Playwriting Faculty and M.F.A. Student Publish New Works, Debut Plays

John Walch, assistant professor and head of the M.F.A. program in playwriting, and Adrienne Dawes, second-year graduate student in the Department of Theatre were both recently published in short play anthologies.

Additionally, Walch's mini-series, BrainWorks, filmed last summer is playing on PBS stations across the country and can be seen streaming free on Saint Louis PBS affiliate The Nine Network of Public Media.

Dawes's play – RUN.HIDE.FIGHT – is a dark comedy about crisis actors in a routine emergency preparedness drill disrupted by a violent, disgruntled employee. The play received its world premiere in January 2019 in New York City as part of the Fire This Time Festival, the OBIE-awarding-winning festival that offers opportunities for talented early career playwrights of African and African American descent.

"I'm grateful my play can have continued life in published form," said Dawes, adding that she is looking forward to seeing her work performed again for a live audience as soon as it is safe to do so. RUN.HIDE.FIGHT was published in "Best New Ten-Minute Plays 2020" by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, edited by Lawrence Harbison. 

Dawes' play was slated for production on the U of A campus as part of the short play program for the 2020 ArkType Festival, which was unfortunately shut down due to COVID-19.

"We need things to celebrate, and Adrienne's play being included in this well-known anthology is just fantastic," Walch said.

Walch's short-play, 2084, riffs off Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984, imagining a world-order now run by Zoom. The play was specifically written for the Zoom platform, as a part of the Launch Pad series: Alone, Together, produced by the University of California at Santa Barbara. The collection is now published by Dramatic Publishing and was edited by William Davies King. 2084 will be produced by the Department of Theatre in the upcoming ArkType New Works Festival in January of 2021.

Additionally, BrainWorks: The Theatre of Neuroscience — the four-part theatre event Walch helped create in collaboration with nationally renowned neurosurgeon-scientists Dr. Eric C. Leuthardt and Dr. Albert H. Kim, both Washington University School of Medicine specialists treating patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in Saint Louis — is now a television series after being filmed last summer as a live theatre event in Saint Louis.

This multi-platform program explores the wonders of the human brain by dramatizing real-life neurological cases to reveal the science behind brain diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, brain tumors, and stroke, with the goal of deepening the general public's understanding of vital health issues, including the connection between the brain and overall health.

The mini-series dropped over the summer and has been airing in PBS markets across the country – from New York to Los Angeles. All four episodes are currently streaming free at the Nine Network of Public Media, who produced the series in conjunction with Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University.

For the series, Walch wrote the original episode, Double Windsor, and was story editor for the entire series.