February 9–12, 2017
Leeds Theatre Lobby
Hosted by Diane Exavier ’17 MFA and Carlos Sirah ’17 MFA
Presented as part of Writing is Live 2017
Writing Is REALLY Live! was an experimental programming series in connection with the Writing Is Live 2017 festival. Between readings and workshops, audiences were invited into spaces of encounter: moments where people and new writing meet each other.
Over refreshments, under floral canopies, and aboard ships, hosts Exavier and Sirah invited us to join them and dive into the questions: What are we writing? How are we living? How live is writing, really?
Where We Welcome
Thursday, February 9
9:30–10:30pm
Meet the MFA playwrights, directors, and actors and discover more about Writing Is Live.
Where The Ferry… And The Utterances Meet
Friday, February 10
7–7:45pm
Beth Nixon’s The Ferry to the Isle of Wight encounters Carlos Sirah’s The Utterances.
Where Residue and Good Blood Meet
Saturday, February 11, 12:45–1:30pm
Kyla Searle’s Residue encounters Diane Exavier’s Good Blood.
Where Sometimes The Rain… And Honour Meet
Sunday, February 12, 12:45–1:30pm
Julia Izumi’s Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea encounters Maurice Decaul’s Honour.
Where We Open
Sunday, February 12, 3:45–4:30pm
The space opened up for creative offerings from the greater Writing Is Live community of actors, directors, and perhaps even the audience!
Diane Exavier ’17 MFA writes, makes, thinks a lot, and laughs even more. She creates public programs, games, and experiments alongside her plays that challenge the traditional role of the audience. She invites viewers to participate in the active realization of a theater that rejects passive reception. Her work has been presented at New Urban Arts, Todo Bajo Control (Providence), West Chicago City Museum, and in New York: Bowery Poetry Club, Dixon Place, Independent Curators International, and more. Diane is a three-time recipient of the Roland Wood Fellowship for Theater Studies from Amherst College.
Carlos Sirah ’17 MFA is a performer and writer. His work encounters exile, rupture, and migrations. His theatre pieces include: Notes on a Second Saeta and The Red Book Sessions. His work has been performed and shown at Poet’s House, Nuyorican Café, KGB, The Wild Project, ICP, and the National Black Theatre Festival. Sirah has developed work at Vermont Studio Center, Haystack Mountain School, The Hambidge Center, and the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences. He is a facilitator and serves on the steering committee of Warrior Writers, a community of veterans who make art.
