Kate Hamill is here. She is the most produced Playwright in America! You heard that right! Her adaptations of classics and her originals are done all over the world!
She is deeply passionate about creating new feminist, female-centered classics, both in new plays and in adaptation - stories that center around complicated women. Her work as a playwright celebrates theatricality, often features absurdity, and closely examines social and gender issues - as well as the timeless struggle to reconcile conscience / identity with social pressures. As an actor, she tends to play people with intense drives and desires - truth-tellers, oddballs, and misfits.
Kate was named 2017's Playwright of the Year by the Wall Street Journal. She has been one of the 10 most-produced playwrights in the country for the last 7 years running, from 2017-2024; she is now the most-produced playwright in the USA. In both 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, she wrote two of the top 10 most produced plays in the U.S.; many of her plays have been produced internationally. Future productions on the Her plays have been produced off-Broadway, at A.R.T., Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Guthrie, Hartford Stage, Portland Center Stage, Seattle Rep, PlayMaker’s Rep, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Dallas Theater Center, Folger Theatre (8 Helen Hayes Award nominations; Winner, best production), Shakespeare Theater of DC, The Alley, A.C.T., and more.
She is here to talk about her new work, she wrote and stars in, The Light and The Dark (the life and times of Artemisia Gentileschi). At the height of the Italian Renaissance, artists are reshaping the very image of humanity. Artemisia Gentileschi wants to become one of the great painters...but women are not thought capable of true artistry. With persistence and bravado she quickly establishes a groundbreaking perspective, but just as her career begins to gain momentum, a series of devastating betrayals crack the foundation of her life and art. Told through her piercing point of view, The Light and The Dark (the life and times of Artemisia Gentileschi) weaves a magnetic and empowering tapestry of art, ambition, rage, and resilience. Now at Primary Stages!
Kate’s Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice,Vanity Fair, and Little Women are published by DPS; Kate’s Emma, Dracula (a feminist revenge fantasy), and Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson, - Apt. 2B are published by TRW. She is currently working on an adaptation of The Odyssey and a Christmas play called Scrooge for Senate as well as several new original plays - including Love Poem, In The Mines (Sundance Semi-Finalist), Em (Red Bull New Play finalist), the Prostitute Play (O'Neill Semi-Finalist), The Piper (O’Neill Finalist, PlayPenn Haas Fellow play, and The Light and the Dark.
Kate is also a screenwriter and has a feature film in development at the moment… stay tuned.
For Tickets To The Light & The Dark: https://www.primarystages.org/the-light-and-the-dark
__________________________________________________________________
Check out "The Roundtable with Robert Bannon" here on BPN on the daily, on YouTube, and on social media!
For more info on Robert- www.RobertBannon.com
Follow Him on IG- @RobertMBannon
TikTok-@RobertMBannon