The 10th annual retreat, a collaboration between the Sundance Institute and Wyoming's Ucross Foundation, offers five playwrights and two composers the opportunity to create and develop new works for the stage. Sundance at Ucross runs Feb. 2-22.
Guettel, who is also the composer of Floyd Collins and Myths and Hymns, returns to the Ucross retreat where initial work on The Light in the Piazza was completed.
Joining Guettel are composer Todd Almond (People Like Us, We Have Always Lived in the Castle), Obie winning playwright Amlin Gray (How I Got That Story, Ubu Unchained), Rajiv Joseph (All This Intimacy, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Animals Out of Paper), Elliot Norton Award winner Melinda Lopez (Sonia Flew, God Smells like a Roast Pig), Obie-winner Robert O'Hara (In the Continuum, Insurrection: Holding History) and GLAAD Award winner Kate Moira Ryan (The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, 25 Questions For A Jewish Mother).
"The Sundance Institute Playwrights Retreat at Ucross in Wyoming offers artists an environment to begin new work, refine works-in-progress, or simply time to contemplate new ideas," said Sundance Institute Theatre Program producing artistic director Philip Himberg in a statement. "The playwrights and composers selected for this year's residency are given 'dream time,' without any pressures from Sundance to produce a product. The Sundance/Ucross collaboration, now in year ten, has proven to be an extremely valuable asset to Sundance identified writers and composers. Artists need this unstructured support time, far from their usual urban environments. "
Participants are provided with transportation, lodging and meals, as well as writing studios in which to work. Located on a 22,000-acre working cattle ranch at the westernmost edge of the Great Plains, the Ucross Foundation was founded in 1981 and has awarded Fellowships to over 1,000 writers and artist in all disciplines from around the world. The Sundance Theatre Program is a program of the Sundance Institute. Through its developmental activities, the Program "identifies and assists emerging theatre artists, contributes to the creative growth of established artists, and encourages and supports the development of new work for the stage."
