Playwright Barbara Blatner shares insights on developing
her play Jane, Queen's Foole with Broad Horizons
On June 2, 2025, the company presented a reading of Barbara Blatner's new play, Jane, Queen's Foole. The play had been selected as the winner of the company's annual new play competition, called "New Voices, New Plays, New York." Below, Barbara describes the experience of winning the competition and all that comes with it--an opportunity to develop the play with critical feedback and participate in casting the roles and rehearsing the play for a reading presented for a live audience in New York.
"My developmental reading with Broad Horizons was one of the most satisfying theatre gigs I’ve had. I felt high for weeks after my reading there.​
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"A month before the reading, Mark Wood, Broad Horizons’s Literary Manager, critiqued my script in an extremely astute, generous manner. Because he created a field of appreciation for the pages I already had, every one of his suggestions I could hear, weigh. He re-read my script a number of times, and continued to give me increasingly meticulous insights. Repeatedly, he told me how much he believed in my play and would help move it to production somewhere. I trusted him immensely.
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"I also trusted Jan Powell, my director, who was chosen in part because she works with Shakespeare texts and would sync with the heightened language of my play. She was savvy and very experienced, perceptively and oh so gentle with the actors. Broad Horizons uses a marvelous casting director, Cindi Rush, so we had a feast of talent to choose from. Jan and I loved working together to make our choices. Our actors were the best I’d worked with. I watched them invent constantly during rehearsal and bring my characters very fully alive. Their work showed me my own.
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"Broad Horizons is committed to producing high-quality readings. I felt exquisitely supported
by their team as a playwright and as a person. I’m grateful to have been part of this beautifully run program."​
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--Barbara Blatner