A script change: Ehn replaces Parks

Avant-GARDE playwright Erik Ehn has replaced “Topdog/Underdog” Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks as director of CalArts theater school’s writing for performance program.

“I want to get back to being a full-time writer,” said Parks, who will retain the title of distinguished writing fellow. “I never wanted to be an academic.”

CalArts President Steven Lavine said Parks would continue to work with students in the program at fall and winter workshops. But Parks isn’t so sure. “To be honest, that’s subject to my availability,” she said. “Ideally, I’ll be hanging with the students and having lots of fun. But I really need to spend time with my writing” -- which includes three screenplays, a novel, a play and a children’s book.

Lavine cited Ehn’s work as co-founder of the RAT movement, which is dedicated to producing theater on low budgets, as a valuable credit in an era “when support for cutting-edge work is limited.” Ehn’s plays have been produced by Bottom’s Dream (“Nevertire,” “Chokecherry,” “Erotic Curtsies”) and Cornerstone (“Mary Shelley’s Santa Claus”). He’s currently in Africa, researching a play about the Rwandan genocide.

The three-year program admits only two new students each year.

“We try to fully produce each student’s final play, and there are only so many we can produce,” Lavine said.

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-- Don Shirley