School of Performing and Visual Arts
Blaine Quarnstrom Playwright Series
Page Content
February 11-13, 2026
Southern Miss English and theatre students will spend three days learning the ropes
from this year's Playwright-in-Residence, Julia Izumi, as part of the Blaine Quarnstrom
Playwrights Series.
Izumi will host:
- Two public Q&A sessions on the playwright's working methods and on industry trends
- A public staged reading of a scene from the playwright’s work
The playwright will also host writing workshops for students in the Departments of
English & Theatre. We encourage student participants of all levels with interests
in creative writing for theatre to sign-up. If interested in attending, please contact
Dr. David Coley at david.coleyFREEMississippi.
Playwright-In-Residence
Meet Julia Izumi
Julia Izumi is a writer, performer, and educator who makes plays, musicals, theatrical nonsense, and everything in between. Her writing blends wit, imagination, and emotional honesty.
Her work has been developed and presented at Manhattan Theatre Club, Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Ground Floor, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and Clubbed Thumb, among many others.
Izumi has received national recognition as a finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference for (An Audio Guide for) Unsung Snails and Heroes, an honorable mention on The Kilroys List for miku, and the gods., and the Dorry Award for Outstanding New Play for Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea. She is also the recipient of the NY Society Library’s Emerging Women’s Artist Grant, a Puffin Artists’ Grant, and the inaugural Dr. Kerry English Award from Ojai Playwrights Conference, making her the first artist to receive this honor.
She is currently a Resident at New Dramatists and is under commission from Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan, Playwrights Horizons, True Love Productions, and Seattle Rep’s 20x30 program.
As a performer, Izumi has appeared with HERE, Dixon Place, Mabou Mines, Incubator Arts, and Williamstown Theatre Festival, among others. She earned her BA in Drama from Tufts University, where she received the Goddard Rhetorical Prize for excellence in performance, and her MFA in Writing for Performance from Brown University.
Schedule
Thursday 2/12
| Time | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 7:30-9:00 p.m. |
Q&A on State of American Theatre A detailed Q&A session moderated by a faculty member with the Playwright-In-Residence. |
TAD Building - Hartwig Theatre |
Friday 2/13
| Time | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 7:30-9:00 p.m. |
Staged Readings with Q&A The playwright will host a staged reading of her work, along with a Q&A Session that will focus on the playwright's working methods and moderated by a faculty member. |
TAD Building - Hartwig Theatre |
About the Series
Founded in 2006, The Blaine Quarnstrom Playwrights Series fosters the writing of dramatic literature by students from both the Theatre and English programs. The goal of the Series is to foster student writing through Q&A sessions and creative writing workshops led by a leading American playwright. Over a single weekend, the playwright in residence structures four consecutive writing workshops derived from personal writing methods and techniques. In the past these sessions have focused on format writing for ten-minute plays, crafting expressive dialogue, and conceiving and developing effective structure and engaging characters.
Acknowledgement
This event is made possible through the generous support of the following sponsors: Mr. and Mrs. James Simrall, Jr. Arts Endowment, and the Robert N. Kinnaird, Jr. and Lucille Ehlers Kinnaird Memorial Endowment.