Keynote

Saturday, February 6th, 12-1pm (EST)                                          

CALEEN SINNETTE JENNINGS is an actor, director, playwright, and a founding member of The Welders, a D.C. Playwrights’ Collective. Dramatic Publishing Company has published eight of her plays, and her work has appeared in seven play anthologies. Her most recent commissions are from Arena Stage to write a play about RBG, South Bend Civic Theatre, Liquid Theatre,  1st Stage and two from Signature Theatre, Virginia.  Arena Stage commissioned her to write for their inaugural Covid-driven project entitled, May 22, 2020 and for their project entitled, The 51st State.  Jennings was also commissioned by Roundhouse Theatre to write the final episode of their Covid-driven series Homebound. In 2017, after playing at the Kennedy Center Family Theatre, her adaptation of Darius & Twig, did a Kennedy Center national tour. From 2015-2020, her Queens Girl Trilogy plays have been commissioned and produced by Theatre J, Mosaic Theatre, and Everyman Theatre. Caleen has received five nominations for outstanding new play from the Helen Hayes Awards and play writing awards from the Kennedy Center and The Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. She is a Professor of Theatre, Emerita at American University in Washington, D.C. where she taught for 31 years. She received A.U.’s Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award in 2003 and A.U.’s inaugural award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in 2018. She currently is a Senior Consultant to the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, where she also has been a faculty member of the Teaching Shakespeare Institute since 1994. She was also Project Manager on a 2016 NEH grant to the Folger entitled Crosstalk: D.C. Reflects on Identity and Difference. Jennings graduated from Bennington College with a B.A. in Drama, and she received her M.F.A. in Acting from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.