Contemporary Playwright, Jennifer Barclay, Brings Talents to TDPS and Stages Innovative New Play

Barclay joins TDPS as Assistant Professor of playwriting and performance beginning this fall, and will teach both graduate and undergraduate courses.

Preparing to succeed in the competitive world of theatre arts requires students in UMD’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) to delve into a diverse theatre curriculum with an impressive faculty of eclectic backgrounds.  The newest addition to the TDPS faculty line-up is Jennifer Barclay, a noted actor-turned-playwright whose recent work entitled Counterweight: An Elevator Love Play will debut this October in La Jolla Playhouse’s inaugural “Without Walls Festival”.  This one-of-a-kind Festival of on-site work will simultaneously stage events around San Diego’s Playhouse Theatre District, presented by the Playhouse and partner institutions the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) and UC San Diego.

Counterweight: An Elevator Love Play is a co-production with Moxie Theatre, written by Barclay. The site-specific play takes audiences on a ride in Betty Jean's elevator (which is staged in and around a moving elevator at La Jolla Playhouse), where she will offer up voyeuristic peeks into three couples' stories set on three different floors. Lennox and Gracie are packing for their post-retirement dream trip, Liv and Teresa are in the midst of a role-play gone sour, and Ed and Coco are teenagers on a midnight rendezvous in their school's boiler room. Counterweight is a fun, intimate examination of love through the prism of closing doors and constant motion.

Barclay joins TDPS as Assistant Professor of playwriting and performance beginning this fall, and will teach both graduate and undergraduate courses.  She was formerly based in Chicago and California and has performed across the United States and in Europe. Barclay specializes in playwriting, contemporary drama and Viewpoints including The Human Capacity, Plunder, Freedom, NY, The Attic Dwellers, Obscura, and The Exile of Petie DeLarge.  Her work has been produced in such venues as The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Kennedy Center and San Diego’s Old Globe, and her one-woman show, Clearing Hedges has been performed nationally and internationally.

Story by Missy McTamney