Melanie Marnich News

While the theater field remains uncertain yet cautiously optimistic that 2021 will see a return to in-person performances, there is no uncertainty around the systemic inequalities that have been exposed and amplified during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic 'business as usual' will not be enough when theaters open their doors again.

The Playwrights’ Center is leaving its Franklin Avenue home in Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood and moving to 710 Raymond Ave., a location with twice the square footage.

North Coast Repertory Theatre's next conversation is with award-winning playwright Lee Blessing who penned A Walk In The Woods performed at North Coast Rep.

As with virtually all performing arts programs across the nation, Santa Fe High School's theatre department found its programming interrupted by COVID-19. Prior to spring break, rehearsals had just started for the 2020 senior show, a production of These Shining Lives by Melanie Marnich, featuring a cast of dedicated Santa Fe High School seniors. The production would have closed a season featuring William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Tina Howe's Museum, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

The Playwrights' Center is continuing its commitment to developing playwrights and new work through their Core Writers program. Seven of the country's most thrilling playwrights are joining the program. The 2020-2023 Core Writers are Sharon Bridgforth, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Andrew Rosendorf, Riti Sachdeva, Charly Evon Simpson, Crystal Skillman, and Jonathan Spector.

The McKnight Foundation and Playwrights' Center are continuing to invest in the future of theater by supporting some of today's most promising playwrights through the McKnight National Residency and Commission and McKnight Fellowships in Playwriting. The awards are all the more pertinent as many theater-makers face unprecedented challenges during this moment of crisis.

The harrowing true story of women working for a Radium Dial Company in the early 1900s is brought center stage in the Sheldon Vexler Theatre's production of THESE SHINING LIVES. Written by Melanie Marnich, this important historical play, documents the lives of four women working for the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois in the 1920s and '30s. Centering around one woman's journey in particular, the play presents the initial ignorance and eventual deceit of their employers of the painful and ultimately terminal effects of radium poisoning. The Vex's production of THESE SHINING LIVES is genuine, moving, and a true work of art that will pull at your heartstrings and leave you thinking long after the final curtain.

Playwright Gina Femia is the recipient of the 2020 William Inge Theatre Festival's Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award, which recognizes substantial early contributions to the contemporary American stage.

These Shining Lives, by Melanie Marnich, first took the stage in Baltimore in 2008. The story follows the lives of four women working in a watch factory in Illinois in the 1920s and is narrated by one of the women, Catherine. These Shining Lives is based on the true story of the Radium Girls-women who were sickened and died from radium poisoning because of their work with self-luminous paint that they used to paint watch dials.

The Shoreline Theater Academy, Kidz Konnection adult theater troupe will produce, These Shining Lives, by Melanie Marnich, September 27 and 28. This BYO fundraising event is to raise money for renovating and restoring the second level of the historic, 1801 Academy Building on the grounds of the First Church of Christ, Clinton.

HUMANITAS and LA STAGE Alliance are pleased to announce the first ever Stage Raw/PLAY LA Theater Festival Weekend, September 6-9. All events will take place at Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, Downtown L.A. 

The professional resident playwrights of Skylight Theatre Company present eleven new plays in the sixth LAb Works Festival. Since 2011 when Skylight created PlayLAb, a laboratory for LA based professional playwrights, its LA Based members have created more than 60 original new works.  The LAb Works Festival is the culmination of the most recent year's work shared as concert-style staged readings and workshop presentations.

The fourth play of Ross Valley Players 89th season is These Shining Lives which chronicles the strength and determination of women considered expendable in their day, exploring their story and its continued resonance. These Shining Lives by award-winning playwright Melanie Marnich, premiered in 2008 at Baltimore Center Stage.

The fourth play of Ross Valley Players 89th season is These Shining Lives which chronicles the strength and determination of women considered expendable in their day, exploring their story and its continued resonance. These Shining Lives by award-winning playwright Melanie Marnich, premiered in 2008 at Baltimore Center Stage.

Playwright Kara Lee Corthron is the recipient of the 2019 William Inge Theatre Festival's Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award, which recognizes substantial early contributions to the contemporary American stage.

The fourth play of Ross Valley Players 89th season is These Shining Lives which chronicles the strength and determination of women considered expendable in their day, exploring their story and its continued resonance. These Shining Lives by award-winning playwright Melanie Marnich, premiered in 2008 at Baltimore Center Stage.

A Blank stage is set to adorn a combination of a house on one side and what will soon become the work stations of the women in this production. On the projection behind the set were words written to strike a chord with incoming audience members, "If one woman were to tell the truth about her life, the world would split open." These wise words from Muriel Rukyster were the only thing standing between the audience and the works to be portrayed on the stage this night. In the program, Founder and Director Fran Powers wrote, "Directing These Shining Lives has been a project of the heart. "It is vitally important to keep honoring courageous women who sacrificed so much for others." This is the foundation of the Powerstories Theatre mission."With that the scene is set and a whirlwind 90 minutes set to no intermission was about to unfold in front of us.

Eastbound Theatre, a division of Milford Arts Council (the MAC), the second show of its 25th season, the first fully-staged Connecticut production of the These Shining Lives, by Melanie Marnich, directed by Rich Mancini.

Eastbound Theatre, a division of Milford Arts Council (the MAC), announces the second show of its 25th season, the first fully-staged Connecticut production of the These Shining Lives, by Melanie Marnich, directed by Rich Mancini.

Based on the true story of four women who worked at a factory in Illinois in the 1920s, painting watch dials to glow in the dark using a special paint made with radium. THESE SHINING LIVES, by Melanie Marnich, performs weekends January 11 - February 3, 2019 at Theatre in the Round in Minneapolis. For reservations and information, call the box office at 612-333-3010. (shown: Gillian Mueller)