Anne Hamilton

Anne Hamilton is an NYC-based freelance dramaturg and the Founder of Hamilton Dramaturgy, an international consultancy. She created Hamilton Dramaturgy’s TheatreNow!, where she hosts and produces an oral history podcast series of important theatre women working in America. Anne has dramaturged for Andrei Serban, Michael Mayer, Lynn Nottage, NYMF, Niegel Smith, Classic Stage Company, and the Great Plains Theatre Festival, among others. She is also an award-winning playwright. Her chapter, “Freelance Dramaturgs in the 21st Century: Journalists, Advocates, and Collaborators” appears in The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. She was a Bogliasco Foundation Fellow, won the Dean’s Prize for Dramaturgy at Columbia University School of the Arts, and holds dual citizenship in Italy and the United States. Anne lost her best friend Curtis in a head-on car accident in 1979, two weeks after his high school graduation. Her emotional life became frozen and she has spent the last thirty-two years exploring all areas of self-expression, particularly through stage plays, poetry, theatre, art, and music. She is currently developing her own chamber-play-with-dance entitled ANOTHER WHITE SHIRT, about the way that grief moves through the body.

Articles:

A Forever Decision, Part 8

I feel very anxious today, more anxious than I have been since I found out that my uncle has terminal cancer. He has been in a rehabilitation center for a month to work on strengthening his muscles and coordination. He was supposed to come home today. I visited him for four days in the center. It was very strange to be there and brought back memories of visiting my granddad in a nursing home in the late 1970s. Uncle Steve looked well, and he was eating well. His mind is still very sharp. I appreciate that. I still have to […]

A Forever Decision, Part 7

It has been a week since I found out that my Uncle Steve has terminal cancer. I’ve felt sick to my stomach. I’ve felt calm. I’ve felt trapped. I’ve felt hopeful. I try to think about how I’ll feel without him in my life. I wonder what his life will be like until the end. I thank God for painkillers. I call him every day. I’ve planned a trip on November 13th when I’ve completed my work contracts and can drive across the state to see him. I ask him how he feels every day. He says, “I’m hanging in […]

A Forever Decision, Part 6

There are certain beings in this life that I love more than anyone else. They are: my dogs Isabella and Camilla, my boyfriend Walter, and my Uncle Steve. I lost Cami due to a brain tumor seven weeks ago. I have struggled to keep on top of my emotions – and by that, I mean that I have struggled to always face my emotions and not push them down. It has been very hard to concentrate for any length of time. And it has been hard to keep my motivation strong. Last week was so hard that I couldn’t even […]

A Forever Decision, Part 5

A Forever Decision, Part 5 I am beginning to remember things about my daily life with my dog, Camilla, that give me pleasure. When she lost her sight, I would walk her up and down the straight sidewalk in front of our house. When we came to a step, I would say, “Step,” and stop her. Then I would reach down and take her paw and pat the top of the step so she could get oriented. Then we would walk on the steps. I feel a warm swelling in my heart when I remember it. To think that I […]

A Forever Decision, Part 4

It has been a month since I lost my beloved Camilla due to a brain tumor. Today I felt desolate. Tears sprang into my eyes when I thought of what we went through a month ago. The grief was fresh enough to constrict my throat and blur my vision. I’ve been experiencing grief in waves, and chunks. Last week, I felt bereft and hopeless for a couple of days and had to talk to myself to keep myself going. “Anne, people need you. Isabella needs you. You have to take care of her. She misses her sister, too. Just give […]

A Forever Decision: Part 3

On Day 9 after the loss of my beloved Camilla due to a brain tumor, I think it’s important to start the day with love. Whether it’s petting my remaining dog Isabella, or sending love letters to my boyfriend, I feel better when I start the day with something that will last. Because any love given and received is eternal and makes bonds that even death can’t break. And in the future, I’ll feel better knowing that I really showed my love to my loved ones. At least that’s something I can hang on to when the times comes that […]

A Forever Decision: Part Two

My relief is giving way to anxiety and the inability to concentrate. On the sixth day after I put my beloved Camilla to sleep after a long illness, I wake up refreshed, but that feeling soon gives way to dread. Thoughts of Cami keep intruding. Why wasn’t I able to save her? What did I do wrong? Could I have done something different? I still have Isabella, my German Shepherd/Lab, but that doesn’t comfort me. I want Camilla. I want to pet her and feel her fur beneath my fingers. I want to tell her how much I love her. […]

A Forever Decision: Letting Go of a Dog

I’m starting to realize that she is not coming back. Five days ago, I put my beloved dog Camilla to sleep. She had a tumor on her pituitary gland and she was experiencing debilitating symptoms. It was best to end her suffering. It was a forever decision. The first day, I felt relieved. I had been nursing her for a year and a half. I never knew when she would have another seizure. I had to guide her to and from the backyard by clapping so she could follow the sound – she had gone blind. I have another dog […]

Choosing to Say Goodbye

There’s a time when you have to say goodbye, and a time when you choose to say goodbye. For the first time, I chose to say goodbye to my friend Curtis today. I had to say goodbye when he was ripped away from me in a car accident thirty years ago. And all this time I’ve been resenting that accident. But recently the song, “Freebird”* by Lynryd Skynyrd has kept echoing in my head. If I heard it on the radio, I would listen for its entirety. I would pull off the road to listen to it. I couldn’t get […]

Losing My Mentor: Remembering Romulus Linney

I lost a great friend and mentor this month. Romulus Linney, the playwright and novelist, died in New York of lung cancer. In a twist of fate, Rom’s daughter, the actress Laura Linney, won a Golden Globe the day after her father’s death, for her starring role in THE BIG C, a story about a woman with cancer. Rom was my professor at Columbia University School of the Arts, and then my colleague at the New School’s Actors Studio Drama School. He led the playwrighting programs at both universities. I learned from him first as a student, and then as […]

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