Michigan Writers News & Events

Finalists Bruce Makie, Larry Reiman and Emmy Holman

The collaborative trio behind the New Play Project is happy to announce that playwright Emmy Holman’s work, Dog Heart, has been selected for the staged reading.

Holman is a resident of Suttons Bay and the recipient of two Hopwood Awards from the University of Michigan; she received her MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College.

About the genesis of her winning play, Holman says, “While struggling with a story too big for its box, I decided to try a different form.  The story had cinematic
elements, so I adapted it to screenplay format.”

Holman has had contest success before; another of her plays, Nobody's Business, made it to the second round of cuts at the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition last October.  

Holman is a physical therapist by day, and a prolific playwright at night.  Of her recent work she says, “The last six months have been a kick, working on a ten minute stage play, Hand Signals, and this full length play, Dog Heart.”

The New Play Project is organized by Michigan Writers, Old Town Playhouse, and Theater North. Other finalists in the inaugural initiative are Anticipation, by Lawrence Beiman of Buckley, and Bagman, a play in one act, by Bruce Makie of Traverse City. Many thanks to the panel of judges: director, actress, and stage manager Denni Don Hunting; actress and teacher Bonnie Deigh; novelist Elizabeth Buzzelli; director and actress Margaret Schaal; and playwright Steve Smith.

The staged reading of Dog Heart will be held on a yet-to-be scheduled date in August 2009.