New Visions

This summer, Roundabout board member Charles Randolph-Wright will be spearheading a workshop of playwright Vickie Ramirez’s Smoke, the latest work in the Different Voices playreading series. Different Voices, created in 2006, is a program headed by Randolph-Wright with the goal of bringing artists into the Roundabout whose work is new to the company. Over the past few seasons, this program has allowed the company to work with writers, directors, and actors who are doing new and exciting work in their fields. Randolph-Wright has said of the program, “Many theaters provide excellent new artist programs where they showcase up and coming writers straight out of MFA programs. What we wanted to create with Different Voices is a venue where one would hear not only from emerging young writers, but perhaps from an 80-year-old playwright as well. Not only would the stories come from similar or familiar backgrounds, but from the extraordinary global view we now have, which unfortunately is not represented as much as it could be in today’s theatre.”


During a week of concentrated work, playwrights have the opportunity to hear their script read multiple times, with feedback sessions that allow them to gather responses from actors, staff, and guests as they continue to develop the play. Ample time is given for rehearsal and revision, with the goal of truly giving the creative team a chance to explore the work rather than simply making it presentation-ready. Writers and directors such as Christine Toy Johnson, Chay Yew, Carey Perloff, Joshua Scher, Billy Porter, Robert O’Hara, and Eisa Davis have benefited from this process, all of them using the program to dig deep into their plays and try out new ideas in the low-pressure environment of this constructive workshop. Past workshops have taken on subjects including a Chinese American legacy, a New Orleans Jewish family spanning generations, a southern African American family dealing with stigmata, and more.


In Smoke, Ramirez will be working with director Colman Domingo on tackling themes of family and loyalty in a Native American tribe, and her hope is to do work on conveying the specificities of that culture in an emotional and dramatic story that will entertain the audience while giving them a window into a world that is unfamiliar. As the Different Voices series persists in bringing talented writers like Ramirez into the fold, it has become clear that there are many artists who still need to be heard, and this program will endeavor to continue to give them that opportunity. As Randolph-Wright says, “We encourage artists from other disciplines to try something else – such as an actor becoming a playwright, a designer becoming a director, a writer becoming an actor. As we continue our work, we hope to provide the Roundabout community with as many Different Voices as possible.”

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