Artists I admire: Aliza Sarian

Last winter I had the pleasure of teaching playwriting workshops with some fantastic eighth graders at the Salk School of Science in Manhattan. Their teacher, Aliza Sarian, is a former student of mine and a great playwriting teacher.

Aliza has about 120 eighth graders each year, and all of them write 10-minute plays that go through multiple revisions and drafts. Eventually, eight to twelve plays get mounted in a one-act festival in June. It's an extraordinary amount of work on Aliza's part, but her students produce exceptional stories. Additionally, Aliza is a very skilled and dedicated dramaturg for new plays, and her students reap the benefits of her knowledge and experience. Needless to say, I was coming in to do workshops with them, and I left having learned a ton from Aliza and her students.

Because of her great skill as a teacher, her commitment to new play development, and her cultivation of young artists in her classroom, not to mention her prowess as a dramaturg for new plays, Aliza Sarian is an artist that I admire. If you have a chance, you should absolutely check out her work at the Salk School of Science, and read more about her here.

Artists I admire: Sharon Murphy, photographer and curator

In the spirit of new beginnings with this blog, I'm going to start a series of regular posts highlighting the work of artists who I admire. To kick off the series, I wanted to draw attention to the photography of Sharon Murphy, an Irish colleague and friend who I've known for over 10 years now.

I first met Sharon when she was working in theatre arts administration and outreach in Dublin, Ireland, and since then, it has been a pleasure and privilege to watch her cultivate an amazing new artistic direction as a photographer. I follow her work on Instagram, and I'm consistently drawn to her images of natural landscapes and her images of young people. The composition of the images with children always make me want to hear the subjects speak, as I imagine that they each have a very interesting story to tell.

Recently, Sharon posted a series of images featuring stage curtains that I found super cool. It's not unusual to see Sharon's theatre roots somehow present in her images, and she writes on her website that she's seeking collaborations with contemporary dancers and theatre makers. Please visit her website for more information about her work and follow her on Instagram @sdrmurphy. You're definitely in for a treat!