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Wheaton College     Norton, Massachusetts
Faculty > Charlotte Meehan

Charlotte Meehan

Assistant Professor of English, Playwright-in-Residence

Office: 319 Meneely
Phone: 508.286.5488
Email: cmeehan@wheatoncollege.edu

Degrees

M.F.A., Playwriting, Brown University
M.F.A., Creative Writing, Brooklyn College
B.A., French and Comparative Literature, SUNY, Binghamton

Main Interests

I like plays at the margins; dance theatre; the Symbolists, Dadaists, Surrealists, Absurdists. In other words, I like trouble makers, dare devils, and poets, but only those who believe -- for whatever ridiculous reasons -- that making theatre is a sacred act.

Research Interests

Aside from reading antiquated etiquette books and far flung math or physics texts, I have discovered that spying on other people's conversations in restaurants is most productive for my work. A good tell-off letter to the appropriate government official gets the juices flowing as well.

Teaching Interests

Beginning and Advanced Playwriting
Writing for Performance (200-level)
Modern Drama: an inquiry (200-level)
Contemporary Drama: the tip of the iceberg (200-level)
Contemporary Drama: the Symbolist Influence (senior seminar)
English 101 (Writing About Knowing and Not Knowing)

Student Projects

Advanced Playwriting students participate each spring in the New Plays Festival, which showcases their plays via the Theatre Department's student directors and actors.

All playwriting students write plays for the bi-annual ten-minute play festivals that take place as staged readings via collaboration with the Theatre Department.

Selected Publications, Creative Work or Performances

SELECTED PLAYS

Sweet Disaster, a hybrid of theatre, music, and film navigating the moments between explosions.

  • Artist Residency at Perishable Theatre for continued developmental work, 2006-07.
  • Mars Fellowship (Wheaton College) for developmental work, 2004-05.
  • HERE Arts Center, NYC, Artist Residency, 2002-03.

Work, a madcap tragi-parody of corporate America.

  • The Flea Theater, NYC, six-week production directed by Jim Simpson, May-June 2005.
  • Clark University, Worcester, MA, CUPS production directed by Vanessa Gilbert, November 2004.

SpellSong, a tragi-parody of Romantic love, Genesis, and the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.

  • Wheaton College, mainstage production directed by Stephanie Burlington, November 2005.
  • Brown University New Plays Festival, workshop production directed by David Hopkins, February 2000.

Ceci n'est pas une Pièce (this is not a play), a dramatic collage for nine voices.

  • Currently being recorded for CD sound art performance, 2005-06.
  • Dixon Place, NYC, concert reading directed by Christine Sang, November 2000.
  • The Flea Theater, NYC, concert reading directed by Christine Sang, May 1999.
  • Brown University New Plays Festival, concert reading directed by Christine Sang, January 1999.

Beesus & Ballustrada, a post-apocalyptic erotic comedy that takes places in a Brooklyn forest.

  • The Culture Project, NYC, production as part of the Women Center Stage Festival, July 2002.
  • Blue Heron Arts Center, NYC, staged reading presented by The Development Wing, June 2001.
  • Brown University, thesis reading directed by David Hopkins, May 2000.

These Four Walls, a horror/fairytale of wholesome Christian family life.

  • Dixon Place, NYC. American premiere directed by David Hopkins, April 2002.
  • Perishable Theatre, Providence, RI, staged reading directed by David Hopkins as part of the TextPlosion reading series of new plays, October 1999.
  • Alma Theatre, Bristol, England. World premiere, a Sleeping Weazel production directed by David Hopkins, summer 1998.

Backstage at the Circus, a surreal comedy of decay and desire.

  • Looking Glass Theatre, NYC, Seven Deadly Sins Festival, directed by Christine Säng, December 2001.

Tom's Cat, a hilarious tale of feline envy and pet murder.

  • Main Street Arts, Midsummer Nights One-Act Festival, Nyack, NY, directed by Paul Perez, summer 2000.
  • Here, NYC. The American Living Room Festival, directed by Trent Jones, summer 1998.

Sit Down, Enjoy Yourself, Eat Some Grass, five short plays on love, death, and work.

  • The 42nd Street Workshop, NYC. Cecil & Eddie, The White Glove, Post Modern Love, Tom's Cat, and Darwin-Darwin, Allie-Arwin), Summer 1997.

Cecil & Eddie, a short and loving murder mystery on a brick lot.

  • Playwrights Horizons' Studio Theatre, NYC. A Three Frisky Dogs production, directed by Sturgis Warner, Summer 1997.

Flies in the Garden, a meditation on the death of tragedy, delusion, and flowers.

  • New Dramatists, NYC. A workshop production directed by Sturgis Warner; sponsored by Elise Revson Productions, May 1996.
  • Hudson Guild Theatre, NYC. Directed a performance as part of The Field's 90 plays in 9 days series, May 1994.

Mass: dreams, themes, and variations, a dance/theatre adaptation of the Catholic Mass.

  • Leicester Square, London. Co-directed excerpts in an outdoor performing arts series, August 1993.
  • Ohio Theatre, NYC. Conceived and co-directed a production choreographed by Dani Nikas; produced by Elise Revson Productions through The Field, June 1993.

The Female Dilemma: Solution #1, based on a series of market research interviews conducted by the Bali Bra company.

  • CUNY T.V. A video adaptation produced by Brooklyn College Television Center aired in June, August, and November 1995.
  • Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. Directed a production sponsored by the Mellon Fund for the Women's History Month Performing Arts Series, March 1993.

voices of women and other girls, a choreopoem of confrontation, memory, and desire.

  • Synchronicity Space, NYC. A production directed by Carole Nicksin, summer 1991.
  • Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. Sponsored by The Women's History Month Committee, 1991.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

  • Interviews in Wheaton College's Global Dispatch and Quarterly magazines, 2004-05.
  • Essay about Kathryn Walat's play, Johnny Hong Kong, Perishable Theatre Women's Playwriting Festival anthology, 2003.
  • "Peaches and Alison," (short story) Out Loud, 1995.
  • "The Motorede Chapter," "The Accident," (short stories) and "I Want to Make that Train, Damn It," (poem) Ictus Review, Fall 1993.
  • Response to "The Trap of Reference," (essay) Juice, Fall 1993.
  • "New York to London: Stillness at Last," (dance review) less hot air on dance, spring 1993.
  • "voices of women and other girls" (choreopoem) Riverrun, 1992.
  • "Michael Kaltman, 46, Dead," Word of Mouth 2: Short-Short Stories by Women, Crossing Press, 1991.
  • "The Shovel," "One of Many Days," (prose poems) Brooklyn Review, 1991, 1990.

 

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