A Collection of Short Essays about Three Plays by Melanie Marnich: Introduction

The next few posts will be about three plays by Melanie Marnich: Quake, A Sleeping Country, and These Shining Lives.  This started as a project for independent study at the University of Idaho under the direction of Dean Panttaja and David Eames-Harlan.  Over the next few days I am going to post parts of this project.

Melanie Marnich grew up in Duluth, Minnesota.  She didn’t do theatre as an undergraduate, and after college she was an advertising copywriter. Then she went to a play in Cincinnati and discovered that her “natural and artistic DNA was theatrical.”  So she read at the Cincinnati Public Library and taught herself about playwriting enough to quit the advertising job she had had for ten years and go to graduate school at UC-San Diego.  She had no background or training in theatre.  Moving to California “cracked [Marnich] open artistically” and pushed her playwriting forward (Moore, 19).

Marnich’s plays include Blur, Quake, Beautiful Again, Calling All, Dive, Cradle of Man, The Sparrow Project, Tallgrass Gothic, A Sleeping Country, Gone Goth, and These Shining Lives.  She has received two Jerome Fellowships, two Samuel Goldwyn awards, and a McKnight Advancement Grant (Moore, 19).  Marnich currently lives in Minneapolis (Marnich, Quake, 1) and is married to fellow playwright Lee Blessing (Cristopher).  She “teaches workshops and classes whenever she can because ‘It seems sort of selfish to write only and not teach.  One should share the energy that way’” (Moore, 19).

          Quake, These Shining Lives, and A Sleeping Country tie into each other well.    They share elements and give insights into the author’s creative process.  In studying these plays I hope to gain knowledge about how to incorporate the best parts of the author’s style and to learn more about what makes these plays important.

Works Cited

Christopher, Bostin.  “Great Plains Theatre Conference Announces Lee Blessing as

Honored Playwright for 2011 Conference.”  Bostin’s Junk Drawer.  August 19, 2010.  Web. December 2010. 

Marnich, Melanie.  Quake.  New York: Bret Adams Ltd.

Marnich, Melanie.  A Sleeping Country.  New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2010.

Marnich, Melanie.  These Shining Lives. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2010.

Moore, Brian C.  “Up Close and Personal: An Interview with Melanie Marnich.”

University of Iowa Theatre Gallery.  (2006-2007): 15-22. Web. December 13, 2010.

playbill.pdf>