Faye Sholiton
Playwright
Email: fsholiton@ix.netcom.comPhone: (216) 292-6211
Faye Sholiton is a member of the Playwrights' Unit at the Cleveland Play House, where she has developed her work since 1996. Prior to writing plays, she was an awardwinning journalist for local, regional, and national publications. She now combines both careers, as theatre writer for Northern Ohio Live magazine. A teacher of playwriting, she has conducted workshops throughout Northeast Ohio and as far away as Australia, to passengers on a world cruise. Other theatrerelated activities include writing program notes for the Cleveland Play House and working as freelance dramaturg for local companies. Memberships include the Dramatists Guild and International Centre for Women Playwrights.
Play Roster
THE INTERVIEW(drama), set in the home of a Holocaust survivor, explores the impact of silence in families. The play takes place on the day the survivor meets her interviewer, the child of other survivors who is due to take her oral history. Over the course of a day, the two women discover how earlier trauma poisoned their postwar lives. National honors: winner, Dayton FutureFest; Midwest Theatre Network (MN); and Charlotte New Play Festival. Finalist in several other competitions; and winner of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Grant. Scenes published in two Smith & Kraus anthologies (1998). The play has had six full productions and 14 staged readings, from New York to L.A., and it has been the centerpiece for Yom Hashoah commemorations in three cities. (3 mature women; one young man; unit set)
VE DAY
(a light drama/memory play) inspired by a box of actual wartime newsletters. On May 8, 2003, an elderly widow's normal routine (barking at her daughter and patronizing Home Shopping Network) is interrupted by the arrival of a visitor from her past. He brings a box of newsletters that she had once edited for Jewish Clevelanders in the service. The visit stirs a pot of old memories, including the one love of her life that she let slip away. As the woman and her visitor revisit the heady days of World War II, the daughter is able to see her mother young again, for one day. Honored in four national contests and by a second Ohio Arts Council Grant, VE day premiered at Dobama Theatre and has had multiple staged readings, including the Cleveland Play House and L.A.'s Blank Theatre. Portions will be published in Scenes and Monologs from Best Plays II (Meriwether), in 2007. (4F; 2M, and one little girl. Unit set.)
A FORM OF HOPE
(a performance piece/memory play) was written to honor David Mark Berger, the Clevelandborn athlete slain along with 10 other members of the 1972 Israeli Olympic team. Commissioned by the Cleveland JCC, it is a gathering of family and friends who come together to remember David. In articulating their memories, they realize how little they knew him. But they also appreciate how his loss still breaks their heart, more than 30 years after his death. Most recently read at Theatre J. (8M; 4F, and a flexible set with creative lighting and video projections)
ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL
(a drama) is a work of fiction inspired by a lawsuit that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. It explores the impact of a lawsuit involving two teachers (one black, the other a liberal Jew). Their school board, when deciding which woman should be laid off, made its decision based solely on skin color. The play focuses on the journey of the Jewish teacher, who makes some unpleasant discoveries about the racial divide in contemporary America, and in her own heart. A finalist in three national contests, the script is still in development. Karamu, America's oldest AfricanAmerican cultural organization, performed the play in staged reading in 2006. (2F; 5M. Flexible set suggested by movable pieces and lights; some video recommended.)