News
|
January-February 2024 Bess is thrilled that she'll be in residency as a guest director at the University of Michigan, her alma mater, to workshop her musical adaptation of Pippin: Her Life and Times. |
|
|
September 2023 Bess directed a public staged reading of Bad Things by Shara Feit at the Dramatists Guild's Mary Rodgers Room. |
|
|
July-August 2023 Bess returned for a second summer teaching Screenwriting as part of the Pre-College Program at Barnard College. |
|
|
April 2023 In personal news, Bess spent the spring planning and celebrating her wedding! |
|
|
February 2023 Bess spoke with hosts Hannah Joyce and Alayna Jacqueline on the Playwrights Center's Theatre Begins podcast. |
|
|
January 2023 Bess proudly joined the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. |
|
|
August-September 2022 Bess associate directed Clyde's at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, under the direction of Kate Whoriskey. |
|
|
July 2022 Bess taught Screenwriting as part of the Pre-College Program at Barnard College. |
|
|
June 2022 After over four years, Bess stepped away as Lynn Nottage's assistant, to focus on her work as a playwright, director, and television writer. Her last day was Lynn's record-breaking evening at the 2022 Tony Awards. |
|
|
May 2022 Bess was chosen as a finalist for the 2022 Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, and for the 2022 Drama League's Beatrice Terry Residency. |
|
|
October-November 2021 Bess assisted Lynn Nottage on her Broadway production of Clyde's, produced by Second Stage at the Helen Hayes Theater. |
|
|
March 3, 2020 Bess began rehearsals as assistant director of Assassins at Classic Stage Company, before the pandemic shutdown. |
|
|
March 2, 2020
The German Party received a public reading at Asolo Repertory Theater in Sarasota, Florida. |
|
|
December 15, 2019 In Bess' first semester as Co-Director and Head of Playwriting, the playwriting and producing students of CreateHER presented their end-of-year performance. |
|
|
September 6, 2019 2076 was a finalist in the Columbia @ Roundabout 2019 Reading Series. |
|
|
May 22, 2019 Bess graduated from Columbia University with her MFA in Playwriting. |
|
|
May 9-11, 2019 Bess' MFA thesis project, The Visitors, received a staged reading at the Signature Theater. |
|
|
April-June, 2019 Bess assisted Lynn Nottage on the world premiere of her musical adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees at the Atlantic Theater. |
|
|
October 2018 2076 was a finalist for the Playwrights Realm’s 2018-2019 Fellowship. |
|
|
August 2018 Bess was accepted into the 2018-2019 Manhattan Theatre Club Directing Fellowship. |
|
|
Summer 2018 Episodes of the podcast, Feminist Popcorn, became available every two weeks. Bess co-hosted with Samantha Rehr, celebrating and analyzing films about women. |
|
|
February – May 2018 Bess assisted Lynn Nottage on the world premiere of her play Mlima’s Tale at the Public Theater. |
|
|
February 2-3, 2018 Bess wrote and directed 2076 as her second-year MFA Playwriting project at Columbia’s School of the Arts. |
|
|
August-September, 2017 Neuroclear (formerly, Much Better) received a developmental production with the Really-Really Theatre Group in Seattle. |
|
|
July 2017 Bess worked on the Dramatic Writing faculty at the Broadway for All Summer Conservatory. |
|
|
June 2017
The German Party was a finalist in the Columbia @ Roundabout 2017 Reading Series. |
|
|
April 29, 2017
Bess' one-act, Shelter, was awarded the 2017 Bill Broyles Award for Drama, presented by the American Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. Bess received this award in Virginia at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, where there is now an engraved brick with her name and the name of her play outside the museum. |
|
|
April 25, 2017 A Snow Leopard in Central Park received a staged reading at Columbia University. |
|
|
October 29, 2016
& May 23, 2016 There were two public staged readings of The German Party this year, starring a majority of the same cast in both performances. One reading was at Columbia University; and one was at Pearl Studios. |
|
|
September 2016 Bess began studying for her MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University. |
|
|
April 21-22, 2016 Bess co-directed a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring the students of East Harlem Tutorial Program’s Middle School Drama Class. |
|
|
April 1-10, 2016 Bess' play Jerusalem is Beautiful was produced by Porch Light Productions in Glen Rock, New Jersey. |
|