Plays In Progress Mentor
Victoria Z. Daly
Victoria is a Plays in Progress Mentor for Plays. Her mentor interests: character-driven, conflict, strong character arc, theatricality, dramatic physicality. Request Victoria as a PIP Mentor.
“I’m drawn to plays about complex, flawed humans struggling to connect with each other and themselves. Characters with big needs and stakes. Plays that explore fundamental questions about the way the world, and the humans in it, work. My main goal as a dramatist-mentor is to recognize the impulse and intention in your play and to help you, the playwright, fulfill your intention.
I’m especially excited to work on plays whose stories can only be told on the stage. Lighting, mixed media, non-linear structure, metaphor, heightened language — whatever you can dream up to tell the story and help illuminate the characters, I’m up for it. I’d be less effective working on plays that are highly plot-driven or message- driven.
After we’ve explored each of our questions about your draft, I’ll aim to have you fired up to start the next one.”
Victoria Z. Daly recently won a Regional Emmy as producer/story editor of 3 Seconds in October: The Shooting of Andy Lopez, seen nationally on PBS.
She is the Founder and Director of The 9th Floor, a collaborative of writers and actors in New York City, now in its fifteenth season. Plays and screenplays workshopped at The 9th Floor have gone on to receive hundreds of productions, publications, residencies and awards, among them Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for Comic Writing and the Bauer-Boucher award from Kean University.
Vicki’s plays include Doppelgänger, Sam, Demeter and Polly, Shell Collection, Invisible, Far North, On the Cross Bronx, Circling the Globe, Raw, Final Rest, High Water Line, Bottom of the Order and What to Do About It (#AfterTheBans.) They have been developed/produced at the Actors Studio, Valdez Theatre Conference, ATHE Conference, Short+Sweet Festivals in Hollywood, Dubai, and Perth, the Vspyshka Theatre in Russia, Supersound Scotland Radio, Alliance for Jewish Theatre, Berrie Center, KPBX-FM (NPR,) and the Edinburgh Festival, among other venues.
Other recent awards for her work include “9 Most Memorable Plays and Playwrights of the Last 9 Years,” Warner International Playwrights Festival, Connecticut (Final Rest,); The Neem Award for Improper Dramaturgy, Russia (High Water Line); Winner, Impossible Fest, Chicago (High Water Line); Best Play, Best Actress and Judges’ Choice, Short+Sweet Dubai (On the Cross Bronx); Winner, The Grand Theatre Playwriting Competition (Final Rest.) Her collection Raw and Other Short Plays is published by Next Stage Press. Other short plays and monologues are published by Applause Theatre and Cinema Books in their She Persisted series (3x;) the New Short Play Festival; MonologueBank; The Last Frontier Theatre Conference; and some scripts.
Vicki has taught playwriting (specializing in drama bootcamps) in New York City, Tennessee, and Connecticut for such organizations as Stephen Sondheim's Young Playwrights, Inc., the Fly Arts Center, Litchfield Performing Arts, and her own The Write Stuff! programs. A former physical actor, she has taught and performed commedia dell'arte, clown and mask work in Paris, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and in New York City.
Education: MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts; Certificate, Theater, L’Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris; A.B. and M.B.A., Harvard. Member: Dramatists Guild of America; Actors Studio Playwrights and Directors Workshop; League of Professional Theatre Women; and Honor Roll!, an advocacy group for women+ playwrights over 40.