6660 Manasota Key Road
Englewood
FL 34223
“Stage, Page, and Useful Rage”
with Hermitage Fellows Julia Jordan and Xochitl Gonzalez
Julia Jordan’s Hermitage Residency generously sponsored by Gerald & Sondra Biller.
Xochitl Gonzalez’s Hermitage Residency generously sponsored by Liz & Duncan Richardson.
Friday, April 5 at 6:30pm
Hermitage Beach (entrance at 6660 Manasota Key Rd, Englewood, FL 34223)
Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.
Some artists adapt their art to get produced and noticed in the industry, but innovators like Hermitage Fellows Julia Jordan and Xochitl Gonzalez change the industry itself. Julia Jordan co-founded The Lilly’s, an organization dedicated to gender and racial parity in the American theater and served as its Executive President while creating such acclaimed theater works as Murder Ballad. Xochitl Gonzalez is a staff writer for The Atlantic, where she was honored as a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2023, and author of The New York Times best-selling novel Olga Dies Dreaming. Through both the works they create themselves and their advocacy for fellow artists, these two women are shaping our future world through their art and their words.
Hermitage Fellow Julia Jordan’s credits include select musicals; Murder Ballad (Conceived by, Book and Lyrics – Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics nominations) Sarah Plain and Tall (Book – Kleban Award, Jonathan Larson Award, ATandT Onstage Award) Select Plays; Boy (Susan Smith Blackburn Honorable Mention) Tatjana in Color (Francesca Primus Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn shortlist) DARK YELLOW (Susan Smith Blackburn shortlist) Film; The Hat (Sundance Film Festival, Bravo Channel) Dark Yellow (Best Short, Jackson Hole Film Fest.). Fellowships: Hermitage Artist Retreat, Lucille Lortel, Manhattan Theater Club, MacDowell, Juilliard Fellowships. Julia recently stepped down from her role as Executive Director of The Lilly Awards. She founded The Count, The Family Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm, and The Lorraine Hansberry Initiative, Sculpture and Scholarship. She is the Former Treasurer of the Dramatists Guild and previously taught playwriting at Barnard College and NYU. Her work has been developed at Sundance, The O’Neill Playwrights Center, Ojai Playwrights Festival.
Hermitage Fellow Xochitl Gonzalez is a cultural critic, producer, screenwriter, and the New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming. Named a “Best of 2022” by The New York Times, TIME, Kirkus, Washington Post, and NPR, Olga Dies Dreaming was the winner of the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize in Fiction and the New York City Book Awards. Her new novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, was just released by Flatiron Books. Gonzalez is a 2021 M.F.A. graduate from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her non-fiction work has been published in Elle Decor, Allure, Vogue, Real Simple, and The Cut. As a staff writer for The Atlantic, she was recognized as a 2023 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. Prior to her career as a writer, Gonzalez was an entrepreneur, fundraiser, and all-around hustler for nearly 20 years. She is a board member of the Lower East Side Girls Club and the Brooklyn Public Library, and a trustee of the corporation of Brown University, where she received her B.A. in Visual Art. A native Brooklynite and proud public school graduate, she lives in her hometown of Brooklyn with her dog, Hectah Lavoe.