Roundabout Theatre Archives Awards Fellowships to Four Theatre Students
Roundabout Theatre Company hired four Archives Fellows through the Columbia@Roundabout program. They are: playwriting student Devon Kidd, directing student Liz Peterson, and dramaturgy students Danielle Feder and Austin Tooley. The position includes up to six months of paid work and access to the vast archives of Roundabout Theatre Company.
As a part of the Archives fellowship, the MFA candidates conduct deep research into the Roundabout Theatre historic records and are encouraged to produce scholarship that explores Roundabout’s contribution to American theatre. The Archives include more than simple interviews and news articles but expand to the granular elements of each production produced at roundabout. Properties purchase receipts, scribbled notes from creatives, stage manager reports, and even backstage photos are preserved in the archives for the fellows to mine. Past fellows, like alumna Aimee Marie Holland ’20, used the stage management documents to examine differences in stage management styles and the historical evolution of stage management at Roundabout.
Columbia@Roundabout is a collaboration between Columbia University School of the Arts and Roundabout Theatre Company which provides exceptional educational and vocational opportunities for the next generation of playwrights and theatre practitioners. The program includes an annual reading series for Columbia MFA students, Teaching Artist training facilitated by Education at Roundabout and fellowship positions in Roundabout’s Archives.
Danielle Feder is a dramaturg, producer, and writer. She is passionate about developing new work with an emphasis on equity, inclusion, and access. Recent credits include Third Person Singular, The Merchant of Venice, The Cherry Orchard, Rachel's Out-of-this-World Bat Mitzvah, Our Town, i could have had the earth, tender of you too, and The Summoning. Feder is a co-founder of Hysteria Theatre, and has worked for Signature Theatre, Noor Theatre, 59E59 Theaters, Walnut Street Theatre, and NYMF. With Roundabout, Feder will be researching Roundabout’s 2004 revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, which was postponed from its planned run in 2001 due to 9/11. Feder will evaluate if any changes had to be made to the production, and how the show landed differently in 2004 than it did in a pre-9/11 world.
Devon Kidd is a New York-based writer, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with aspirations of establishing his voice in various entertainment mediums including poetry, playwriting, television, and film. He has a passion for writing both surrealist and realist works in fantasy, sci-fi, comedy, and drama. Kidd graduated Summa Cum Laude from Morehouse College with a Bachelor’s Degree in English in 2016 as the Top English Major of his Senior Class. His play, Not Even God, was a 2019 Finalist for the Columbia@Roundabout Reading Series and his play, In the Jungle, was selected as a 2020 Winner for the reading series.
Liz Peterson was born in Manchester, UK and is based between New York and Melipilla, Chile. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto in Theatre and French Linguistics. She is an interdisciplinary performance-maker and theatre director. She is a former intern with Richard Foreman’s company Ontological Hysteric. Recent works include performance about a woman, now you will see..., and Good. Peterson is anglo-indian, anglo-burmese and british, and through her practice she interrogates ideas of cultural belonging, gestural language, and the relationship between technology and emergent identities.
Austin Tooley is an NYC-based director and dramaturg. Recent directing credits include Argonauts, by playwriting student Jacob K. Robinson, The Outposters for PrideFest at The Tank, and Narcissus, a Roman pantomime live-taped in partnership with PBS. Recent dramaturgical credits include Three Sisters, directed by student Rebecca Miller-Kratzer, The Cherry Orchard, directed by student Rakesh Palisetty. With Roundabout, Tooley will be researching Roundabout’s three different productions of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. Looking at the 1974, 1997, and 2019 production, he will identify and examine the ways each production reflects the evolution of Roundabout, New York not-for-profit theatre, and our conceptions about the American family.