm flattered that it's strong enough to keep going on its own.
February, 2012. Finally finished the second draft of my novel, now called Tower Loves Moon. It's about the daughter of a college professor who wants to be an astronaut. I think I found a satisfying ending. I've started sending out queries and collecting rejections.
January, 2012. I had an article, New Media as Performance, published on HowlRound. And, I'm starting graduate school. You can read more about that at my new blog, Old Stories, New Media.
September, 2011. A short article reflecting on my time teaching, Did I Help My Students—or Not? published in the e-zine Talking Writing. Started a new project, Emily’s New Play Daily, a way to aggregate new play information on the web. Also did The Playwrights' Binge this month, for the first time in many years. Thanks for the challenge and the structure, Patrick Gabridge!
August, 2011. Added some material to the Open Play Archive. Come and take a look at some of my full length plays online for FREE, or buy print on demand copies, if you prefer, and have them shipped to your door.
July, 2011. Working on Pattern Nation Waves for Pollyanna Theatre Company.
January, 2011. Working on the texts for an anthology of 5 plays that were written for Pollyanna Theatre Company over the past 8 years: A Christmas Rose, A Dragon's Happy Day, Community Helpers on Wheels, Duckie Sees the World, and Just Bee. Judy has done a very flattering introduction, which explains a lot about our creative process and how these particular plays came to life. It also includes some writing prompts if you and/or your students want to write your own play! We're looking forward to seeing these scripts together in print, and hope this will help some additional productions by other Theatres for Young Audiences happen. Unfortunately, I've had to cut back on my volunteer work with the Austin Creative Alliance for personal reasons, but there is a terrific and energized new board of directors, and I'm confident that my friend and Executive Director Latifah Taormina's long-term efforts and vision of creating a focal point and catalyst for Austin's unique creative sector will be fully realized in the months to come.
November, 2010. Couldn't be more pleased that Judy Matetzschk-Campbell won Outstanding Director of Youth Theatre in the 2010 B. Iden Payne Awards for Just Bee. We had three other nominations, and this was a terrific and well deserved win for my favorite director. We're all still so proud of the show, in any case, and thinking of ways to continue the "buzz."
October, 2010. There's a nice overhaul of the Pollyanna Theatre Company website, and we're moving forward with building and transforming the Austin Creative Alliance according to the CreateAustin Master Plan. These groups hold very deep importance in terms of serving other people through the arts: happy smiles from children watching the former, happy artists and creatives and general audiences from the other. Combined efforts should add up to a higher, more beautiful quality of life for a large number of people locally and beyond.
August/September, 2010. Had what was probably the best theatrical production of my career so far of Just Bee at the Long Center for the Performing Arts, August 12-16. Such a great cast, beautiful design, perfect sound...and the best director I know. Just you watch: we're going to spread this honey around like wildfire!
February, 2010. Working on the new play for Pollyanna: Just Bee. It's a lot, lot, lot harder to write than I thought it was going to be. I gotta make these queen bees really sting!
January, 2010. The PATTERN NATION DVD is released! Buy your copy today!
December, 2009. Drumroll, please: I finished a draft of a novel. I really enjoyed writing it. More when I figure out what to do next.
November, 2009. The ICWP Mother/Daughter Monologues are released. Proceeds benefit the International Centre for Women Playwrights.
June/July 2009. Had a fabulous run of Pattern Nation at the lovely Long Center for the Performing Arts. Looking forward to completing the ICWP Mother/Daughter Monologue Project, a series of 4 volumes of monologues relecting the Mother/Daughter experience: Babes and Beginnings, Thirtysomethings, Mid-Life Catharsis, and Urgent Maturity. I've been a member, off and on, of this organization since the mid 1990's. It's amazing to have a sense of other women writers over an extended period of time: particularly now that Emily Sands, a student of Steven Levitt's (Freakonomics), has revealed new evidence that women playwrights face special obstacles in the marketplace. My deepest respect and warmest thanks to everyone there for their camaraderie over the years.
February 2009. In revisions for the PATTERN NATION direct to DVD script that The Pollyanna Theatre Company is shooting in April. So happy to be working again with the beautiful and talented (and talented in creating beauty) Ia Ensterä-Layadi and can't wait to see what she comes up with for the animation!
August 2008. Duckie Sees the World is opening at by The Pollyanna Theatre Company.
In 1992, a cargo shipment of toy rubber ducks from Hong Kong was lost in the Pacific Ocean. For the next eleven years, the ducks floated around the world's oceans, washing up on unexpected shores. This real event comes to life in a delightful new play by Emily Cicchini, following one special duckie on a search across the Arctic to find a kid to love. Appropriate for audiences ages 5 and up.
Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd. Austin TX
Weekdays, August 7, 8, 11 and 12 at 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
Saturday, August 9 at 2:00 p.m. and Sunday, August 10 at 2:00 p.m.
Tickets: $5.00 and up: call 512-743-7966 or e-mail Judy Matetzschk-Campbell
December 2007. Happily writing a book tentatively titled "Arts In Action: Launching A Successful Arts Education Program." About half way done right now. It's like butter.
Fall 2007. Starting work on Duckie Sees the World for production in Summer 2008. Been wanting to write this since I first heard about the real rubber ducks who are mapping the world.
August 2007. More Patterns, our sequel to 2005's Patterns, was presented by The Pollyanna Theatre Company at The Dougherty Arts Center, August 9 - 14 2007 and is touring schools through Spring 2008. We're having much fun with Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow as they learn the patterns of school and play.
Early/mid 2007. Working on revising a lot of material and getting some submissions out the door. Been getting more involved with The International Centre for Women Playwrights.
Looking forward to another Pollyanna Theatre Company production, working title More Patterns: The Repeat with my dear friend Judy Matetzschk-Campbell. Check out all her good work with The Pollyanna Theatre.
2006 was the year that I sold my first screenplay, Young Beowulf. Also, a short play I wrote for middle school actors, Like A Metaphor, won the Everyday Heroes award and the Dramatic Developments award, and I had a totally lovely experience with Lynda Sharpe and the students of Middleton High School with In The Middle Of It All.
Went to CineStory in California Fall 2005 to work on Eliza's Ferry. But perhaps the highlight was getting to screen the short animated film I did with my good young friend Dylan, Joe in a Pickle, to an audience of "industry professionals."
My 3 minute personal essay Sometimes, Abortion Saves was featured Public Radio International's Primary Sources, including stations: WNYC/New York Public Radio, WGBH Radio Boston, WHYY/Philadelphia, WAMU/Washington, D.C., KERA/Dallas, WCPN/Cleveland, and KCRW/Los Angeles, Spring, 2005.
The Pollyanna Theatre Company and Ballet Austin's Trail of Tears: Walking the Choctaw Road, which I adapted from the book by storyteller Tim Tingle, published by Cinco Puntos Press, premiered January 22 of 2005 at the Texas School for the Deaf to a standing ovation! It is slated to tour to Corpus Christi and Oklahoma between Feb and May, and then returned for a tour in the Spring of 2006. Tim's book was named the official State book of Oklahoma. He's a great and true storyteller.
The Pollyanna Theatre Company presented a staged reading of Sarah Who Saved Thanksgiving October 29 & 30, 2004 at the Dougherty Arts Center. After a week long workshop where thirty or so pages were re-written and songs were added and thrown out, the response to the "sing-through" was very positive: one audience member called it "A Christmas Carol for Thanksgiving!" and that rather sums it all up.
© 2005-2012 Emily Cicchini | Design by Andreas Viklund | words into wine