CONTACTING THE MENTOR ARTISTS PLAYWRIGHTS PROJECTBy e-mail:
[email protected] telephone: (310) 301-8185Website: www.mentorartists.org
ABOUT MAPPThe Mentor Artists Playwrights Project (MAPP) is an arts consultancy company that partners with schools and not-for-profit youth development organizations to involve young writers in unique playwriting workshops and to provide community presentations of the work.A group of young people, each paired with a mentor actor or writer, participate in a progressive series of intensive playwriting workshops led by Master Artist Thomas Kellogg. Kellogg’s method introduces fundamental playwriting tools that explore the use of metaphor, the creation of characters through sensory and emotional work, monologue, dramatic storytelling, and theme. The young people are taught to examine the dynamics of conflict, and write plays where crisis, urgency, and possible consequences are explored.WHO WE AREThomas Dean Kellogg (Cherokee, Choctaw, European) is the Artistic Director and Founder of the Mentor Artists Playwrights Project (MAPP). Currently he and Myra Donnelley lead MAPP programs in partnership with the Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland, OR and the Tribal School on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation in Idaho. He has designed and led many other successful writing/ mentoring programs, including Native Voices at the Autry National Center's Young Native Playwrights Project, the Haven Project-Afield Program in Portland, Oregon, and was a cofounder and lead artist for Each One, Reach One, a program for youth in the juvenile justice system in the San Francisco Bay area. Tom also worked for many years as a mentor/artist with Leigh Curran and the Virginia Avenue Project in Santa Monica, California and acknowledges Daniel Sklar’s Playmaking technique as one of the base components in his playwriting methodology. Kellogg is the founder and artistic director of a critically acclaimed interdisciplinary theatre company, fofo, www.theatrefofo.com , based in Los Angeles. He has conducted theatre workshops in Budapest, Moscow, London, Istanbul, and Javea (Spain) and has been a guest artist at the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab West. He sat on the faculty, teaching acting workshops and serving as a directing mentor, at the ABC/ Disney - Institute of American Indian Arts first Native American Film Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2004.Myra Donnelley, Program Coordinator, is currently development and community outreach partner for MAPP. Her experience in youth development includes extensive community arts work at the Loft Film and Theatre Center, Bronxville, NY; The Romeo Project of the East Harlem Tutorial Program/Project Strive/Key School in New York City; Shakespeare’s Joint in Texas; Shakespeare in the Schools in Massachusetts; and the Foundation for Children and the Classics/Friends of the Children field program in Portland, Oregon. She is a free-lance grant writer and fundraising consultant for individual artists and not-for-profit theaters. As an independent producer, Myra has toured productions to San Francisco, New York City, and Dublin, Ireland and is engaged in planning and long-range development for theatre fofo projects in Los Angeles, New York City, London and Guanajuato, Mexico.
