Carmela Lanza-Weil is an accomplished theater creator, director, playwright, producer, actor, and administrator. She has directed hundreds of projects, produced festivals, run arts organizations, created new initiatives, taught theater to people of every age, and performed on stages across the country.
In 2014, she relocated to Western Massachusetts in search of more snow, cleaner air, and new adventures. Since relocating, she has appeared in a fringe festival, directed several plays and projects, and produced several community happenings.
She also led the Greater Shelburne Falls Area Business Association for three years where she collaboratively created the H.A.T.C.H. project (Hilltown Arts and Thriving Community Happenings). Working with The Art Garden’s Jane Beatrice Wegscheider and independent activist/artist Phyllis Labonowski, H.A.T.C.H. created grant-funded opportunities for community-engaged art happenings. The program funded about a dozen new projects that engaged the Hilltown communities (with funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Adams Grant).
Carmela spent 2019 working with Silverthorne Theater, a semi-professional company in Franklin County. She directed The Fantasticks to sold-out crowds in the spring. With a goal of helping the company transition to new leadership, she co-produced the second half of the 2019 season with Rebecca Daniels. She also helped implement the first-ever individual donation campaign, professionalized book- and record-keeping, revised contracts, and implemented processes to help the organization function.
COVID-19 arrived while she was working part-time in emergency management as the volunteer coordinator for the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) of Franklin and Berkshire Counties (the MRC is a volunteer organization that trains community members to help in disasters). The part-time became full time as the demands of the pandemic spurred volunteerism and the MRC grew 300%. By mid-July 2021, volunteers had given over 20,000 hours to the community in response to the pandemic.
Beginning in 2022, as life began to open up, Carmela began work on a new play about her experiences as a public health worker during the pandemic. She also directed a workshop production of a new play, “Weaving Penelope,” and directed a concert play with the Wilde Irish Women that enjoyed full houses and rave reviews!
“Captive Audience (The Covid Play)” was presented as a staged-reading in May 2023 in Buckland Town Hall, Greenfield Community College, and the South Deerfield Senior Center. Each performance was followed by an audience talk-back; comments from the talkbacks will be considered as the play continues to evolve. In November 2023, Carmela and dramaturg Rebecca Daniels have been invited to present excerpts from the play and talk about its creation at the New England Rural Health Association conference in Killington, VT. Plans are afoot to rewrite and re-envision the play for production in spring/summer 2024.
LIFE BEFORE NEW ENGLAND…
Prior to moving to the Pioneer Valley, Baltimore was home and the base for several endeavors beginning with earning a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre at Towson University. In that program for self-producing artists of new and experimental work, she wrote and produced several plays and learned (among many other skills) flat pattern-making and draping. She also learned that one’s own spit will take out one’s own blood stains on fabric. In addition to the MFA, she led education programs for the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival and Everyman Theatre, freelanced as a director, workshop instructor (see list on “Classes and Workshops“), and director/producer for a variety of works.
A somewhat unique specialty she enjoyed in Charm City was creating new plays for non-profit organizations that commissioned her to dramatize the stories of the people they serve. Projects included “Overcoming the Odds,” a new play that she wrote, produced, and directed for the Girls Empowerment Mission (GEM) in Baltimore. This play was presented at GEM’s annual fundraising event in April 2013 and was a repeat engagement after creating a similar project for GEM in 2009.
In the summer of 2013, Carmela traveled to Lawrence, MA to produce the 29th Annual Bread and Roses Heritage Festival. The free outdoor festival, held every Labor Day, offered over 3,000 festival goers a full day of music and dance programming on three stages, educational activities, vendors, and special events. Carmela coordinated all aspects of the festival including recruiting acts and volunteers, contracting, scheduling, obtaining city permits, and community outreach. Working with a small, dedicated team of volunteers, she was an integral part of all development, marketing, and logistics activities. Through her efforts, contributions increased both in dollars and number of contributors before and during the festival. She also created and conducted the first evaluative survey in the festival’s history, which provided the festival’s first substantiated audience estimates. (www.breadandrosesheritage.org)
Other projects include co-producing her daughter’s wedding, directing Alice In Wonderland at Immaculate Conception Middle School, The Last Flapper with Red Door Theatre at the Baltimore Creative Alliance and the DC Fringe, and her own play “Bury the Hatchet (a play about forgiveness)” at Towson University and the Philly Fringe Festival.
Before moving to Baltimore for the MFA adventure, Carmela co-founded Bump In the Road Theatre (BUMP) in Portland (OR), a company created to support development and production of new plays focused on challenging life events like death, aging, and caregiving. BUMP has been on hiatus but, like the Phoenix, it will rise again! (www.bumpintheroad.org)
Carmela also headed the undergraduate theatre program at Concordia University/Portland for several years, where she designed a new major with an emphasis on theatre for youth. In addition to curriculum development, she taught a variety of courses, worked on community engagement projects, recruited and advised students, and produced a full-season of plays. She also instigated and oversaw the refurbishment of the performance space and the installation of a gallery for student art.
Another rewarding project was coordinating “Home Is Where the Arts Is” for the Portland International Performance Festival. “Home” was a festival that produced 24 artists performing in 24 places that people live including private homes, public housing, and mobile home communities over a two-weekend period.
Carmela frequently works with elementary, middle school, and high school students as a free-lance director and coach. She has worked in public and private schools in Shelburne Falls, Baltimore City, Prince George’s County in Maryland, as well as through the Regional Arts and Culture Council of Oregon and Young Audiences of Oregon.
Portland Opera’s first resident artists training program was conceived, designed, and implemented by Carmela when she served as Executive Administrator for Education and Community Engagement. She also managed state-wide tours, the student dress rehearsal program, and the multiple education projects.
Also an actor from time-to-time, she has appeared on stages from NYC to Portland on stages ranging from dinner theatre to summer stock to regionals to found spaces.
She looks forward to the next big thing.