Women Working with Clay Exhibit
2024-05-30 12:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
In conjunction with the annual Women Working with Clay Symposium held each summer at Hollins University, the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum presents an exhibition of work by well-known artists in the world of contemporary ceramics. This symposium emphasizes the creative process from every level while looking at aspects and points of view that may be unique to women working in clay. Exhibit through July 21.

Museum hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12-5 pm, Thursday 12-8 pm (closed Mondays)

Picture Book Trends: A Curated Reading Workshop
2024-06-03 00:00 - 2024-06-07 23:59 | Hollins University Campus, 7916 Williamson Road, Roanoke, VA, 24020, United States
Are you a parent, teacher, or librarian overwhelmed by the prospect of picking out the best new picture books for your young readers? Are you a creator who needs to stay on top of today’s picture book marketplace? If so, let Elizabeth lead you on a curated reading journey.

Over the course of five days, Dr. e, will guide you through the picture book submissions for the annual Margaret Wise Brown Prize, identifying current themes and trends, and pointing out the written and visual tricks that make them popular, successful, and beloved. By the end of the week, you will have a solid grasp of the current picture book landscape to better prepare you to recommend books to others or create them yourself.

INSTRUCTOR:

Elizabeth “e” Dulemba, Ph.D., director, Graduate Programs in Children’s Literature and Illustration at Hollins

To learn more about each workshop and register, visit hollins.edu/childrenslit-workshops.

QUESTIONS? Contact the graduate programs office at (540) 362-6257 or hugrad@hollins.edu.

Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop
2024-06-09 00:00 - 2024-06-13 23:59 | Hollins University Campus, 7916 Williamson Road, Roanoke, VA, 24020, United States
Since 2005, Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop has nurtured and empowered over 750 writers. Intimate and inspiring workshops encourage participants to fuel their passion and transform their writing. Both virtual and in-person options allow you to participate and learn in the format that works best for you. Join a workshop and leave with a new manuscript, or with new ideas for your existing work. Over 20% of participants have attended Tinker Mountain Writers more than once. Why don’t you join them and see how TMWW can help you create something great?

Women Working with Clay
2024-06-10 00:00 - 2024-06-13 23:59 | Hollins University Campus, 7916 Williamson Road, Roanoke, VA, 24020, United States
Women Working with Clay Symposium is about women who work with clay to create pottery, art vessels and sculpture, and whatever point of view may come with that distinction. It explores the connections of the long history of women in cultures all over the world as vessel makers, artists, and artisans. The symposium is a three-day event that starts with an opening reception and presenter exhibition at the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, followed by a keynote address that sets the tone for the event. Activities include demonstrations by presenters, a presentation of attendee works, a small object exchange, and a closing reception and dinner.

M.F.A. Dance @ the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum
2024-06-13 00:00 - 2024-06-14 23:59 | Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
Corpus Mirabilis: The Life and Practices of St. Catherine of Siena and the Recentering of Female Agency and Play in Performance as Resistance.

Thesis Performance and Installation by M.F.A. Dance Graduate Student Melissa Miller

Eleanor D. Wilson Museum – Hollins Campus

Free Admission

Thursday, June 13, 2024 – Live Performance

7:30 pm

Friday, June 14 – June 28, 2024 – Exhibition

Tuesday – Sunday, 12- 5 pm

Thursday – 12-8 pm

Corpus Mirabilis: The Life and Practices of St. Catherine of Siena and the Recentering of Female Agency and Play in Performance as Resistance centers around the life and death of Catherine Benincasa: a 14th-century Italian Tertiary Dominican, mystic, influential writer and leader, and eventual saint, in the European Catholic Church. Saint Catherine of Siena’s faith practice included a dedication to mortification of the flesh, practitioners of which believed they should subdue desires, which are at war with their soul, by means of self-inflicted suffering. She began her practice of self-harm at the age of eight, culminating in her death via self-imposed starvation at 33. Not considered suicide by the church leaders of the time, her death was recorded instead as succumbing to pious fasting and called, posthumously, anorexia “mirabilis,” Latin for “wonderful.” Looking at her life and death will be my point of entry for discussing animosity toward the female body in, but not restricted to, high-control Western religious environments. Exploring how these attitudes toward women have been internalized and propagated has urgency for everybody, female or otherwise.

M.F.A. Dance Performance 1
2024-06-15 20:00 - 21:00 | Hollins Theatre
M.F.A. Dance Performance I

Free admission

M.F.A. Dance Performance I features a collection of original work in performance and/or choreography by current M.F.A. dance candidates. As part of the thesis capstone research project, performance and dance work featured in this concert highlight a diverse approach to contemporary dance practices, research, and making.

DRAFTWORKS: A Studio Salon
2024-06-16 19:00 - 22:00 | Botetourt, Studio II
DRAFTWORKS is a dance department and M.F.A. dance event inaugurated during fall 2005 and spring 2006. The platform was designed to provide a space for intimate, nontraditional, radical, often-times explicit performance work to be shared with the dance department community and guests. DRAFTWORKS: A Studio Salon was designed to challenge makers and witnesses to consider options for making and presenting work that do not have to subscribe to traditional/conventional forms, genre categorizations, and notions of final dances (dance show). M.F.A. Dance Year Residency graduate students, Paris NGai Gray, Sarah Lunceford, and Katy Womack will share their most recent and vibrant work-in-progress in this informal studio setting.

BOT Studio I

BOT Studio II

Informal Showing #1, 7 pm

Informal Showing #2, 8:45 pm

Free admission

Sports Camp for Girls (Ages 7-14)
2024-06-17 00:00 - 2024-06-20 23:59 | Hollins University Campus, 7916 Williamson Road, Roanoke, VA, 24020, United States
6/17/24 – 6/20/24; 9 am – 12 pm

Registration ends on 6/13/24 at 11:59 PM

Fees

Athletics Summer Camp $99

About this Course

Let your daughter spend a week with Hollins University learning a wide variety of sports including basketball, volleyball, tennis, soccer, lacrosse, rock climbing, and swimming. Each day campers will experience two different sports where they will be instructed on the basics of the sport from university coaches. This camp is perfect for allowing your daughter to experience a wide variety of sports from positive female role models.

https://www.roanokecountyparks.com/293/Summer-Camps

Artist Talk I: Laura Halm Hamilton
2024-06-18 20:00 - 21:00 | Frances Niederer Auditorium, Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
Laura Halm Hamilton is a dance artist from Baltimore, MD. A 2002 graduate of the Juilliard School, she is well versed in Eurocentric forms of concert dance that span a range of classical, modern, and contemporary techniques. As a company member with Hubbard Street 2, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and the Ballett des Saarländischen Staatstheater in Saarbrücken, Germany, she has performed in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Over the course of her eclectic performing career, she has been honored to perform masterworks by choreographers Michel Fokine, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, José Limón, Paul Taylor, Alonzo King, Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Nacho Duato, Johan Inger, Aszure Barton, Robert Battle, Stijn Celis, Sharon Eyal, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Marguerite Donlon, Nanine Linning, Ayman Harper, Doug Varone, Lou Conte, Martin Chaix, Alejandro Cerrudo, and Reginald Yates, among many others. For the 2017-18 season, she was the choreography assistant and rehearsal director for Dance Company Nanine Linning in Heidelberg, Germany, where she also performed as a guest soloist in Linning’s DUSK. From 2018 until 2022, she returned to her alma mater to serve as the dance department head at the Baltimore School for the Arts, a public performing arts high school. She is currently teaching contemporary ballet as an adjunct lecturer at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. Laura embarked on her most enriching creative collaboration when she gave birth in November 2022.

Artist Talk II: Daniel Rodriguez
2024-06-20 20:00 - 21:00 | Frances Niederer Auditorium, Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
Daniel Rodriguez was born in New York, NY. He began his dance training at the non-for-profit National Dance Institute. Through the National Dance Institute, he was given a scholarship to begin his formal ballet training at Ballet Academy East. He finished his ballet training at the Manhattan Youth Ballet and LaGuardia High School, the latter of which awarded him the Jacques D’Amboise award for Exceptional Male Dancer upon graduation. He began his professional career at The North Carolina Dance Theater (now Charlotte Ballet) and has since danced for Sarasota Ballet, Dayton Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, and the Nashville Ballet. He has performed a diverse range of repertory including works choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, Jiri Kylian, Justin Peck, George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton, Jermaine Spivey, and Paul Vasterling.

Julie Benbassat Gallery Opening
2024-06-21 18:30 - 19:30 | Frances Niederer Auditorium, Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
Benbassat is an award-winning illustrator and painter based in Philadelphia. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019, she has gone on to amass a range of clients in editorial, publishing, games, and animation. Her work delights in the eccentricities and wonders of the natural world, indulges in the fantastical, mixes narrative and portraiture, and highlights the bridge between the cute and the horrific.

In spare moments, she relishes reading sassy nonfiction, plein air painting on cloudy days, and watching bad (but good) horror movies. www.juliebenbassat.com

Followed by a book signing in the lobby. Sponsored by the graduate programs in children’s literature. Online: https://hollins.zoom.us/j/9154582283?omn=84139553380

No Shame Theatre
2024-06-21 23:00 - 2024-06-22 00:30 | Hollins Theatre
No Shame Theatre is an experiential performance lab where writers, performers, and audience are constantly changing roles. Anything can happen and usually does in this late night venue for original work. We take the first 15 pieces to walk in the door and there are only three rules: pieces must be original (no copyright violations), short (five minutes or less), and not break anything (including the law). Inside those rules you can do pretty much anything you’re interested in trying in front of a live audience–plays, monologues, songs, dance, poetry, mime, juggling, comedy, tragedy, Improvisation, dada, magic–we’ve even seen people do floral arrangements! Pieces are accepted starting at 10 pm, doors open at 10:30 pm, and the show starts at 11 pm, running on average an hour and a half.

Unified Auditions 2024
2024-06-22 00:00 - 2024-06-23 23:59 | Mill Mountain Theatre, 1 Market Square SE, Roanoke, VA, 24011, United States
Unified Local Auditions will be held this year at Mill Mountain Theatre’s Waldron Stage on June 22 from 12 to 5 pm and June 23 from 1 to 5 pm.

You MUST reserve an audition slot in advance. All Hollins Playwrights Festival casting will be done from these auditions, so in order to be part of that casting pool, you MUST audition. Representatives from local theatres have also been invited to attend for their own casting purposes or to widen their pool of actors. This year, we have representatives from Virginia Children’s Theatre, Exit Pursued by a Bear, and Attic Productions. In the past, we’ve also had representatives from Mill Mountain Theatre, Off The Rails, and Showtimers! Contact Gwyneth Strope (stropegm1@hollins.edu) if you’re interested in representing an organization.

If you would like to audition, prepare a one-minute contemporary monologue (from 1950 to now) that is either comedic or dramatic. Though preferred, you do not have to be memorized. Email us to request a five- minute slot. You may request a time, but in order to have the audition run as efficiently as possible, we will also be assigning times based on availability.

Send your request for an audition slot to Gwyneth Strope (stropegm1@hollins.edu). Please put UNIFIED AUDITIONS in the subject line.

Unless specifically indicated that you would prefer not to be, all auditioners will be listed on the Roanoke Actors and Directors Facebook Page to help facilitate casting of local actors by area theatres throughout the year. Everyone who auditions will also be photographed on the day of the audition by our archive photographer, so that we have both your photograph and a record of what you looked like on the day of the audition.

All requests for audition slots must be received no later than June 12!

If you have any other questions or don’t have email and would still like to audition, please call Gwyneth Strope, the Hollins Theatre producing manager at 540-362-6313. Actors who audition will be entered into our database and may be contacted to be readers or performers in all of our summer events, including lab readings and Overnight Sensations.

M.F.A. Dance Performance II
2024-06-22 20:00 - 21:00 | Hollins Theatre
M.F.A. Dance Performance II features a collection of original work in performance and/or choreography by current M.F.A. dance candidates. As part of the thesis capstone research project, performance and dance work featured in this concert highlight a diverse approach to contemporary dance practices, research, and making.

Playwright’s Lab Monday Night Guest Speaker: Cheryl Graeff
2024-06-24 19:30 - 20:30 | Mill Mountain Theatre, 1 Market Square SE, Roanoke, VA, 24011, United States
Each Monday night on the Waldron Stage of Mill Mountain Theatre, the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University presents a talk by a prominent working professional theatre artist. This week’s guest is:

CHERYL GRAEFF – FACULTY, GUEST SPEAKER, AND FESTIVAL RESPONDENT

Graeff is a proud member of Actor’s Equity and SAG-AFTRA has toured throughout the UK and performed at acclaimed theatres including Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Theater, Court Theatre, Goodman Theatre, American Theater Company, Kansas City Repertory, Milwaukee Repertory, and The Kennedy Center.

Graeff, a three-time Irene Ryan Regional winner, received her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa where she began teaching actors and continues working with talent of all ages and abilities both privately and at schools including Northwestern University, Columbia College Chicago, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Washington State University, Vagabond School of the Arts, Governors State University, Theater of Western Springs, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Chicago Public Schools.

Graeff is committed to new play development and has been in premier productions including Appropriate by Branden Jacob-Jenkins, Speech and Debate by Stephen Karam, The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter, and I Put the Fear of Mexico in ’em by Matthew Paul Olmos.

Producing work includes the international award-winning TV pilot, The Resentful Angel, as the principal role which now streams on Amazon Prime, internationally recognized web series, It’s You, which she wrote and stars in streaming on Twisted Mirror TV, and featured podcast on SiriusXM Radio: Friends I’m No Longer Friends With.

Mill Mountain Theatre, Waldron Stage

Artist Talk III: Edgar Page
2024-06-25 20:00 - 21:00 | Frances Niederer Auditorium, Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
Detroit native, Edgar L. Page comes from legacies celebrating the African Diaspora and Black Modern Dance traditions. He graduated from Cass Technical High School, furthering his studies at the Alvin Ailey School, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, and others before earning a B.A. in dance from Western Michigan University as a Wade H. McCree, Jr. Incentive Scholar and a Martin Luther King Jr. Diversity Scholar. Upon graduation, he spent a season with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Second Company before joining the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble (CPRD). During his time with CPRD, he toured domestically and internationally as a principal dancer and served as choreographer, dramaturg, Trainin’ Group director, dance lecturer, and director of the CPRD Academy. Page was featured in the 2021 YouTube Originals Black History Month program, Black Renaissance: the Art and Soul of Our Stories, and his accolades include: the 2021 Denver Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture for Innovation; 2020-22 Redline Contemporary Art Center artist-in-residence; 2020 S*PARK artist-in-residence; 2020 Dance/USA Institute for leadership training mentee; City of Denver cultural partner; 2018 Creativity Connects Fellow; Next Stage NOW artist; 2018 Presenting Denver Dance Festival’s Audience Favorite Award; and the 2019 Readers’ Choice for Best Artist in the Top of the Town Awards presented by 5280 Magazine. Page is a 2023 Alex Dube Scholar who serves as assistant professorship of dance at Grand Valley State University, and gains nourishment as a cofacilitator with the Intercultural Leadership Institute and a National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron Fellow in the Creative Administrative Research Program.

Location change to: Niederer Auditorium, Wetherill Visual Arts Center

Book Launch Party
2024-06-26 18:30 - 19:30 | Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center, Room 119
As part of our Alumni Retreat, we will celebrate new book releases by our program alumni and faculty. A slideshow of all books published (or to be published) in 2024 will be presented with short talks by attending creators. The talk will be followed by a group book signing.

Book Launch, Wednesday, June 26, 6:30 pm, Wetherill Visual Arts Center, Room 119; book signing in lobby. Sponsored by the graduate programs in children’s literature. Online: https://hollins.zoom.us/j/9154582283?omn=84139553380

Lab Readings: "Twenty Something Teenager" by David Veatch
2024-06-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Hollins Theatre
Each Wednesday evening, as part of the course Playwright’s Lab, an early draft of a student written play is presented in an orchestra style reading. July 3, 10, 17, 24

#1: Twenty Something Teenager by David Veatch

Theatre, Upstairs Studio

2024 Children’s Literature Writer-in-Residence and Symposium Keynote Speaker, Mitali Perkins
2024-06-27 19:00 - 20:00 | Frances Niederer Auditorium, Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
Born in Kolkata, India, Perkins lived in Ghana, Cameroon, England, and Mexico before her parents settled in California when she was in middle school. She is the author of many award-winning picture books and novels for young readers, including Rickshaw Girl, which was adapted into a film. She’s also written a nonfiction book for adults about children’s literature, Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children’s Novels to Refresh our Tired Souls. Her newest releases are a picture book, Holy Night and Little Star, and a middle-grade novel, Hope in the Valley. Perkins lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. mitaliperkins.com

Lecture, Thursday, June 27, 7 pm. Niederer Auditorium, Wetherill Visual Arts Center and online. Email kidlit@hollins.edu for link. Sponsored by the graduate programs in children’s literature. Online: https://hollins.zoom.us/j/9154582283?omn=84139553380

No Shame Theatre
2024-06-28 23:00 - 2024-06-29 00:30, 2024-07-05 23:00 - 2024-07-06 00:30 | Hollins Theatre
No Shame Theatre is an experiential performance lab where writers, performers and audience are constantly changing roles. Anything can happen and usually does in this late night venue for original work. We take the first 15 pieces to walk in the door and there are only three rules: pieces must be original (no copyright violations), short (five minutes or less), and not break anything (including the law). Inside those rules you can do pretty much anything you’re interested in trying in front of a live audience–plays, monologues, songs, dance, poetry, mime, juggling, comedy, tragedy, Improvisation, dada, magic–we’ve even seen people do floral arrangements! Pieces are accepted starting at 10 pm, doors open at 10:30 pm, and the show starts at 11 pm, running on average an hour and a half.

M.F.A. Dance Performance III / Mobile Tour
2024-06-29 00:00 - 23:59 | Hollins University Campus, 7916 Williamson Road, Roanoke, VA, 24020, United States
M.F.A. Dance Performance III features a collection of original work in performance and/or choreography by current M.F.A. dance candidates in alternative-site locations on and around the Hollins campus. As part of the thesis capstone research project, performance and dance work featured in this concert highlight a diverse approach to contemporary dance practices, research, and making.

Various Sites – Hollins Campus

Start Time to be listed at later date: https://www.hollins.edu/programs/dance-m-f-a/.

Playwright’s Lab Monday Night Guest Speaker: Nicholas Piper
2024-07-01 19:30 - 20:30 | Mill Mountain Theatre, 1 Market Square SE, Roanoke, VA, 24011, United States
Each Monday night on the Waldron Stage of Mill Mountain Theatre, the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins presents a talk by a prominent working professional theatre artist. This week’s guest is:

NICHOLAS PIPER: GUEST SPEAKER

Piper is the associate artistic director of Barter Theatre in charge of new play development as well as a director and founding member of Barter’s Resident Acting Company. As the director of Barter’s Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights, he has helped develop dozens of new Appalachian plays that have gone on to full production at Barter as well as theatres across the country. He was recently awarded the AAME award for outstanding contribution to the arts in the region.

Mill Mountain Theatre, Waldron Stage

Matt Faulkner: Chalk Talk
2024-07-03 18:30 - 19:30 | Frances Niederer Auditorium, Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
Award winning children’s book author and illustrator Matt Faulkner has over 35 books to his credit. His graphic novel Gaijin: American Prisoner of War, won the American Library Association Asian/Pacific Best Children’s Book Award. His most recent graphic novel, My Nest of Silence has won wide acclaim: “Deftly combining the personal and historical, Faulkner alchemizes his extended family’s past into magnificent, essential testimony.” ― Booklist, Starred Review. Faulkner has taught a variety of subjects at undergraduate and graduate level illustration programs. He is married to Kristen Remenar, author of Groundhog’s Dilemma and Squirrel Needs a Break, both illustrated by Faulkner. www.mattfaulkner.com

Lecture, Wednesday, July 3, 6:30 pm, Niederer Auditorium, Wetherill Visual Arts Center, followed by a book signing in the lobby. Sponsored by the graduate programs in children’s literature. Online: https://hollins.zoom.us/j/9154582283?omn=84139553380

Lab Reading: "Anamnesis" by Michael Tobin
2024-07-03 19:00 - 20:30 | Hollins Theatre
Each Wednesday evening, as part of the course Playwright’s Lab, an early draft of a student written play is presented in an orchestra style reading. July 10, 17, 24

#2: Anamnesis by Michael Tobin

Theatre, Upstairs Studio

Overnight Sensations
2024-07-06 08:00 - 22:30 | Hollins Theatre
Since 2006, Hollins University’s Playwright’s Lab and Mill Mountain Theatre have partnered to bring this popular event to Roanoke. Six playwrights are randomly paired with six directors, who are then draw from a hat one of six casts made up of six actors. Then they draw random prompts to find out what the genre, theme, and location will be. The writers write all night, share their work with the director over breakfast and make revisions, then they share the plays with the actors at 11 am over lunch, and rehearse from noon to 5 pm, when they do a cue to cue, set levels, and open the doors for the audience at 7:30 pm, Saturday night, so that we can share what we’ve done with all of you!

This year, as last year, we’ll be doing this jointly produced event of the Hollins-Mill Mountain Theatre Partnership on the main stage of the Hollins University Theatre. Join us, won’t you?

Always FREE and open to the public! No tickets or reservations necessary.

Hollins University Girls Basketball Camp (Ages 7-13)
2024-07-08 00:00 - 2024-07-11 23:59 | Hollins University Campus, 7916 Williamson Road, Roanoke, VA, 24020, United States
7/08/24 – 7/11/24; 9 am – 12 pm

Fees

Athletics Summer Camp $99

About this Course

Does your daughter love basketball or have aspirations to play middle school basketball? If so, we provide the perfect opportunity for them to spend a week with Hollins University basketball staff honing the skills they will need to play organized basketball. Campers will be instructed on the basics of shooting, dribbling, and defending with special attention paid to proper fundamentals.

https://www.roanokecountyparks.com/293/Summer-Camps

James Ransome, Award-winning Illustrator Talk
2024-07-08 18:30 - 19:30 | Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center, Room 119
Ransome has been honored with the 2023 Children’s Literature Legacy Award by the American Library Association in recognition of his exceptional contributions to children’s literature. With a career spanning over 33 years, Ransome has illustrated more than 70 books. His passion for drawing began in Rich Square, NC, and as a teenager, he moved to Bergenfield, NJ, before pursuing a B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Ransome’s remarkable talent has garnered him numerous accolades, including the prestigious Coretta Scott King Awards, ALA Notables, a Jane Addams Award, and NAACP Image awards. He resides in New York. https://jamesransome.com

Lecture, Monday, July 8, 6:30 pm, Wetherill Visual Arts Center, Room 119, followed by book signing in lobby. Sponsored by the graduate programs in children’s literature. Online: https://hollins.zoom.us/j/9154582283?omn=84139553380

Playwright’s Lab Monday Night Guest Speaker: Ruth Margraff
2024-07-08 19:30 - 20:30 | Mill Mountain Theatre, 1 Market Square SE, Roanoke, VA, 24011, United States
Each Monday night on the Waldron Stage of Mill Mountain Theatre, the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins presents a talk by a prominent working professional theatre artist. This week’s guest is:

RUTH MARGRAFF – FACULTY, GUEST SPEAKER, AND FESTIVAL RESPONDENT

Margraff has been called a leader in the American avant-garde for her “audaciously original” (Moscow Times) use of language that provides “layer after layer of richly textured emotion…and imminent danger” (Dallas Morning News). Critically acclaimed for writing martial arts operas Deadly She-Wolf… and a Voice of the Dragon trilogy with the late composer Fred Ho for the Apollo, Guggenheim Museum, LaMama, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and a commercially successful tour with Columbia Arts Management, Inc., to 33 cities in 2003 with support from ICM Artists and the World Music Institute. Margraff’s “Night Wind from Afghanistan” for the play Seven, began touring the world in 2008 introduced by designer Diane von Furstenberg, and in 2010 by Hillary Clinton with Meryl Streep at the Broadway Hudson Theater. Seven has been translated into more than 20 languages and performed in 32 countries.

Margraff has received awards from Rockefeller, McKnight, Jerome, NEA, TCG, TMUNY, NYSCA, IAC, Fulbright foundations, and is also published by Innova Records, Dramatists Play Service, American Theatre, Theater Forum, Performing Arts Journal, Playscripts, Inc., Backstage Books, Autonomedia, New Village Press, NoPassport Press, and Lexington Books/Roman & Littlefield. She is a member of Theater Without Borders, League of Professional Theater Women, Red Tape Theater, a New Dramatist and Playwrights’ Center alumna, a Chicago Dramatist playwright emeritus, and professor of playwriting/writing as art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, represented by the Samara Harris Literary Agency (NYC).

Mill Mountain Theatre, Waldron Stage

Lesa Cline Ransome, Award-winning Author Talk
2024-07-10 18:30 - 19:30 | Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center, Room 119
Cline Ransome is the acclaimed author of numerous award-winning picture books, including a verse biography of Harriet Tubman, Before She Was Harriet, and her debut middle-grade novel, Finding Langston, winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and a Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. Cline Ransome’s debut Young Adult novel, For Lamb, is based in Jim Crow Mississippi. A MacDowell Fellow and 2022 NAIBA Legacy recipient, she has received numerous honors and awards including the NAACP Award, Kirkus Best Book, New York Public Library Best Book, SLJ Best Book, ALA Notable, CBC Choice Awards, two Top 10 Sports Books for Youth, and an Orbis Pictus Recommended Book. She is currently an SCBWI Advisory Council member and host of KidLitTV’s Past Present: Giving Past Stories New Life.

Lecture, Wednesday, July 10, 6:30 pm, Wetherill Visual Arts Center, Room 119, followed by a book signing in the lobby. Sponsored by the graduate programs in children’s literature. Online: https://hollins.zoom.us/j/9154582283?omn=84139553380
