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Updated 12/2/2021

BESS WELDEN

  • M

    ME

Institution/Business Type: Artist / Creative (Individual)

Bess Welden (www.besswelden.com) is a theater-maker living and working in Portland, Maine. Her creative practice includes playwriting, performing, teaching, and producing. She holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from the National Theater Conservatory.

Bess’ playwriting practice began through solo performance. She’s adapted/written and performed a half-dozen original solo works, and over the last decade has expanded to writing several scripts for multi-character casts. Her newest play with songs, Death Wings, won the 2020 Maine State prize of the Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights. The script was also a semi-finalist for the 2020 O’Neill New Play Conference and workshopped with Fresh Ink Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts. A monologue from the play was published in The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2021 by Smith & Kraus. She was recently awarded a Creative Community Fellowship from National Arts Strategies to support her combined performing and visual arts initiative, The Death Wings Project, which will include the world premiere of the play in 2023 in multiple locations in Maine.

Her new full-length version of Madeleines was named a finalist for the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, a top 20 semi-finalist in the 2021 National Jewish Plays Contest, and received workshop readings with Maine Playwrights Festival, North Shore Readers Theater, and at Colby College. Her play Refuge Malja, winner of the Tel Aviv Jewish Plays Contest and a finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Playwriting Contest, is digitally published by DramaScripts, UK. Refuge Malja premiered on Portland Stage’s mainstage and was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2018. In fall 2020 she co-produced and performed Hausfrau: The Webseries on YouTube. Mergirl Saves the Waves, Bess’ feminist, environmentalist adaptation of The Little Mermaid, is in development supported by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. Her solo comedies The Passion of the Hausfrau (2009) and Big Mouth Thunder Thighs (2013) premiered in Portland Stage’s Studio Theater, and her collaborative multidisciplinary project with live music and illustration, Legbala is a River, premiered at Mayo Street Arts (2017). In 2020 she participated as an invited writer at the National Winter Playwrights Retreat (HBMG Foundation) in Grand Lake, CO and was a member of Company One Theatre (Boston) PlayLab Unit. You can hear her 15-minute audio rom-coms “What I Miss Most” and “Under My Skin” on the Meet Cute Podcast (www.meetcute.com).

As an actor Bess has appeared in her adopted home state of Maine with Portland Stage, Dramatic Repertory Company, Mad Horse Theatre, Colby College, Portland Symphony Orchestra, and others. She has also performed with the Denver Center, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, Willaimstown Theater Festival, and has toured her own work to New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Minnesota, Florida, and California.

Bess is a Lecturer in Theater at Colby College, where she has been teaching acting and playwriting, and guest directing for the past 11 years. She has developed and facilitated independent creativity workshops for adults and adolescents exploring the theme of the inner critic, and recently created the Activist Storytelling Workshop, a combined writing and performance intensive.

Bess is actively working to transform her role as an independent producer, co-producer, and board member in Portland’s theater community by advocating for and leading creative processes that are artist-centered and move beyond the exhausting and often exploitative systems that have predominated white-led American theater production.

 

Find Me

BESS WELDEN
Job Title: Playwright/Performer/Teacher
Phone: 978-505-9908
Address:
17 BELFIELD STREET
Portland, ME 04103

Social Media:

Additional Content:

About

Overview

Institution/Business Type:

Artist / Creative (Individual)

Legal Status:

Commercial / For profit - Sole proprietorship

Year Founded:

1994

Overview

Institution/Business Type:

Artist / Creative (Individual)

Legal Status:

Commercial / For profit - Sole proprietorship

Year Founded:

1994

Disciplines

Primary Discipline:

Theater - General

Additional Disciplines:

  • Theater - Variety / Vaudeville

Activities and Services

Activities and Services:

  • Arts for Social Change / Creative Activism
  • Creation of a Work of Art (Including Commissions)
  • Curriculum Development
  • Performance / Concert / Reading
  • Professional Development / Training
  • Residency - In School
  • Residency - Production / Development
  • Workshops / Demonstrations / Master Class
Seasons Active: spring, summer, fall, winter
Events Per Year: 4

Communities

Populations Engaged:

  • Adults
  • Elders
  • Families
  • General Public
  • School Groups
  • Teens

Geographic Reach:

  • Multi-State Region

Accessibility of Services

Accessibility of Services:

  • Access accommodations for people who use a wheelchair and have limited mobility
  • Access accommodations for people who are blind, partially sighted, and have low vision
  • Access accommodations for people who are Deaf and hard-of-hearing

I am working with venues to ensure as much accessibility as possible for people to participate in workshops and performances. I am also committed to providing ASL-interpreted performances and large-print materials whenever possible.

Media Gallery

I Have Worked With

Affiliations and Accomplishments

Professional Associations

Professional Associations:

  • Dramatist Guild
  • Alliance for Jewish Theater
  • New Play Exchange
  • Portland Stage Affiliate Artist

Professional Associations

Professional Associations:

  • Dramatist Guild
  • Alliance for Jewish Theater
  • New Play Exchange
  • Portland Stage Affiliate Artist

Awards

Awards:

  • 2022 Creative Community Fellowship - New England (National Arts Strategies)
  • 2020 Winner, Maine State Prize, Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights (Death Wings)
  • 2020 Winner, Tel Aviv Jewish Plays Contest (Refuge Malja)
  • 2022 Finalist, National Jewish Playwriting Contest (Madeleines)
  • 2021 Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival (Madeleines)
  • 2020 Finalist, National Jewish Playwriting Contest (Refuge Malja)
  • 2020 Semi-finalist, O'Neill New Play Conference (Death Wings)

Education

Education:

  • Oberlin College, BA
  • National Theater Conservatory, MFA

Artist Info

Teaching Artist

Teaching Settings:

  • Afterschool Program
  • Arts and Cultural Center / Venue
  • Community Site / Center
  • Healthcare Facility
  • School / University

Ages Served:

  • High School-age
  • College-age
  • Adults
  • Seniors

Subject Areas:

  • Theater
  • Visual/Crafts

Fee range:

$400 - $1,000

Teaching Artist

Teaching Settings:

  • Afterschool Program
  • Arts and Cultural Center / Venue
  • Community Site / Center
  • Healthcare Facility
  • School / University

Ages Served:

  • High School-age
  • College-age
  • Adults
  • Seniors

Subject Areas:

  • Theater
  • Visual/Crafts

Fee range:

$400 - $1,000

Touring Artist

Technical Requirements:

  • electrical hook-up for projector
  • 25'x25' open performing area with high ceiling
  • basic lighting plot for indoor venue
  • projection screen/surface
  • private dressing area and restroom

Fee Range:

$5,000 - $10,000

State of Residence:

Maine

Minimum Number of Performers:

6

Maximum Number of Performers:

6