Playwright Stephen Karam '02 will leave the American College Theater Festival at the Kennedy Center with a prestigious Musical Theatre Award and a Eugene O’Neill Theater Fellowship
When the Brownbrokers mounted its production of the original musical comedy "Emma" last fall, little did anyone guess that within a few short months the show would grace a national stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Yet on April 27 a theater troupe from Brown will perform a concert version of this modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s comic masterpiece on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage as part of the annual Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival. And playwright Stephen Karam ’02 will leave the weekend festival with its prestigious Musical Theatre Award and a Eugene O’Neill Theater Fellowship for his work. (The performance will be simulcast on the web beginning at 6 p.m.)
Karam, who’s spending this semester at Oxford, will collect a $3,000 prize with the Musical Theatre Award — $1,000 for the music, $1,000 for the lyrics and another $1,000 for the book for "Emma." Brown’s Theater Department will receive $1,000 for producing the play. The second award will enable Karam to attend the Eugene O’Neill Musical Theater Conference in Waterford, Conn., in August. There he’ll spend two weeks observing and working with established playwrights and lyricists.
That’s a group Karam could soon join, given the reviews he and his play are getting. After its run at Brown in early December, the Brown troupe was invited to perform a concert version of "Emma" at the New England College Theater Festival in New Hampshire. It was there that Gregg Henry, artistic director for the KC/ACTF, saw the play and invited Karam and his crew to this month’s national festival in Washington to perform an hour-long version on April 27, as well as a 20-minute segment during the festival’s closing ceremony April 29.
"The more I learn about Stephen, the more impressed I am," said Henry. "I’m struck by how smart this is and how very funny it is. And the music is very good; it’s very sophisticated. I haven’t read such a smart book to a musical in a long time."
Kate Snodgrass, the producing director of Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott's Boston Playwrights' Theatre at Boston University and the artistic director of the Boston Theater Marathon, was the adjudicator for "Emma" for the Musical Theater Award. She was equally impressed with Karam’s play, its direction by Darius Pierce ’01 and its cast.
"I’ve seen many, many college productions of new works in the past eight years working with KC/ACTF…‘Emma’ was among the best college productions I’ve seen anywhere, not only because the actors and direction were impeccable, but because the script led them to those wonderful performances," said Snodgrass. "Stephen is a gifted writer/composer [who deals] with fully-drawn characters who jump off the page into reality. There is warmth and humor throughout the play, allowing us to care about these people, and there is a structural integrity to the drama that I found striking in so young a writer.
"Stephen is ‘the real thing,’ and it was a joy to see his vision come alive."
While Brown has won ACTF awards in past years, this is the first time a University entry has taken the top musical theater honor, according to theater Professor John Emigh. Having the opportunity to perform during the festival’s closing will give Karam and company valuable exposure, as many agents and directors attend that final session, he noted.
Karam already has had numerous requests for the script of "Emma" from theaters considering productions for their seasons. They’ve been pouring in since the curtain rose in Stuart Theatre in December.
"I still am unsure how [these theaters] got wind of a musical that went on in Providence, but it happened somehow," Karam said. One of those requests came from the Eugene O’Neill Festival organizers; they’re considering the show for the summer workshops Karam will now be able to attend.
With modesty he added, "It’s been a busy couple of months."
(The April 27 performance of "Emma" at the Kennedy Center will be simulcast live on the World Wide Web at 6 p.m.)