In May of 2013 I attended The Conference of New Dramaturgy in Warsaw Poland. Attendees were U.S. playwrights participating in the Adam Mickiewicz Instsitute dramaturgical projects as well as members of the PACE program from Visehrad countries including Martina Cerna (Head of International Cooperation and PR Department at Arts and Theatre Institute n Prague), Dasa Ciripova ( Head of the Public Relations Department at the Theatre Institute in Bratislava and Editor-in-Chief of theatre magazine kød – Concretely About Theatre), and Attila Szabo (researcher and coordinator of international relations at Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute in Budapest). They joined with Adam Mickiewicz Institute representatives Joanna Klass ( Head of Theatre and and Performing Arts Programs) and Marcin Jacoby (Manager of Asian Projects). Playwrights and dramaturgs in attendance included Marton Kiss (Hungary), Michaela Zakutanska (Slovakia), David Drabek and Petr Kolecko (Czech Republic), and U.S playwrights Rachel Halcyon Jendrzejewski, Dara Weinberg, Kevin King, Kirsa Rein and me.

Here, the word "conference" was applied liberally. We spent several days together discussing our work and the works of the Polish playwrights with whom we had recently become familiar. It culminated in a round-table discussion with all the attendees as well as representatives from the United States Embassy and a handful of others from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

It was a great trip and hopefully just the beginning of some cross-cultural theatre work.