The Overview Effect by Lynn Rosen

Dueling launches by competing space companies, each on a quest for Mars, ends in disaster when RedSky’s unmanned rocket explodes. Investigations are undertaken and the costs of risk-taking – financial, emotional and spiritual – are unearthed. A drama with a lot of humor about the race to space and beyond. A commission by the Sloan Foundation Theater Initiative

The Overview Effect by Lynn Rosen
Conceived by Lynn Rosen and Kay Matschullat
Commissioned by the Sloan Foundation-EST
Directed by Kip Fagin
A staged reading presented by Media Art Xploration (MAX) in partnership with San Francisco Playhouse.

Artist Profile

Lynn Rosen

Lynn Rosen’s plays have been produced/developed by: TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, San Francisco Playhouse, New Georges (2018 Audrey Residency), Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, Actors Theatre of Louisville, UCSB’s Launch Pad, Women’s Project, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Centerstage Baltimore, Studio Theatre, Red Bull Theater, Working Theater, Barrington Stage, The New Group, The Lark, New Harmony Project, among others. Lynn co-writes/co-created the award-winning web series Darwin and is currently in cahoots with some folks on some TV projects. Current commissions: Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation new play commission for “The Overview Effect” (with producer Kay Matschullat), TheatreWorks Silicon Valley commission for her musical “Gurley!” along with composers/collaborators The Kilbanes, Red Bull Theater inaugural new play commission for “The Claudias: A Revenge Play.” Lynn resides in NYC and is a Resident Playwright at New Dramatists.

credit Steven Schachter

Artist Profile

Kay Matschullat

Kay Matschullat originates, produces and directs performance around the globe. She has directed premiers of plays by Nobel prize-winning Caribbean playwright Derek Walcott, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Ariel Dorfman and Playwright President Vaclav Havel. Other credits include Threepenny Opera, Carson McCullers Talks About Love, (nominated for a Drama Desk Award) off-Broadway with compoaser Duncan Sheik, Echoes of A Thousand Hillswith Masharika Theater in Rwanda, Pantomime,Dimetos, and Widowsat Williamstown Theater, All’s Well The Ends Well, Love’s Labours Lost, and Skin of Our Teeth.    

She has held artistic residencies at Dartmouth College, Harvard College, Calarts, and SCAD.  She served as a full time faculty member at Tisch School of the Arts for over two decades, taught at Princeton University Program in Theater and Dance and is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard College.  

Grants include an NEA Fellowship, A TCG Fellowship, and a Drama League residency. She founded Scriptopia, the first online collaborative tool for play development. She looks forward to seeing you at MAX 2019: A Space Festival. 

Artist Profile

Kip Fagan

KIP FAGAN is a director of new plays. Recent NYC credits include: Susan Soon He Stanton’s Today Is My Birthday (P73); Zayd Dohrn’s The Profane, Heidi Schreck’s Grand Concourse (Playwrights Horizons); Jenny Rachel Weiner’s Kingdom Come (Roundabout Underground); Ike Holter’s Exit Strategy (Primary Stages); Jesse Eisenberg’s The Revisionist and Asuncion, Halley Feiffer’s How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them, Heidi Schreck’s There Are No More Big Secrets, Sheila Callaghan’s That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play (Rattlestick); Ariel Stess’s The World My Mama Raised and I’m Pretty Fucked Up, Sheila Callaghan’s Roadkill Confidential, Rachel Hoeffel’s Quail (Clubbed Thumb); Carlos Murillo’s A Thick Description of Harry Smith, Sam Hunter’s Jack’s Precious Moment (P73); Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith’s Radio Play (PS 122). Regional credits include: Alliance, Long Wharf, Woolly Mammoth, Williamstown, Humana, George Street Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, Marin Theatre Company, City Theatre. Taught and/or directed at Juilliard, NYU, SUNY Purchase, National Theatre Institute, Strasberg Center. NEA/TCG directing fellow, Clubbed Thumb affiliated artist, co-founder of Printer’s Devil in Seattle.