Wega Arts director to discuss American playwrights
Kathy Fehl will present “American Playwrights” at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12.
Her program is hosted by Winchester Academy of Waupaca as part of its Fall 2020 speaker series.
This free program is the first in a series of four that will be virtual. It will not be held at the Waupaca Area Public Library as in the past, due to the coronavirus.
The broadcast can be heard on WILW 96.3 FM or viewed on WIN-TV, Facebook Live or YouTube. Viewers can visit www.winchesterwaupaca.org for a hotlink to the program.
Questions to the speaker may be submitted via Facebook or phoned in to 715-942-9917 during the program.
Fehl’s program will focus on the process of moving from writer to produced playwright. Looking at several writers’ lives, she will discuss the obstacles they overcame on the way to production and success.
Playwrights will include Eugene O’Neill, Clifford Odets, Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepard, August Wilson and John Guare.
Plays are markers of the preoccupations of the American public. Though plays tell the story of a small group of people, the wider society is a large factor in each piece of theater.
Fehl will look at some of the institutions that foster new material and how the intersection of regional theaters and the New York stage has changed.
Fehl is artistic director of the Weyauwega Arts Organization. Its mission is to create new works in theater and film.
She studied theater with Lee Strasberg, one the of the founders of Actors Studio, and worked with Geraldine Page for several years. She has met and worked with many other actors, directors and playwrights.
Fourteen of her plays were produced in small theaters in Manhattan, and she has directed both new and classic works.
Winchester Academy programs expenses are funded through tax deductibble donations and sponsors. Fehl’s program is sponsored by John Gusmer.