January 11th 2020
Eli Rallo, Blank Space Workshop

This piece by writer Kellie Beck tells the story of two children learning more about their family as their mother dies. Two stories intertwine throughout the play; their parents' story; told in reverse chronological order, and that of the children; told in chronological order, about what happens when family tensions rise to the surface, and one person gets to decide the fate of everyone.

December 11th 2019
Kellie Beck, Blank Space Workshop

Blank Space Workshop was a Fall 2019 recipient of a mini grant that funded a brand new program called Playwright in Residency! Emma Ashford, senior Musical Theatre major, was the inaugural playwright! A reading of her musical, "Heartbeats", performed in the Newman Studio Wednesday, December 11th to full audiences for both the 7:00 and 11:00 performance! Telling the story of a not so far away future where young women who attempt abortions are sent to prison "New Life Units", Heartbeats shadows one young woman, Ava, and her journey at the hands of the state.

April 24th 2019
Blank Space Workshop

The mission of Blank Space Workshop is to promote and support new works in a space that’s created for the development of young stories with the intention of helping to mature theatrical projects in the early stages. They did four shows a semester, which were selected through a pitching process — three of the four received two weeks of workshops and rewrites with volunteering actors and a director and then held a staged reading for two performances in front of an audience for more critiques and conversations. The fourth show was the show in residency -- it had about three-four weeks to workshop and work with a team and then held a fully realized stage production at the end of the semester. The point of Blank Space Workshop was not to produce finished work or full productions, rather, it was to provide a space for emerging projects, early drafts and young pieces of original theatre to grow and mature. Funds from Arts at Michigan went towards the costs of printing and production expenses.

January 26th 2019
Blank Space Workshop

Dance major, Michaela Esteban, and Directing major, Kellie Beck, collaborated to create a theatrical work which combined as many disciplines across SMTD and beyond. The classic (and often-required) read, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” was the decided upon story to be told. They adapted the text and set the play in the Great Depression, with the Montagues and Capulets steeped in poverty. They aimed to portray Romeo and Juliet not as naive children, but as young people searching for hope and ritual in a world absent of just that.