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The Martha R. Ingram Artist-in-Residence: New Work for the Theatre Fellowship
Victoria Stewart
Tennessee Repertory Theatre is pleased to announce its artist-in-residence for the 2008/09 season,accomplished playwright Victoria Stewart.
The Martha R. Ingram Artist-in-Residence: New Work for the Theatre Fellowship was created during the 2007/2008 season by company co-founder Martha R. Ingram to provide an opportunity for theatre artists to develop new theatre works while in residency at Tennessee Repertory Theatre. The program was funded for three years by a $150,000 grant from the Ingram Charitable Fund, which includes a stipend for the playwright and expenses incurred by Tennessee Rep for developmental activities in Nashville and at other regional theatres during the residency period.
After graduating cum laude from Barnard College in 1992, Stewart went on to work as a professional stage manager for seven years at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater, where she worked with David Rabe, Anne Bogart, and Peter Sellars, among others.
After making a “sudden decision” to become a playwright, Stewart got an MFA at the Iowa Playwrights Workshop in 2002, which was followed by a Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis in 2003. Other accomplishments include receiving the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights and the Norman Felton Fellowship. She has also had residences at UcrossSundance, Hedgebrook and the Donmar Warehouse. She was awarded the 2007 Francesca Primus Prize, an award for emerging women in theatre, for her play Hardball. The piece also earned her a spot as a finalist of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Most recently, Stewart became the recipient of the 2008/09 McKnight Advancement Grant at the Playwrights’ Center. Stewart’s other plays include Live Girls, Leitmotif, Nightwatches, The Last Scene and 800 Words: The Transmigration of Phillip K. Dick. Her work has been developed and performed at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, South Coast Rep, SPF, Urban Stages, Hourglass Group, Circle X, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, Jungle Theater, Commonweal Theater Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Eternal Spiral Project, Overlap Productions, Page 73, Guthrie Theater, Stage Left, and several others.
Stewart is a core member of the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, and a member of the Workhaus Collective and the Vinegar Tom Players. She also played bass in an 80s cover band.
Stewart follows in the footsteps of David Alford, Tennessee Rep’s first artist-in-residence. During the 2007/2008 season, Tennessee Rep presented a dramatic reading of Alford’s new play Clara’s Hands.