Women's Project's Social Media Coordinator, Monet Hurst-Mendoza, interviews "Lascivious Something" playwright, Sheila Callaghan, and director, Daniella Topol. Edited by James Daniel Haro.
DANEILLA TOPOL -- NY credits include: Trista Baldwins Sand (Womens Project), Sheila Callaghans Dead City (New Georges), Judith Thompsons Palace of the End (Epic Theatre), Susan Yankowitzs Night Sky (Baruch Performing Arts Center/Power Productions), Nicki Blooms Tender (Summer Play Festival), Leslie Ayvazians Carol and Jill (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Jakob Holders Housebreaking (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), Zakiyyah Alexanders Sick? (Summer Play Festival), Peter Gil-Sheridans Topsy Turvy Mouse (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), and Stanton Woods Snow Queen (Urban Stages). She has directed readings and workshops for a number of NY companies including the Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, New Dramatists, NYUs Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, Playwrights Horizons, Primary Stages, the Public, and the Roundabout. Regionally, she has most recently directed productions of Caridad Svichs Instructions for Breathing (Passage Theatre, NJ), Kim Oler, Alison Hubbard, and Sean Hartleys world premiere musical of Little Women (Village Theatre, WA) and Trista Baldwins Forgetting (Playwrights Center/Workhaus Collective, MN) and has directed workshops of musicals at Goodspeed Musicals and Barrington Stage in conjunction with NYUs Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. A graduate of Carnegie Mellons directing program, Daniella has been the Artistic Program Director at the Lark Play Development Center, the New Works Program Director at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and the Associate Producing Director of City Theatre. She is a member of the board of the Lark Play Development Center and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre and has been a grants review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NY State Council on the Arts and TCG. She is currently working as a resident artist at HERE developing a new multi-media piece on floods with Sheila Callaghan, Katie Down, Leah Gelpe, Mimi Lien, and Tyler Micoleau. Upcoming productions include: Stretch (Peoples Light and Theatre Company), Sarita (Fordham University), and a workshop of Rosa (Richard Rodgers Award Winner presentations at the Public Theatre and Queens Theatre in the Park).
SHEILA CALLAGHAN -- Sheila's plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, Woolly Mammoth, and Rattlestick Playwright's Theatre, among others. Sheila is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a MacDowell Residency, a 2005 Cherry Lane Mentorship Fellowship, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and the prestigious Whiting Award. She has received grants from NYFA, NYSCA, and the MAP Foundation. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Norway, Germany, and the Czech Republic. She has been commissioned by Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, The Playwright's Foundation, Clubbed Thumb, and EST/Sloan. Her full-length plays include Scab, Crawl, Fade to White, Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), We Are Not These Hands, Dead City, Kate Crackernuts, That Pretty Pretty; or The Rape Play, and Fever/Dream. Several of her plays are published by Playscripts.com and Samuel French, and her monologues can be found in various anthologies. She has taught playwriting at Columbia University, The University of Rochester, The College of New Jersey, and Florida State University, and she is currently on the faculty at Spalding University's MFA program in creative writing. Sheila is a resident artist at HERE Arts Center and a member of the Obie winning playwright's organization 13P. Sheila is also a resident of New Dramatists. Currently, Sheila is a writer on the Showtime series The United States of Tara.
