Monologue Showcase: Voices of Healing & Transformation

Presenting a showcase of recent work created by Kelly DuMar's TLA Network class, Your Memoir as Monologue. 

Monologue Showcase: Voices of Healing & Transformation is the opening performance of the Transformative Language Arts Network's 2021 Power of Words Conference, which is being held online from October 28-31.  

In writing monologues for the stage, a story begins as words on the page. The next stage of development is to have the monologue performed by an actor in front of an audience. In this monologue showcase, class participants who have been developing monologues over six weeks will have the chance to see their writing performed by an actor for an audience––you.

Stella Adler called theater the “seeing place”––the place we come to see the truth about our lives and social situation. Oscar Wilde called theater “the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” And August Wilson was, “fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness.” We invite you, our audience, to share in making dynamic theater with us, by being present for this showcase of brand new stage monologues. This intimate and powerful experience will present writing by class participants––read by actors––is part of the critical page-to-stage development process that all new plays need. Please join us, and share the vitality of your presence and your witness as our much-appreciated audience.

The show is free and open to the public, and will take place via the online video conferencing platform Zoom. 

Featuring monologues by:

Barbara Baker

Grace Calder

Patricia Lynn Coughlin

Alysa Escobar
Alfreda Harris
Jane Knox
Mary Ann Marszaleck
Pam McFarland
Meghann Perry
Olive Sullivan
Wendy Thompson
Gabriela Torres
Nancy Wolter

About the Director

Kelly DuMar, M.Ed. is a poet, playwright, and workshop leader who generates enlivening writing experiences for new and experienced writers. Author of three poetry collections, girl in tree bark, Tree of the Apple, and All These Cures, Kelly is also author of Before You Forget— The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children. Kelly’s award winning plays have been produced around the US and Canada, and are published by dramatic publishers. She founded and produced the Our Voices Festival of Women Playwrights at Wellesley College for twelve years, and she is a past president of Playwright's Platform, Boston. For the past five years, Kelly has led the week-long Play Lab Intensive at the annual conference of the International Women's Writing Guild. Kelly is a certified psychodramatist, former psychotherapist, and Fellow in the American Society for Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama. She founded Let’s Talk TLA, a bi-monthly tele-conference and poetry open mic for members of the Transformative Language Arts Network. Currently, Kelly serves on the board & faculty of The International Women’s Writing Guild. Kelly inspires readers of #NewThisDay - her daily photo-inspired blog - with her mindful reflections on a writing life. You can learn more about Kelly at www.kellydumar.com.

About the Actors

Jamila Batts Capitman, MA. is a Counselor at Dimock Health Center, and a VISIONS Inc. diversity, equity, inclusion consultant. A graduate of the Temple University Africana Studies department, Jamila is the former Director of Multicultural Student programming at Milton Academy and founder of the Legacy Project, a national youth development program which empowers participants to view themselves as catalysts for change and social justice. Jamila is an actress, playwright and producer/director, who just received a Master’s degree in Drama Therapy at Lesley University where she was a founding member of the Expressive Therapy Change Team and the Lesley University Drama Therapy Black Student Union.

Franci DuMar

Franci is an actor with the playback theatre troupe, True Story Theater, in Arlington, MA. She has trained, performed, taught and conducted playback theatre in a wide variety of community and therapeutic settings over the past ten years. Currently, she is a graduate student at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, in drama therapy and mental health counseling. She lives in Arlington, MA.

Teagan Rose is an Actor, Artist, and Embodied Healing Guide. She has been acting professionally since she was 12. She studied musical theatre through the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick MA (Class of '11), and received her BFA in Theatre Performance from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance (Class of '15). She then moved out to LA to work in the theatre and television industry there for 3 years. Amidst her acting career, she has simultaneously been on a journey of learning methods of self-healing through movement and mindfulness since she was 20. She chose to take a break from acting to start her business as an Embodied Healing Guide in 2019. Her sessions and classes combine somatic awareness, vocal expression and embodied movement to support people in returning to a space of inner balance, freedom and self-love. You can learn more about her work at www.teagan-rose.com She is deeply grateful to have the opportunity to give a voice to the moving stories by the talented writers here. Thank you for including me, and thank you for sharing your heart!

Elizabeth Rose                    

Elizabeth spent a considerable part of her life as an actor, both in film and industrial work along with local theater in Massachusetts. In addition, Elizabeth has written both screenplays and theatrical works as well as a popular blog that captures the life of a midlife woman. She works as an editor supporting other writers, and as a mediator, helping couples end their marriages while sustaining their families. She also works with couples who choose to stay together and want to explore new ways to communicate and strengthen their relationship. She is a Mother, Partner, Friend, Sister, Daughter, Dancer, Dog and Cat lover. Elizabeth lives in Ojai with her husband, spirit cat and soul dog.