Nashville Repertory Theater's Ingram New Works Festival—Simply Bess—Bianca Sams—Tues, May 12, 2015
Channel: HowlRound Theatre Commons
Date: 2015-05-13

Nashville Repertory Theatre’s Ingram New Works Festival presents the latest new plays born from our Ingram New Works Project’s playwrights lab livestreaming on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on May 11, 12, 15, and 16.

The Ingram New Works Festival is a celebration of new work born and fostered in our Ingram New Works Project under the care and guidance of Nashville Rep’s Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland and our 2014-15 Ingram New Works Fellow, Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Margulies. The Fest presents staged readings of each new work from our lab playwrights featuring our fantastic Nashville actors. Each reading will be followed by a talkback, bringing the audience right into the conversations about these new plays!

Tuesday, May 12 at 5pm PDT (Los Angeles) / 7pm CDT (Chicago) / 8pm EDT (New York)
Simply Bess by Bianca Sams
Simply Bess follows a young African American actress trying to make a name for herself. We see her backstage trials and tribulations on the 1950s European tour of Porgy and Bess, sponsored by the American State Department as a way to combat communist propaganda about racial problems in the United States.
 
About the Playwright

Bianca Sams is an Actor/Writer hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her plays are lyrical investigations of found stories out of today's headlines or the pages of history that ask audiences to face their own complex love affair with misery. She recently finished her MFA in playwriting at Ohio University. She received her BFA from New York University's Tisch School, where she earned the distinction of being Tisch's first ever Triple Major (Acting, Dramatic Writing, Africana Studies). Awards and honors include KCACTF Lorraine Hansberry (2nd place), Rosa Parks Award (2nd place), Kennedy Center/Eugene O’Neill New Play Conference fellow, Jane Chambers Student Playwright Award/Athe (2nd Place 2013 & 2014), Scott McPherson Award, The Playwright Center Core Apprentice (2014), Playwright Foundation BAPF (finalist), Eugene O’Neill NPC (semi-finalist), TRI Research Fellowship at Ohio State University, and T. S. Eliot Acting Fellowship. For more information and samples of her work, please visit biancasams.com.

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