Maureen Barnes,
founder & artistic director
2005- Playwright What About The Wounded? is a detailed examination of the returning soldiers from Iraq, Afghanistan & Post 9/11. The focus here is on their wounds, seen and unseen; Looking at the beginning a LIFE after living a WAR. Workshop production September, 2005. Radio Drama Version due November, 2005. NYC.
2004- Author, Songwriter/ Multi-media artist -- "Never Better ". A Documentary examining unending illness, insufferable pain and the laughter needed to endure it. Using interviews, multi-media, monologues and music, it uniquely chronicles a rarely told story of sickness that never ends . It may be hard to comprehend, but terminal illness might not seem quite as bad when one considers a rarely researched realm: that of the "Interminable Illness". 'Never Better' is the theme song.
2004 - Artistic Coordinator - "Fashion of the Music"- Anchor Arts Starter Grant Award; Three month Workshop for teens to twenty-somethings encouraging dreams and self-esteem; Culminating in a final production exploring the effect of music on fashion and vice versa. June, 2004 @ Dr. Martin Luther King Center. Newport, RI.
2004 - Production Consultant - Teargas - a Musical by Greg Nissen about the effect of Big Corporations on the average citizen. Two Acts with music and visuals. @ the Brecht Forum, NYC. 2004 April.
2003 - Playwright/Director - FOREIGN WHEELS - One Act with Visuals and Music ~ A Look at Life In A Chair. Produced by The Girl Scouts of America, {Northeast Corridor} in association with Anchor Arts. Disability Awareness Symposium. November 2003.
2003 - Artist -In-Residence/ Playwright/ Songwriter - A Four Letter Word - A One Act Play with Film, Visuals, Song; About the coexistence of FEAR to HOPE. Covering the Station Night Club Fire in Warwick, RI in which 100 people perished & the War in Iraq in which hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis have perished. CVS Highlander Charter School. Performed @ CCRI Media Center, Providence, RI. June.
Playwright/Composer/Lyricist from BEYOND WORDS The Musical:
- a Play, a Radio Drama, a Book & a Documentary will follow people's (younger to older) bouts with their approaches to grieving and their approaches to going on. All in order to further learn how to cry, how to grieve and how to heal along with them.
One breath, one shout, one tear at a time. It's a look at the truth about moving on in the dark shadow of the trampling of the Twin Towers and the dissemination of Anthrax. Ultimately, this Project addresses the struggle to carry on as we face the fierceness of the worst weapon left behind by the dreaded terrorists when they robbed us of our innocence: fear. Due Tuesday, December 11, 2001. Opening Performance, NYC. Further performances planned across the country and overseas.
Playwright/Author - Radio Drama, Children's Book -"Sky Monsters -The Terribles" - About the disappearing Twin Towers; Offering comfort through imagery, words & wonder. Radio Drama due February, 2006.
Documentary Author/Co-Director- "GRIEVING STRANDS", A Work In Progress; Documentary film/travelling art exhibit. A unique and humorous treatment of the ordeal of hair loss. The need for a sense of humor while battling breast and other forms of cancer whilst watching one's cherished strands of hair depart. As well as this, the film focuses on the trauma of losing one's precious locks due to several other causes. The project will also investigate the historical significance of hair . Interviews with cancer survivors (e.g. Olympic Gold Medallist, Scott Hamilton) are among the real life anecdotes shown. Due Spring 2006.
2001- Playwright/Composer/Lyricist - "SEA FEVER". The second installment of "THE SEASPRAY TRILOGY", from BEYOND WORDS The Musical. Set on an historic Twelve Meter yacht, this tale begins by documenting that fateful day in 1983 when the unthinkable happened: the America's Cup left America. Years later, on the Isle of Wight, at the Jubilee event marking the 150th Anniversary of said revered Cup, those old wounds are reawakened. The Blue Blazer, who is back on the water for the first time since being blinded by a car accident, just wants to "see" the not to be missed gathering of the beautiful wooden boats. Almost everyone on board still maintains their obsession with the loss of the world's Oldest Sport's Trophy. The hidden demons and dreams of this diverse group slowly are revealed and it becomes apparent that they all have their own agenda. Inevitably, the common denominator equals a shared patriotism.
2001- Artist-in-Residency/Playwright/Songwriter/Director: A Drop of Truth In A Brand New Century. Examination of the truth about fear…of guns, gangs and safety in schools as expressed through word, song, artwork, hip-hop, dance and rap. In conjunction with Peter Sheehan. Providence, RI. TBA - Artist-In-Residency/Rhode Island State Council of the Arts.
2000 - 2001 ~ THE SHUT-INS PROJECT ~ In celebration of the New Year and the new century, ANCHOR ARTS distributed THRESHOLD - THE RADIO DRAMA at no charge to hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, and any other shut-in who requested it. Like last year, ~THE SHUT-INS PROJECT ~ was particularly focused in Rhode Island but also included locations in New England and New York. Non Profit Production. ANCHOR ARTS. New England ~ New York performances/distribution. December - February
REPRESENTATIVE PAST PROJECTS:
2000 - Artist-in-Residence/Playwright/Instructor - "Picturing Words & Wording Pictures." This deals with such issues as race, drugs, disabilities, divorce, difference, school shootings, teen pregnancy, ecology or current events.
Finding a figure of history and making them turn into a minute or more of drama. Writing a sixty second & watching it become a poem, a lyric or a rap riff. "Education Through Entertainment". D.A.R.E. Program, South County, RI. 2000 Summer.
2000 - Artist in Residence, A Drop of Truth, based on a story by Peter Sheehan. The journey of a raindrop from sky to ocean. Norman Bird Sanctuary. Sponsored by R.I.S.C.A/Island Arts. April.
2001- Playwright/Composer/Lyricist SEA FEVER, from Beyond Words: The Musical ~ The second installment of THE SEASPRAY TRILOGY: Workshop production. Vital Theater, NYC. March.
1999 - Playwright/Director/Composer/Lyricist, from Beyond Words : The Musical ~ ALL ABOUT TIME; a sampling of monologues and music looking at time and how much can happen in time. T Salon, NYC. December.
1999 -Playwright/Composer/Lyricist/Director from Beyond Words : The Musical ~ SEA FEVER, as per above, including from Riverdance, Deidre Goulding as the "Sea Nymph". Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI. September.
1999 - Screenwriter -- THRESHOLD, an adaptation of the original play. A futuristic fable set at the end of the 20th Century through the year 2017. Examination of the fragility of the world's environment as examined from Earth and Space. A "Who Done IT" that makes an impact so profound that it alters the way mankind relates to itself and to its planet. June.
1998 - Playwright -- from Beyond Words: The Musical ~ ODE TO A DAD, James Winter Concert - A Monologue by Maureen Barnes. Performed by Loren Small. Newport Baptist Church in Newport, RI. June.
Playwright & Instructor -- "FAMILY LITERACY SUMMIT": "THE GUSHY PEOPLE", a book ( possible CD ROM ) for children. It is about how we are all different and yet, how we are all the same. "The Gushey People" are made of sponge. They absorb everything and so they offer many life lessons. Providence Convention Center, Providence, RI. April.
1998 - Filmmaker "USA Volleyball - New England Style" a documentary on the USA Volleyball Tournament as represented in the New England Region. Shot on location at the Navy Educational Training Center in Newport, RI. January.
1997 - Librettist, Lyricist, Composer & Director -- from Beyond Words: The Musical ~ PREVAILING WINDS, Set on a chartered sailboat , it concerns the sojourn of nine individuals who hit storms at sea… inside and out. Book by Maureen Barnes, Lyrics by Barnes & Milner Music by Atwood, Barnes, Milner & Weiss, Magician's Birthday Performance Center, The Seamen's Institute, The Rotunda, Easton's Beach, Newport, RI. June-September.
1997 - Playwright & Director -- SKIING BLIND, A Cabaret-Reflecting A Journey
"From Emptiness To Empowerment" - In celebration of the publication of the
book by the same name by Brian Hubbard. The Rotunda, Easton's Beach. Newport, RI. September.
1997 - Playwright & Performer -- "THE POETIC PALETTE", Original Readings from The Newport Review: A Journal of Art, Literature & Ideas. Newport Congregational Church, Newport, RI. February.
1996 - Playwright & Director -- from Beyond Words: The Musical ~ PUZZLE PIECES, A Musical Work In Progress about deadlines and the creative process. The Theodore Tihansky Fine Arts & Performance Gallery, Newport, RI. December.
1996 - Playwright/Director/Composer/Lyricist, from Beyond Words : The Musical ~ MIXED MESSAGES, an evening of musical theater that attempts to ask the all too familiar quandaries that "mixed messages" can cause in everyone's life. Music-In-A-Mansion Series. At the Elks Mansion, Newport, RI. June.
Playwright/Director/Composer/Lyricist-- from Beyond Words: The Musical ~ MIXED MESSAGES, an evening of musical theatre that combines two summer themes and two very important Newport experiences: Romance and Sailing. It follows shifting courses, emotional buffeting and those out-to-sea feelings so often found in one's unending search for some safe port of unconditional love. Initial Workshop Version. The Chatsworth, NYC. February.
1995 - Screenwriter/Co-Director--"Rare Renaissance Man", a Documentary by Maureen Barnes and Dennis Evans, on the creative life of Cultural Commissioner John Chatty. Seaman's Institute, Newport, RI. December.
1995 - Playwright/Director -- from Beyond Words: The Musical ~ SOUNDS OF THE HOURGLASS. Echoing sentiments about the essence of angels, the mystery surrounding the passage of time and vagaries involved in the prospects for the future. Original music and visual art bring celestial citizens down to earth while time-keepers of all sorts manage to stop the clock just long enough for the audience to hear the Sound Of The Hourglass. Trinity Church, Newport, RI. December.
1994 - Playwright & Director -- THE SEA OTTER, an environmental tale of the first oil-covered sea otter to die as a result of the Valdez oil spill in Alaska. At Interarts Theatre, Palenville, NY. September.
1994 - Playwright -- FROM FAIRY TALES TO APRIL FOOLS, A Modern Myth with Music. A comic triangle investigating the age old quip: "It's not what you say but how you say it". Interarts Theatre, Palenville, NY. September.
1993 - Playwright & Director-- THE SEA OTTER. This dramatic monologue with original music and visual art is about the plight of the first oil-covered sea otter found dying following the 1989 Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska. Set on a space station in the year 2017, an astronaut recalls this troubling environmental tale. The piece involves pertinent quotations & environmental visuals. These beautiful but often disturbing pictures serve to enhance this cautionary tale. NASA photography is added startling reality to the play. RI Committee for The Humanities in conjunction with Harvest by the Sea. The Seaman's Institute, Newport, RI. October.
1993 - Playwright/Director -- THE SEA OTTER, Benefactors of the Arts, Carroll Auditorium, Rogers High School, Newport, RI. November.
1993 - Playwright/Director -- THRESHOLD, a Futuristic Fable in three acts based in part on an idea by Sergei Sikorsky. World Scholar Athlete Games, Environmental Theme Day, O'Hare Auditorium, Salve Regina University, Newport, RI. June.
1993 - Director--LIES written & performed by Ron Parker, a One Man Show.
A humorously ironic look at life lessons and love lessons. Steve McGraw's, NYC. May.
1993 - Playwright/Composer/Lyricist-- from Beyond Words: The Musical ~ THIRTY NINE & STILL SAMPLING. Selections from eight original plays with music & dance. The common bond that strings together these pieces is the search for the eternal verities when looking for love, whether that love be platonic or otherwise. The J.J. Shubert Penthouse at The Dramatist Guild, NYC. February.
1991 - Playwright & Director -- THRESHOLD, a Futuristic Fable in Three Acts based in part on an idea by Sergei Sikorsky. XOX Gallery, Providence, RI. March
1990 - Playwright & Director -- THRESHOLD, a Futuristic Fable in Three Acts based in part on an idea by Sergei Sikorsky. Soviet American Conference on World Dangers: FACING APOCALYPSE; Newport Institute of Non-traditional Medicine, Moscow. Salve Regina University, Performed simultaneously in Russian & English. Newport, RI. June.
Playwright/Director--"Spending our Children's Inheritance- Exhibiting Errors in the Environment", a staged reading of THRESHOLD geared for the Exhibit,
Warwick Art Museum, Warwick, RI. May.
1989 - Playwright -- WITHIN REACH, A Tragicomedy in Two Acts with Music & Dance about one man's journey back from the moment that altered his life, paralyzing not only his body but also his heart. Shake-A-Leg, Newport, RI. July.
1989 - Choreographer -- Very Special Arts Festival, "True Colors", a series of dances in wheelchairs and out of them. Performed by the Break-A-Leg Players, Colt State Park, Bristol, RI. July.
1989 - Playwright & Director -- THRESHOLD, a Staged Reading of the Futuristic Fable in Three Acts based in part on an idea by Sergei Sikorsky: Premiere. Staged Reading, The Chatsworth, NYC. February.
1989 - Playwright -- TO PLEASE A LADY, A Play in Two Acts with Music & Dance. Commissioned by the Swanhurst Chorus, performed by the Swanhurst Chorus, The Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater, the Island Moving Company, Cumberland Company, Children of St. Michael's School and Others. Rogers High School Auditorium, Newport, RI. January.
1988 - Artist-in-Residence, SHAKE-A-LEG, {a Center providing new possibilities for those with Spinal injuries}. Performing Arts Coordinator, Instructor and Playwright. Newport, Rhode Island. Summer.
1988 - Playwright -- FOREIGN WHEELS, a multi-media tragicomedy with Music & Dance. An honest look at life in a chair. Eisenhower House/Fort Adams, Newport, RI. August.
1987 - Playwright -- GLENDANCE ON PLASTIC, a Multi-Media performance by Choreographer Glenda Medeiros, Cambridge Multi-Cultural Arts Center. Funded by the Mass. Arts Lottery and The Cambridge Arts Council, Cambridge, MA. June.
1986 - 1987 Editorial Assistant -- The Scleroderma Society, Inc., including its quarterly, "Scleroderma Outlook"; NYC.
1986 - Playwright -- DESPERATE WOMEN, a comedy in one act about living with and learning from childhood memories as adults. Ensemble Studio Theater, Octoberfest, NYC. October.
1985 - Writer, Technical/Narrative--"Achievement Convergence Disparity Amongst Majority & Minority Students" a Analytical Study.
1984 Research Assistant-- "Coltrane's World", by Eric Nisenson & Robert Palmer, (Doubleday).
1983 - Playwright-- from Beyond Words: The Musical ~ WISH YOU WERE HERE, a dramatic one act play about a young woman's Wedding Day. {Starring Frances Fisher}. The reflection in her mirror links the young bride back in time to the morning of her First Communion. When she sees herself in her wedding dress, she sees herself in her First Communion dress. Both images combine symbolically for her and invites her to readdress her mother's untimely and unfortunate death when she was a child. Equity Showcase, Women's Theater Ensemble, NYC. November.
1982 - 1983 Co-Writer-- "Campus", Original Soap Opera, conceived & written with David Hale and Robert Pollak.
1981 - 1982 Writer-In-Training Program -- "Ryan's Hope", ABC Studios, NYC. Claire Labine, Program Director.
1981 - Playwright -- FROM FAIRY TALES TO APRIL FOOLS, (a Modern Myth In Two Acts) Staged Reading, Theater Development Fund, Time Square, NYC. February.
1980 - 1081 Journalistic Reporting/Public Relations--Alaska D-2 Lands Issue Tour; Carlson, Rockey & Associates, NYC.
1980 - Research Assistant-- "Round About Midnight", A Portrait of Miles Davis by Eric Nisenson, (Dial Press, 1982).
1979 - Assistant to Aboldshar Farman-Farmaian--author of "Iran: How and Why - The Hostages" (Working Title) Responsible for First Draft editing, rewrites and assigned research.
1979 - Screenwriter-- "The Daytime TV Man", co-written with Nicholas Benedict. A quirky study of the fine line between one actor's character and characterization, complicated by an Iowan Toll Booth Operator's obsessive stalking. Optioned in 1980. Rewritten and updated in 1999.
1979 - Production Assistant-- Documentary: "The 1979 New York City Marathon", Groupe Films Ltd., Ms. Catherine Fellows, Mr. Bill Curran.
1978 - Robert McCarthy Productions-- 220 West 83rd Street, New York, NY. Topical and audio-visual research for industrial films and commercial advertisements.
1978 - Management Communications--370 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. (Assigned research same as above).
1978 - Jaylor Productions--119 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. (Assigned research same as above).
1977 - Writer -- "FROM THE GOLDFISH BOWL", A Novella. A true tale about being stalked before the term "stalked" even existed. Psychological thriller.
1977 - Visual House--New York, N.Y. Mounting of A-V shows.
1977 - Writing of industrial scripts for Visual House--New York, NY
1975 - Production Assistant--Bolshoi Opera Company, Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C..
EDUCATION:
Master of Fine Arts - Catholic University, Washington, DC (1975)
Bachelor of Arts - Catholic University, Washington, DC (1973)
The Harold Clurman Seminar for the Serious Playwright - ACTORS STUDIO (1976)
AWARDS AND ACADEMIC HONORS:
Robert J. McKuen Drama Hall of Fame - 1997
M.F.A Fellow Award - Catholic University - 1974/1975
Helen Hayes Fellowship - Catholic University - 1972/1973
Fulbright - Hayes Award - National Players Romanian Tour - 1975
Arts Club of Washington Scholarship Award - 1971
Berlin Freedom Award for Showmanship - 1972 -Berlin, Germany
Silver Medal of Excellence in Speech - 1969 - Univ. of MA
Best Actress Trophy - 1967 - New England Regionals
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:
The Dramatist Guild - { 1981 - present}
AEA - SAG - AFTRA - {1976 - present/presently nonactive}
Anchor Arts of Newport~New York, Founding Member {1993 - present}
Rhode Island State Council of the Arts, Artist-In-Residency Program {1990 - present}
Board of Directors - Arts and Cultural Alliance of Newport County {1994 - present}
Board of Directors - Creative T.V. of Rhode Island {1993 - 99}
PUBLISHED WORKS (Nonfiction):
1997 The Newport Review --A journal of art, literature & ideas: from BEYOND WORDS the Musical - "Beyond Words" and "Try" - Music and a Monologue.
1979 "Untangling the Knots" -- A Sourcebook of Life and Career Planning and Resource Development, by Maureen Barnes. South East Regional Resource Center, Juneau, Alaska.
1979 "Inner Dimensions" -- by Maureen Barnes, Twyla Coughlin and Betty Long. Alaska State Department of Community and Regional Affairs. Juneau, Alaska.
REPRESENTATIVE FUTURE PROJECTS:
2001- 2002 Beyond Words The Musical-- A Work In Progress about the search for unconditional love, the creative process & the attack on 9/11 on the Twin Towers as seen through the eyes of seven different kinds of artists and seven different kinds of simple and not so simple folk.
Playwright -- The Habit Of Being, a One Woman Show based on the book of the same name. Examining the insight, wit and courage of short story writer Flannery O'Connor. With special focus on her struggle with Lupus Erythematosus.
2000 Playwright -- Relaxin' At Camarillo, a Drama with Music in Three Acts about the relationship between Charlie Parker, the legendary jazz musician, and his Jewish, Californian psychiatrist. Based on a story by Eric Nisenson.
2001 "Passengers In The Park "-- A Work In Progress, a Teleplay about three generations of a family owned horse and carriage and the stories surrounding its passengers. Set in Central Park, NYC.
2003 "FROM THE GOLDFISH BOWL" -- Screenplay based on Novella of same name. A true tale about being stalked before the term "stalked" even existed.
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