User:Nickwhitford11

J Dakota Powell is a Eurasian writer, producer and entrepreneur based in London, and founder of LoNyLa, a transatlantic arts and technology venture that links London, New York and Los Angeles to develop material for stage, film and television. She was the Producing Artistic Director of Brave New World on Broadway, which gathered the American theatre to respond to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Early Career

Powell spent her youth on scholarship as a classical ballerina with the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City. She trained under Meredith Bayliss, Ann Parsons, Richard Gibson and Basil Thompson for four years, and performed at the City Center with the Joffrey Ballet in Petrouchka. She also trained for six months on scholarship with the Pennsylvania Ballet under the tutelage of Benjamin Harkarvy, Lupe Serrano and Robert Rodham.

Theatre

Powell has written several plays, including Bliss Moon, The Impostor, Savage Light, Overkill, Blackwater and Harry Black. Harry Black was produced in the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s New Work Series, and featured Jude Ciccolella as “Harry Black.” Blackwater was selected for the National Playwrights Conference, the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center as well as by renowned playwright John Guare for the Lincoln Center Reading Series. The Imposter was produced by Alice’s Fourth Floor (NYC), and starred Calista Flockhart, Austin Pendleton and Clark Gregg.

Powell has been produced by the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Philadelphia Theater Company’s New Works Series, Circle Repertory Theatre, the Ensemble Studio Theatre and Duke University’s New Works Series. She has been commissioned by South Coast Repertory Theatre, Talking Wall Pictures and PBS Great Performances. Her original screenplay, Triggers, won a Writers Guild of America, East screenwriting fellowship. Powell’s spec TV script also won the Scriptapalooza TV writing competition in LA.

After producing digital content for multiple platforms for Mark Patricof’s Europe, an American digital services firm based in London, Powell launched Brave New World on Broadway (2002) on the first anniversary of the 911. The three-day event galvanized the American theatre to respond to the terror attacks, bringing together dozens of major playwrights, actors and directors. As reported by the BBC News: "Initially started as a modest festival by founder and playwright J Dakota Powell, the project blossomed into a series with over 50 original works and the participation of over 150 artists.” Among the artists who participated in the festival were Marisa Tomei, Ethan Hawke, Olympia Dukakis, Isabella Rossellini, Alec Baldwin, John Turturro, Amy Irving, Elias Koteas, Ann Reinking, Eli Wallach, Fisher Stevens, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Paul Rudd, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Patric, Amanda Peet, Sam Waterston, Holly Hunter, Scott Cohen and Joel Grey, to name a few.

Arts and Technology

In March 2011, Powell launched LoNyLa, a transatlantic venture that uses digital technology to link artists in London, New York and Los Angeles to develop new material for stage, film and television. Fueled by graduates of Yale College and the Yale School of Drama, LoNyLa has grown to include a few hundred actors, writers and directors.

Family History

Powell is the direct descendant of Isaac T. Hopper, a Hicksite Quaker and known as the father of the underground railroad. Her great grandfather, Wilson Marcy Powell, was a Harvard lawyer who was on the original board of the NAACP, treasurer of the New York State Bar Association, head of Harvard Law School’s endowment and President of New York Hospital. Her grandfather, Wilson Marcy Powell Jr., a Harvard physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, was a tenured professor of Physics at University of California, Berkeley.

Education

Powell graduated from Yale University with a BA in Economics & Political Science. She completed her masters at the Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

External Links:


 * Woods, Byron “How Mao?” IndyWeek
 * Zomorodi, Manoush (10 September 2002). “BBC: Drama-thon Touches New York.” BBC News.
 * Rosati, Nancy (20 August 2002). “Talkin' Broadway - What's New on the Rialto?” Talking Broadway.
 * Weber, Bruce (11 September 2002). “New York Times: Theatre as Solace in a Time of Anguish” The New York Times
 * Weber, Bruce (13 September 2002). “New York Times: Mountains of Mourning, Vistas of Better Days” The New York Times
 * Bandler, Michael J. (6 September 2002). “Department of State Washington File: America's Cultural Community Confronts 9/11” Washington File
 * Lipson, Karin (6 September 2002). “New York’s Theater Artists Pull Together for Attack Memorial” Los Angeles Times
 * “Rebuilding NYC: September 11 Theater” Gotham Gazette
 * Chang, Richard (28 June 2011). “Global Artist Group LoNyLa Hones Work via Webcasts” Reuters.
 * BWW News Desk (4 March 2011). “LoNyLa Launches Their First Writing Lab” BroadwayWorld.com
 * Garcia-Romero, Anne (14 September 2011). “Adventures in Cyberturgy” HowlRound
 * Morris, Steven Leigh (4 March 2011). “Stage Raw: Facebook is So 2004” LAWeekly