GLM New Works Initiative 2021

THE COLONY 
by Gina Stevensen

The Colony is a new play about the eugenics movement in America. Synopsis: In 1924 Virginia, a dirt-poor young woman named Carrie Buck is brought to a mysterious medical facility. No one will tell her why she’s here, or where her two-month-old daughter is. The Doctor in charge is a charming progressive, a student of the new science of heredity and genes. In Carrie, he finds the missing link his movement has been searching for, placing her at the center of a chain of events that will lead all the way to the Supreme Court. Based on a true story, The Colony asks: how does our society, past and present, regulate the bodies of women who are deemed “undesirable”?

Photo by Courtney Ropp

Photo by Courtney Ropp

Photo by Courtney Ropp

​Gina Stevensen is a playwright, dramaturg, and writing instructor. She is the 2021 winner of the Kernodle New Play Award and was a 2019 winner of the Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series. Gina’s plays have been developed in NYC and across the country with Roundabout Theatre Company, American Stage, Urban Stages, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Hartford Stage, The Tank, and more. She has been a finalist for Theatre503’s International Playwriting Award, the Jewish Playwriting Contest, and the Austin Film Festival Pitch Competition, and a semifinalist for the Princess Grace Award, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival (three times!), Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, and The Civilians’ R&D Group. Gina was a 2019 nominee for the Mentor Project at the Cherry Lane Theatre and is an Affiliated Artist with The Hess Collective and a member of the Board of Directors at Middlebury Acting Company. She has been a guest lecturer at Hunter College and New York University and teaches playwriting at The Writer’s Rock. MFA Playwriting: Columbia University.

To learn more about Gina and her work, visit her website at https://www.ginastevensen.com/​

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