Playwrights of Color, check it out!

I got this e-mail through my website:

I found your site through the theatre blogosphere (Flux Ensemble Theatre and Tarhearted). I'm working on a project you might find interesting. This is it: http://rvcbard.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-im-doing-now-forming-playwrights.html. The vision of the group is nearly identical to 13P (http://www.13p.org/), but with the emphasis on producing works by new writers of color. The idea is to use our shared passion for theater and our status as Othered to empower us when it comes to gathering resources and reaching out to potential audiences and creative partners. We're committed to giving people theatre by and about us that challenges what people assume we stand for and/or are interested in. This will not be just another reading group. We want performances of our work. Rather than sitting around submitting our plays to all these places and waiting for other people to decide our work is worth doing, we're going to do it ourselves. We will definitely read each other's work. However, our feedback process is geared less towards reviewing our pieces and more towards uncovering the performance possibilities of the scripts and giving the writers a better understanding of how their works . . . work. In other words, instead of trying to rewrite the plays, the group is there to help writers figure out what their plays are capable of and finding the way to make sure that happens. I'm taking a lot of inspiration from the Liz Lerman method of critical response: http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2003/10/toward_a_proces.php. Since we're geared toward development and production, we really can't do the typical writers' group thing of reading a snippet of a play out loud during a meeting then giving 15 to 30 minutes of instant feedback. Rushing through reading and feedback is a disservice to the writer. If that works for a particular writer, fine. But I want to make it clear that we're going to put our stuff on stage. It's up to the group to decide when and how that's going to happen, but I'm firm about setting up performances of our work. I'm leaning toward deciding on an activity (for example: a night of 10-minute plays and/or selections from larger works), picking a date, and going for it. Without that commitment, it's just an idea. So far there are about 5 writers (with scripts!) and a director interested. Right now we are reaching out to venues, organizations, and individuals who would be interested in being a part of our project. If you know of directors, actors, designers, producers, or even marketing/PR people who would be interested in micro-productions of new works by new playwrights of color, please feel free to send them our way. We'd love to work with them! Thanks for taking the time to learn more about us.

Sounds fascinating- if I were a Playwright of Color (and not the honkiest honky who ever honked), I would certainly apply to be a part of it.