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09/20/2018 12:01 AMThe Guilford Performing Arts Festival (GPAF) has awarded its inaugural Guilford Foundation/Guilford Performing Arts Festival Artists’ Awards to playwright/screenwriter Susan Cinoman of Woodbridge and jazz pianist/composer Noah Baerman of Middletown. The two were chosen by festival programmers and independent judges from a field of applicants from throughout Connecticut. Each will receive a $2,500 grant toward the creation of new work.
Cinoman and Baerman will be introduced at a reception in Guilford on Saturday, Sept. 29. Tickets are $50 per person; for more information, visit guilfordperformingartsfest.org or email gpafest@gmail.com.
GPAF created the awards this year with the Guilford Foundation’s support to encourage the development of new work by professional Connecticut artists and to provide a vehicle for the debut of original material at the festival. Cinoman’s and Baerman’s works will be performed in full for the first time at the next Guilford Performing Arts Festival, scheduled for Sept. 26 to 29, 2019.
Cinoman, who won in the Drama category, will complete work on a full-length play, Guenevere, that uses the King Arthur legend to illuminate the struggle for power and control between women and their closest male friends, in love, at work and at play. In Cinoman’s play, Guenevere, a childhood friend of Arthur, pulls the legendary sword from the stone and becomes the rightful ruler of Camelot—setting up a battle of wills, intrigue, romance, murder. and a feminist perspective on the dynamics between men and women, on politics. and on destiny. Cinoman plans a staged reading of Guenevere at the 2019 festival; a portion of the play while in development was presented previously at Connecticut’s Ivoryton Playhouse as part of its annual Women’s Playwright Initiative.
Baerman, winner in the Music category, will develop an extended instrumental jazz composition in tribute to Claire Randall, a musical collaborator and former student who was murdered at the age of 26. The piece, titled “Cliff Palace,” is part of a larger body of work addressing Randall’s life and the impact of her passing. It will be performed live by an ensemble featuring piano, acoustic bass, drums, and wind instruments.
The 2019 Guilford Performing Arts Festival will feature a diverse program of music and theater, opera, poetry, storytelling, ballet and contemporary dance, circus acts, buskers, and spontaneous happenings. Performances and workshops will take place on and around the green as well as in various other places in town—the community center, library, schools, churches, coffee shops, markets, bookstores, farms, arts centers, and historic homes.
The festival started in 2017 with the goals of enlivening the Connecticut shoreline, illuminating social causes, and fostering cultural diversity, building audiences for live performance, provoking thought and encouraging the creation of new work by Connecticut artists.