Swanson to Step Down as Artistic Director

Austin Script Works, Texas’ largest playwright development organization, announces that Colin Denby Swanson will be leaving her post as Artistic Director, effective June 30, 2007. Swanson, who has led the organization for the past three years, will be leaving to concentrate full-time on her own writing career. A 2007/2008 participant in the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Theater Residency Program for Playwrights, she will be working with Zachary Scott Theatre Center to develop a new play about the late Clifford Antone.

Swanson succeeded former Artistic Directors, David Mark Cohen, John Walch and Dan Dietz in 2004. Under Swanson’s leadership, ASW hosted the 2005 Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas conference, launched its Latino Playwright Initiative and the 30/60/90 daily writing practice and continued to develop local and national partnerships on behalf of its 100+ members.

“Austin has a national reputation as a hotbed of playwriting, and Austin Script Works is at the center of it,” Swanson says. “It’s been my privilege to work with ASW and its 120 writer members for the past three years, and I look forward to remaining close to the organization as a board member and active participant in its programs.”

Christina J. Moore, current ASW Producing Director, will become the organization’s Executive Director. Moore was a co-founder of the organization in 1997 along with Emily Ball Cicchini, the late David Mark Cohen, and a group of twenty core writers. “I am so proud of all we accomplished in our first decade”, said Moore. “Dozens of plays developed in our programming have received productions locally and around the country. I look forward to continuing our mission of service to the playwriting community and extending our network to create even more avenues for development, production and publishing.” Moore has a twenty-year history developing and directing new plays by writers such as John Walch, Dan Dietz, Amparo Garcia-Crow, Cyndi Williams, Kirk Smith, David Gunderson, and Steven Tomlinson.