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PLAYPENN PRESENTS FOURTH NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

Conference Culminates in Free Staged Readings on July 24, 25, 26 and 27

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s professional new play development organization, will hold its fourth annual New Play Development Conference on July 10-July 27 at both the Adrienne Theater and the Playground (2030 Sansom Street) in Philadelphia. The Conference will feature two weeks of intensive work on six works-in-progress by Peter Bonilla (A Human Equation), Jennifer Haley (Breadcrumbs), Lila Rose Kaplan (Wildflower), James McLindon (Saving Grace), Gregory S. Moss (House of Gold), and Silva Semerciyan (Another Man’s Son). The Conference will culminate in staged readings of the plays on July 24, 25, 26 and 27, which are free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling 215-568-1434.

“The goal of the conference is the development of plays, through a process of collaboration, experimentation, rehearsal and rewriting, rather than offering fully realized productions of finished works. We focus on playwrights’ needs by providing a laboratory environment and the necessary tools for playwrights, making the fundamental work of the theatre possible without the constraints and pressures of production, promotion and commercial consideration,” said Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director of PlayPenn.

This year will feature a new addition to the New Play Development Conference. There will be two readings of plays which need to be heard by an audience, but whose writers may not need or benefit from the intensive writing support from the rest of the Conference. There will be a reading of Any Given Monday by Bruce Graham on July 18 at 8:00 PM; Dear Brutus, adapted from J.M. Barrie by Jeffrey Hatcher on July 21 at 8:00 PM.

“This year we are also broadening the impact of the Conference by offering readings by writers who simply want to take advantage of the feedback of hearing their work aloud,” explained Meshejian. “This allows us at the Conference to accommodate a larger pool of writers at different stages of their careers and to adapt to writers whose plays are in varying stages in their evolution.”

The plays that will be developed during two-week workshops during the Conference are as follows:

A Human Equation by Peter Bonilla is a provocative drama about Kenneth Feinberg, the special master of the fund created by Congress to compensate 9/11 victims, who finds himself elevated to a position of influence unequaled in American history. His task: to place unique values on each of the 3,000 lives that had been lost. In the course of his nearly 1,000 meetings with the families of 9/11, Feinberg becomes a lightning rod for their outrage, comes face to face with their grief and fear, and is forced to reconsider his most basic notions of human character and strength. A Human Equation, directed by Casey Stangl with Michele Volansky as dramaturg, will be read on Friday, July 25 at 8:00 PM.

Breadcrumbs by Jennifer Haley is a heartwarming story of a reclusive fiction writer who, when diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers, must depend on a young, chaotic nursing student to help her write her last book - an autobiography. As the two journey into the dark woods of her past, they explore the nature of language, loneliness, and essential self. Breadcrumbs, directed by Katie Pearl with Greg Romero as dramaturg, will be read on Thursday, July 24 at 8:00 PM.

Wildflower by Lila Rose Kaplan takes place in Crested Butte, the Wildflower Capital of Colorado. When a single mother and her troubled son arrive, they encounter an ex-drag queen, an air force pilot, and a curious young woman. These five disparate souls are thrust into a summer of botany and sexual awakening. Wildflower, directed by Sarah Rasmussen with Larry Loebell as dramaturg, will be read on Sunday, July 27 at 5:00 PM.

Saving Grace by James Mclindon is a dark comedy that turns religion upside down. Jack, taught by his second grade nun that a perfect Confession just before death guarantees heaven, has intentionally lived as evil a life as he could imagine. As he now lies on his deathbed about to put his theory to the test, enter the soul-weary Father Gallagher to hear the most bizarre confession of his career. Saving Grace, directed by Rick DesRochers with Rebecca Wright as dramaturg, will be read on Saturday, July 26 at 2:00 PM.

House of Gold by Gregory S. Moss is the story of a Very Famous Dead Little Girl who doesn’t know she’s dead, and a 13-year old white boy who wants to grow up to be a black adult. The Girl, summoned back to a purgatorial version of her own house, negotiates the minefield of adult desire, searching for a safe place to call her own. House of Gold, directed by Holly Derr with Gavin Witt as dramaturg, will be read on Sunday, July 27 at 2:00 PM.

In Another Man’s Son by Silva Semerciyan, an Armenian family is forced to confront the hidden consequences of genocide. Set in Beirut, 1958, the play explores the themes of love, loyalty, and filial duty. Lucine is an ambitious young nurse with a tyrannical father, five younger sisters, and a mother who refuses to leave her bedroom. When she falls pregnant out of wedlock, she must choose between her future and the welfare of others. Another Man’s Son, directed by Laura Kepley with Michele Volansky as dramaturg, will be read on Saturday, July 26 at 8:00 PM.

The Conference will also feature two symposia, which will explore the rewards and challenges of developing and producing new work. “Expectations? Audience, Playwright and Producer” moderated by Rick DesRochers, kicks off the final weekend of Conference on Thursday, July 24th at 6:00 PM at the Playground. The panel will also include Gary Garrison, Terry Nolen, and Lucy Thurber. Friday, July 25th at 6:00 PM will feature the symposium “Is Idealism Still Possible in the American Theatre?” moderated by Michele Volansky with panelists Celise Kalke, Todd London, and Karen Hartman.

In looking to support future playwrights, the Conference will present the work of young playwrights, interns for PlayPenn’s conference, who, under the direction and guidance of Michael Hollinger, will have been mirroring the process of the other playwrights during the two-week Conference. These works will be read on Saturday, July 26 at 12:00 Noon.

PlayPenn is committed to the development of new plays, the advancement of new voices in the theatre both locally and nationally, and the cross-fertilization of writers, directors, dramaturgs, and actors. PlayPenn is made possible through the generous support of the Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trusts A and B and new major grants from, among others, the Dramatists Guild Fund, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the Newman’s Own Foundation. A pre-conference retreat for PlayPenn participants and additional play readings are made possible in part by a grant from the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts. For further information, please call 215-242-2843.

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2008 NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

All performances, which are free, will take place in the Playground or the Adrienne Theatre at 2030 Sansom Street. For reservations call 215-568-1434. For press information, call Fleischman Gerber & Associates at 215-735-7356

PLAYPENN PRESENTS THIRD NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE
Conference Culminates in Free Staged Readings on July 19, 20, 21, and 22

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s professional new play development organization, will hold its third annual New Play Development Conference on July 9-July 22 at both the Adrienne Theater and the Playground (2030 Sansom Street) in Philadelphia. The Conference will feature two weeks of intensive work on six works-in-progress by Andrew Case (The Rant), Russell Davis (The Day of the Picnic), Christina Ham (After Adam), Sean Christopher Lewis (Militant Language), Jennifer Maisel (There or Here) and Aaron Posner (My Name is Asher Lev). The Conference will culminate in staged readings of the plays on July 19, 20, 21 and 22, which are free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling 215-568-1434.

“PlayPenn creates a laboratory environment that enables the playwright to bring their work closer to production-readiness, by providing the resources of professional actors, director and dramaturg – and time to use them,” said Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director of PlayPenn. “We are very excited to be fostering the further development of these extraordinary playwrights and their plays.”

In After Adam by Christina Ham, two estranged brothers must learn to cope with their father’s suicide. Through all of the arguments and disagreements, there is a slow realization that the enemy is…within. A dramatic meditation on death and the cyclical nature of grief and mourning, this play is a vigil to one man’s life and his self-fulfilling purgatory. After Adam, directed by Jade King Carroll with Kittson O’Neill as dramaturg, will be read on Thursday, July 19 at 8:00 PM in the Playground.

The Day of the Picnic by Russell Davis is a mystery about memory and the past confronting the present. Betsy Fulbright keeps hearing someone outside, or down the hall, calling out “yoo hoo.” One time it sounded like it came from the picture on the wall; yet another time it was perhaps the television or the muzak speakers. Meanwhile, the nursing home staff have vanished and almost everyone else is away on a picnic, except a silent black man who arrived the night before and now sits in a wheelchair staring at Betsy. Could he be someone Betsy knew long ago in Kenya? Did this person somehow follow her here after all these years? The Day of the Picnic, directed by Valentina Fratti with Emily Morse as dramaturg, will be read on Friday, July 20 at 8:00 PM in the Adrienne Theatre.

Militant Language by Sean Christopher Lewis is a play about responsibility, communication and desire, and what happens when these three things crumble. In the midst of the Iraq War, two American soldiers find themselves covered in blood and alone at a desert construction site. At their feet is a makeshift grave with a boy from the local village in it. Outside the site are soldiers abusing one another, babies being found in the sand and a village that is beginning to call for its son. Militant Language, directed by Seth Rozin with Larry Loebell as dramaturg, will be read on Saturday, July 21 at noon in the Adrienne Theatre.

The Rant, by Andrew Case, explores the concept of truth as another form of bias. When a boy is killed at the hands of the police, the investigator assigned to the case must wade through prejudice, deceit and anonymous threats to discover where culpability really lies. The Rant, directed by Rick DesRoschers with Kittson O’Neill as dramaturg, will be read on Saturday, July 21 at 3:00 PM in the Playground.

There or Here by Jennifer Maisel takes place in a hotel room in a third world country where a jetlagged American couple wait to meet the woman who will carry the couple’s egg and sperm to have their baby. In a world of multiple time zones and faceless technology, outsourced computer technicians, fast food order takers and phone sex operators have become the refuge Robyn and Ajay can’t be for each other. There or Here, directed by Amy Feinberg with Michele Volansky as dramaturg, will be read on Saturday, July 21 at 8:00 PM in the Adrienne Theatre.

My Name is Asher Lev by Aaron Posner is an adaptation of Chaim Potok’s most autobiographical and most powerful novel. Asher Lev is a young man born with a gift. He is a painter of genius. He is also born a Hassidic Jew to a father for whom art is at best foolishness, and at worst sacrilege. Asher’s journey to adulthood is a journey toward understanding himself, the worlds that chain him, and the nearly impossible choices he must make. My Name is Asher Lev, directed by Daniel Goldstein with Michele Volansky as dramaturg, will be read on Sunday, July 22 at 3:00 PM in the Playground.

The Conference will also feature two symposia which will explore the rewards and difficulties of developing and producing new work. “Does It Matter Who The Playwright Is?” moderated by Seth Rozin, kicks off the Conference on Thursday, July 19th at 6:00 PM at the Playground. Friday, July 20th at 6:00 PM will feature a “Where Angels Fear To Tread: Letting Go Of The Help, Solving The Play and The ‘Trouble’ With Play Development.”

In looking to support future playwrights, the Conference will present the work of young playwrights, interns for PlayPenn’s conference, which, under the direction and guidance of Michael Hollinger, will have been mirroring the process of the other playwrights during the two-week Conference. These works will be read on Sunday, July 22 at Noon at the Playground.

PlayPenn’s mission is to support the development of the written word and those who use it to create new plays for the American theatre. PlayPenn is made possible through the generous support of the Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trusts A and B, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The Charlotte Cushman Foundation. For further information, please call 215-242-2813.

SIX PLAYWRIGHTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT AT PLAYPENN
JULY 9-JULY 22

Conference Nurturing New Plays by American Playwrights Culminates in Staged Readings
July 19, 20, 21 and 22

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s professional new play development organization, will hold its third annual New Play Development Conference from July 9-July 22 at the Adrienne Theater (2030 Sansom Street) in Philadelphia. The Conference will feature two weeks of intensive work on six works-in-progress by Andrew Case (The Rant), Russell Davis (The Day of the Picnic), Christina Ham (After Adam), Sean Christopher Lewis (Militant Language), Jennifer Maisel (There or Here) and Aaron Posner (My Name is Asher Lev).

The chosen playwrights will bring their works-in-progress to Philadelphia for two weeks of intensive work with a professional director of their choice, dramaturgical assistance and professional actors from the Philadelphia theatre community. Playwrights will rehearse for 29 hours with a team of artists devoted to the progress of their work, culminating in public staged readings between July 19 and July 22.

Russell Davis has been a resident playwright at People’s Light & Theatre, which has produced several of his works, as has Long Wharf Theatre, Yale Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Mark Taper's New Work Festival, Sundance Playwrights Lab., National Playwrights Conference, and New Harmony Project. He has received fellowships and grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, McKnight Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Tennessee Arts Commission. His stage adaptation of Avi's Crispin: The Cross of Lead, the Newbery Medal winner for children's literature in 2003, is scheduled for production at People's Light in 2007-08.

Christina Ham’s plays have been produced and developed with Mark Taper Forum, The Guthrie Theater,The Goodman Theater, Arielle Tepper’s Summer Play Festival, Tokyo International Arts Festival, SteppingStone Theatre, and A.S.K. Theater Projects. Christina is the recipient of a 2005-06 Jerome Fellowship and 2007-08 McKnight Advancement Grant from The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, a 2005 Marianne Murphy Women & Philanthropy Award in Playwriting from UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film, and Television, and a 2006 MacDowell Colony residency. She has been commissioned by The Guthrie Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The Stepping Stone Theater.

Andrew Case’s plays include Pacific, Bullhead City, Historic Times, The Electric Century, Universal Grammar, In Loco Parentis, and others. His writing has been produced at Steppenwolf , the 78th Street Theatre Lab, the Salon for the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Theatre AUM, the Fifth Night Series at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and elsewhere. His work has been developed at the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Atlantic Theatre, Primary Stages, and the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center. He is a member of the New American Writers Group at Primary Stages and a former Manhattan Theatre Club playwriting fellow, and was awarded the Samuel Goldwyn Award for screenwriting while he was an MFA student at UC San Diego.

Sean Christopher Lewis is the Artistic Director of Working Group, a touring company based in New York and will serve as the 2007-2008 Emerging Playwright-in-Residence at InterAct Theatre Company. His plays have been performed at Orlando Shakespeare Festival’s PlayFest, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Saratoga Shakespeare Company, Riverside Theater, National New Play Network's University Workshop, Iowa New Play Festival, and NYU HotInk Festival.

Jennifer Maisel received both the Charlotte Woolard award for Extraordinary New Voice in American Theatre and the Fund for New American Plays award from the Kennedy Center for The Last Seder, which was produced by Chicago's Organic Theater and Theatre J in Washington, DC. Her Goody Fucking Two Shoes, a Heideman Award finalist, was produced in the 29th Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Her work has also South Coast Repertory’s California Playwrights competition, the Center Theatre International Playwrights Competition, the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Fund for New American Plays and finalist status for the PEN West Literary Award and the Abingdon Theatre’s Christopher Brian Wolk Award. Her most recent play, Birds, won the 2006 Women Working With Women Collaboration Award from the NY Coalition of Women in the Arts and Media and will be produced by Rorschach Theatre in Washington, D.C. in July.

Aaron Posner is currently the Artistic Director of Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, New Jersey, as well as the Co-Founder and former Artistic Director of Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre. His recent adaptation, Mark Twain’s A Murder, A Mystery & A Marriage was nominated for 10 Barrymore Awards and the Charles MacArthur Award for Best New Play. His adaptation of Chaim Potok’s The Chosen has been performed across the country, and won a Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play.

Conference writers were chosen from a field of over 150 playwright submissions. The six conference playwrights were culled from a group of twelve semi-finalists, also including Carson Kreitzer (Enchantment), Sean Cunningham (The People’s Pimple), Lisa D’Amour (In The Thick), Gino Dilorio (Sandbox), and Philadelphia playwrights, Seth Rozin (Black Gold), and Nicholas Wardigo (Chessboard Heroes).

PlayPenn’s mission is to support the development of the written word and those who use it to create new plays for the American theatre. PlayPenn service to the American theatre is made possible through the generous support of the Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trusts A and B.

FOUR PLAYWRIGHTS RECEIVE STAR TREATMENT AT PLAYPENN’S NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE JULY 2-JULY 16
Conference Culminates in Free Staged Readings on July 14, 15 and 16

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s only professional new play development organization, presents its second annual New Play Development Conference on July 2-July 16 at the Adrienne Theater (2030 Sansom Street) in Philadelphia. The Conference will feature two weeks of intensive work on four works-in-progress by Gina Barnett (A Scream), Peter Morris (Bad for the Jews), Eric Pfeffinger (Malignance), and Lucy Thurber (Scarcity). The Conference will culminate in staged readings of the plays on July 14, 15 and 16, which are free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling 215-563-3860.

“PlayPenn creates a laboratory environment that enables the playwright to bring their work closer to production-readiness, by providing the resources of professional actors, director and dramaturg,” said Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director of PlayPenn. “The selected plays offer great promise, although they are not yet ready for production.”

In Gina Barnett’s artsy farcey A Scream, highly improbable plot situations, exaggerated characters, and slapstick elements collide for an evening of screaming hilarity. An utterly charming but totally corrupt and down-on-his luck art dealer – Theo Blackstone– is given what he assumes to be a fake repro of Edvard Munch’s recently stolen The Scream. He tosses it, only to be unwittingly ensnared in a Homeland Security sting surrounding the famous painting. Things go from bad to worse with crooked federal agents, double crossing spies and members of an underground radical fringe group. A Scream, directed by Dan Foster, will be read on Friday, July 14 at 8:00 PM.

Swarthmore resident Peter Morris’ Bad For The Jews is a black comedy about crime, guilt and justice. Late at night, in a warehouse on the outskirts of Chicago. Two old Jewish men, Mort and Barry, have bribed the security guard, a twenty-something slacker, to look the other way as they break in to the storeroom. But it soon becomes apparent that their real is because they have kidnapped a retired factory worker and Polish immigrant….who (Mort claims) was once a guard at the death camps. Or was he? Bad for the Jews, directed by Daniel Stein will be read on Saturday, July 15 at 3:00 PM.

Scarcity by Lucy Thurber explores the themes of family, loyalty, poverty and class in small town America. Billy and Rachel Lawrence struggle with high school, intelligence and a desperate family as they try to find a way out of where they came from while still leaving their family intact. Scarcity, directed by Brian Mertes, will be read on Saturday, July 15 at 8:00 PM.

Malignance by Eric Pfeffinger is a searing drama that cuts through the complacent assumptions about prejudice and class. When a little white girl falls fatally ill, it's a chance for her mother to climb the social ladder; for her father to convert other people's sympathy into sexual opportunities; and for everyone else to participate in the seductive melodrama of someone else's suffering. But when the family sucks their African-American neighbor Carla into their tragedy, the venomous prejudices churning beneath these ordinary middle class lives explode their comforting narratives about race, status, and death. Malignance, directed by Rick DesRochers, will be read on Sunday, July 16 at 3:00 PM.

PlayPenn’s mission is to support the development of the written word and those who use it to create new plays for the American theatre. PlayPenn is made possible through the generous support of the Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trusts A and B.
For further information, please call 215-242-2813.
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PLAYPENN PRESENTS SECOND NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE
JULY 2 - JULY 16

Focus On Creating Laboratory Environment For Playwrights To Develop Works-In-Progress

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s only professional new play development organization, announces the finalists for its second annual New Play Development Conference from July 2-July 16 at The Adrienne Theater (2030 Sansom Street) in Philadelphia. The playwrights are Gina Barnett (A Scream), Peter Morris (Bad for the Jews), Eric Pfeffinger (Malignance), and Lucy Thurber (Scarcity). All the writers are new to Philadelphia audiences, even Philadelphia native Peter Morris.

“After the success of last year’s Conference and the enormous attention the four plays developed at PlayPenn have since garnered, we were overwhelmed this year with submissions to the Conference,” said Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director of PlayPenn. “We are very excited to be fostering the further development of these extraordinary playwrights and their plays.”
The chosen playwrights will bring their works-in-progress to Philadelphia for two weeks of intensive work with a professional director of their choice, dramaturgical assistance and professional actors from the Philadelphia theatre community. Playwrights will rehearse up to 20 hours/week with a team of artists devoted to the progress of their work and culminating in staged readings open to the public between July 14 and July 16.

Gina Barnett is the recipient of the JR Humphries Award in playwriting, winner of TheatreFest Regional Playwriting Contest and finalist winner of the Kaufman and Hart New American Comedies contest, her plays have been produced in New York and regionally. Her film short, Alone At Last!, which she wrote and directed, premiered at the Hudson Valley Film Festival and Art in General in NYC. She’s been a freelance writer on various TV series, has taught acting and writing at the Ensemble Studio Theater, NYU affiliate Stonestreet Studios, and Sarah Lawrence College.

Swarthmore resident Peter Morris has twice been awarded London’s Sunday Times Playwriting Prize (in 2000 and 2001). His play The Age of Consent premiered at London's Bush Theatre in 2002 to rave reviews; it has subsequently been translated and staged in Berlin, Rome, Paris, Tokyo, and Reykjavik. His recent play Guardians won the Edinburgh Fringe First Award in 2005 and transferred to London: it premieres April 2006 in New York at the Culture Project. After graduating from Yale he studied at Oxford on a British Academy Fellowship. He has been writer-in-residence at LAMDA (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) since 2002, and is currently under commission as the Alfred P Sloan Playwriting Fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club. He is a founding associate artist of the Obie-winning NYC company, The Civilians, and served as writer for Gone Missing and also for the Public Theatre workshop of (I Am) Nobody’s Lunch. His works have twice been selected for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference (2000 and 2002) and had been developed or read by the Old Vic, Lincoln Center, the Dallas Theatre Center, MTC, Soho Rep, and the Ojai Playwrights Conference among others.

Eric Pfeffinger’s plays have been produced in Chicago by Visions and Voices and the Noble Fool, in Los Angeles at Vox Humana, in New York at Fat Chance Productions and at the Bloomington Playwrights Project. Most recently his short play Tiny Baby premiered at Actors Theatre of Louisville and his one-act, The Jockey Short, was produced by Rough Magic in Indianapolis. He has developed plays in collaboration with the Geva Theatre and Chicago Dramatists and has been commissioned by the Signature Theatre. He has been a visiting playwright at the University of Toledo, Valparaiso University, and Butler University, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Lucy Thurber is the author of seven plays. Bottom of the World was part of the first Tribeca Theatre Festival and received a workshop at The Public Theatre and the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights’ Center. It was later produced at Rattlestick Theater, which also produced Killers and Other Family and will produce Stay this fall. She was the recipient of the 2000-2001 Manhattan Theatre Club playwriting fellowship. She has had readings and workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages, MCC, Encore Theatre in San Francisco and SOHO Rep.

Conference writers were chosen from a field of 125 playwrights who were nominated by a nationwide field of Literary Managers and Artistic Directors. The four finalists were culled from a group of ten semi-finalists, which also included Stephen Belber (The Muscles in our Toes), Brooke Berman (The Duke of Libertyville), Dan Dietz (The Sandreckoner), Laura Maria Censabella (Three Italian Women), Jeni Mahoney (The Martyrdom of Washington Booth), and Kara Manning (Mind the Gap).

PlayPenn’s mission is to support the development of the written word and those who use it to create new plays for the American theatre. PlayPenn is made possible through the generous support of the Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trusts A and B.

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For Further Press Information:
Fleischman Gerber & Associates
215-735-7356

TWO PLAYS FROM PLAYPENN’S
FIRST NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE RECEIVE WORLD PREMIERES AT HUMANA FESTIVAL AND
NATIONAL THEATRE OF GREAT BRITAIN

Third Play Was Humana Festival Finalist

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s only professional new play development organization, is pleased to announce that three of the plays from its inaugural conference last summer will be presented this spring at prestigious theaters and festivals in both the United States and England, including the Humana Festival at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and the National Theatre of Great Britain.

Jordan Harrison’s ACT A LADY, a rollicking fable about the woman in every man and the man in every woman, has been selected to receive its premiere at the 30th Humana Festival at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. The premiere will be directed by Anne Kauffman who, as director of the workshop at PlayPenn, became an indispensable part of the play’s evolution. In ACT A LADY, when the men of a tiny Prohibition-era town don petticoats to perform a period melodrama, the biggest surprise is that more eyebrows aren’t raised. The task of “acting a lady” awakens the passions between Miles and his skeptical wife Dorothy, and the less speakable desires of Casper, the local photographer. As opening night approaches, the play-within-the-play begins to spill off the stage as purloined emeralds, silk snoods, and hungry ghosts descend upon the Midwestern cattle farming town, causing one to wonder who is on which side of the red velvet curtain.

“PlayPenn was crucial to the subsequent life of my play,” said Harrison. “The summer of development at PlayPenn afforded me the chance to sit back and ask, ‘Well, what have I done? Does it make any sense? If people are scratching their heads, is it the right sort of head-scratching?’”

J.T. Rogers’ gripping drama THE OVERWHELMING will have its world premiere in May at the National Theatre of Great Britain and then tour the United Kingdom. The National Theatre production will be directed by Max Stafford-Clark. THE OVERWHELMING is the story of an American family, newly arrived in Kigali, Rwanda in early 1994, that comes face-to-face with the realization that nothing and no one around them is what they understood it to be. Finding themselves embroiled in events beyond their understanding, three Americans struggle to discover who they can trust and what they will do when faced with matters of life and death.

“The PlayPenn conference was one of the best artistic experiences of my writing career,” enthused Rogers. “What PlayPenn is doing directly strengthens the lifeblood of the American theatre. What it has helped create is a process to develop new plays in an environment that encourages risk and rewards pushing the envelope. I cannot overstate how important this is to the future of our profession.”

Sheila Callaghan’s play WE ARE NOT THESE HANDS was a finalist at the Humana Festival and will receive a professional production at Crowded Fire in San Francisco this June. WE ARE NOT THESE HANDS explores the effects of rampant capitalism on a country that is ill-prepared for it. Ever since their school blew up, Moth and Belly have taken to stalking an illegal internet café in the hopes of one day being allowed in. They take particular interest in Leather, a skittish older man doing research in the café. He is a self-proclaimed "freelance scholar" from a foreign land with a sketchy past and a sticky secret.

“I am absolutely thrilled with the reception these plays have received,” said Paul Meshejian, Founder and Artistic Director of PlayPenn. “Certainly I had hoped that the writers would leave PlayPenn with enough material to make their plays production-ready. To have something that was developed in late summer wind up in the coming season’s schedule is remarkable, and validates the importance of a forum like PlayPenn.”

PlayPenn is an annual conference for the development of new plays, the advancement of new voices in the theatre both locally and nationally, and the cross-fertilization of writers, directors, dramaturgs and actors. Each summer PlayPenn hosts a two-week conference, inviting playwrights to develop new plays in a collaborative workshop environment. In order to encourage active revision and rewriting during the period of the conference, PlayPenn provides professional actors, directors and dramaturges with space, technical and administrative resources and ample time to use them. The process culminates in a series of staged readings to be presented to members of the local, regional and national theatre communities and to the community at large. This year, PlayPenn will hold its conference on July 2-16, 2006.

For further information, please call 215-242-2813.

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Backstage Features East - August 11, 2005

PlayPenn's New-Play Confab: A Playwright's Perfect Playground

By J. Cooper Robb

PHILADELPHIA - PlayPenn, a conference for the development of new plays, debuted at Philadelphia's Adrienne Theatre, July 18-31. The brainchild of Founding Artistic Director Paul Meshejian, the conference, which considered the work of more than 120 writers across the country through nominations from artistic directors and literary managers, seeks to provide writers "with the resources to help them bring their work to full fruition, unencumbered by the pressures and constraints of commercial production," according to the project's website.

From ten finalists, four were chosen: Jordan Harrison ("Act a Lady"), Lydia Stryk ("On Clarion"), Sheila Callaghan ("We Are Not These Hands"), and J.T. Rogers ("The Overwhelming"). Two dramaturges, Larry Loebell and Michele Volansky, also participated, with Loebell working with Stryk and Callaghan and Volansky working with Harrison and Rogers. Each playwright was asked to bring a director of his or her choosing, and all the actors were local.

In addition to the series of staged public readings that closed the conference, Volansky, a former president of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, moderated a discussion on the commissioning of new work and local playwright Michael Hollinger ran a workshop for a group of eight playwriting interns.

Meshejian explained that the primary goal of the conference was to provide playwrights with the resources necessary to focus on developing their scripts. But a secondary goal was to introduce them to the Philadelphia theatre community -- a valuable proposition, since only Rogers and Callaghan had had a play produced previously in the city. The third objective, according to Meshejian, was to showcase the city's deep pool of acting talent.

Cut to Wed., July 27. The conference is now nine days old. Playwright Jordan Harrison is lingering in the lobby of the Adrienne Theatre after a morning rehearsal of his "Act a Lady." Fellow playwright J.T. Rogers and his director, Lucie Tiberghien, are beginning a tech run of "The Overwhelming" on the main stage. In a basement rehearsal area, director Peter Rothstein is giving notes to the actors working on Lydia Stryk's "On Clarion," while Stryk tries in vain to repair her glasses.

Then the Adrienne complex goes dark -- a victim of the city's agonizingly long heat wave. It would prove to be one of the few glitches in a conference that all the playwrights reported was immensely helpful in bringing their works to completion. With no electricity, the various groups scramble to find light anywhere they can. Rogers, Tiberghien, and cast head to the green room, where emergency lights supply just enough illumination to read by, but the tech run will have to wait. In the lobby, the "On Clarion" group is taking advantage of the sunlight coming through a large front window.

The plays came to the conference in various stages of development and each playwright identified certain elements on which to focus. In "Act a Lady," two actors play the same character, so Harrison spent time making sure the audience could "track" the characters. According to Stryk and Rogers, their time was spent further shaping their plays' language.

Although each play had its own questions to answer, Rogers' "The Overwhelming" was especially complicated. It concerns an American family in Rwanda in 1994 caught up in events beyond their understanding. The plot is complex and moves quickly. There are moments when the audience is completely in the dark, and Rogers wanted to be certain that those moments are useful.

"It was helpful for me to see if I could highlight certain points in the play and hide other moments better," he explained. "I wanted to make sure certain 'Aha!' moments landed in the right places." Further complicating matters, a significant portion of the dialogue is not only overlapping but in French and Kinyarwanda, a Bantu language of Rwanda, so the proper rhythm and pronunciation were paramount. "I'm sort of obsessive about punctuation," Rogers said. "With the overlapping dialogue and language, a lot of the rehearsals would be spent telling an actor to start speaking their line four syllables earlier. It sounds academic, but it's very important."

Stryk, who also said that clarity was a concern with "On Clarion," emphasized, however, that she did not want to become fixated on her script's lucidity or on the suggestions of other artists. "There's a danger when you're taking in so much information and ideas quickly," she said. "Everyone is trying to help, but you may wind up cutting something you love." Stryk said that while she understood the need of the director, dramaturg, and actors for clarity, other elements, such as language and rhythm, are equally important to her.

Regardless of their goals in coming to the conference, all four playwrights felt their plays made enormous strides. Harrison and Stryk said their scripts were ready to be submitted to other theatres. Callaghan explained that even before the conference, there had been talk of a production of "We Are Not These Hands" at Soho Rep in New York, and Rogers reported that following the reading of "The Overwhelming," several theatres showed serious interest in mounting the play's world premiere.

Although obtaining a full production was certainly something all the writers had hoped for, Harrison -- whose poignant, gender-crossing comedy also drew interest from at least one company -- said the conference was more than just an opportunity to shop his play. Equally important was the chance to work with a new group of artists:

"One of the functions of the conference for me was to try out new collaborations when the stakes aren't quite so high," he explained. "I would love to get a production out of it, but I wouldn't feel the time had been in vain if that doesn't happen. The play is closer to where I want it to be now than it was when we began. I met a new set of actors. I got to know a new director. These are really the reasons we do these sort of gigs."

According to Meshejian, playwrights who wish to participate in PlayPenn next year will still have to be nominated by an artistic director or literary manager.

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PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY - Jul 20th, 2005

STAGE

Play School

Four unfinished scripts will be completed at Philly's first New Play Development Conference.

by J. Cooper Robb

Philadelphia theater is often as comfy and familiar as an old pair of slippers. But the first New Play Development Conference is hoping to change that.

Presented by PlayPenn, Philly's only professional new play development organization, the conference provides two weeks of intensive development for four unfinished plays.

From around 125 plays submitted by literary managers and artistic directors nationwide, 10 finalists were selected by PlayPenn artistic director Paul Meshejian and a group of more than 30 readers. From that group, four plays were chosen for development at the conference.

The selected plays and playwrights are Sheila Callaghan (We Are Not These Hands), Jordan Harrison (Act a Lady), J.T. Rogers (The Overwhelming) and Lydia Stryk (On Clarion). Only Rogers has been produced previously in Philadelphia, when the Philadelphia Theatre Company staged his play White People.

For Meshejian, the fact that three of the four writers are new to the city is significant. "As prolific as this theater community is, there are a lot of playwrights who have never been done here," says Meshejian, who patterned the conference on a similar highly successful event in Minneapolis, which he was involved with for several years.

In addition to further developing the four plays, Meshejian says the goal of the conference is to get the city's theater leaders to "think outside the box. I hope the conference will allow there to be a conversation between the artistic leadership in the community and the wide range of new voices that are unknown to local theater leaders."

Meshejian acknowledges that every play won't be admired by every theater that sends a representative to the public staged readings on July 29 and 30. And it isn't his intention to be a "broker" for new plays.

But neither he nor Michele Volansky-who will lead a discussion on commissioning plays and act as the dramaturge for both Act a Lady and The Overwhelming-deny that they're hoping one of the plays will be chosen for production by a local company.

Even if a literary manager or artistic director doesn't feel any of the plays is right for an upcoming season, the hope is that they keep playwrights in mind for future projects.

Though most of the area's theaters feature readings of new plays over the course of their season, Meshejian says there's a difference between reading and developing a new play. Describing readings as a compelling perk for a theater's subscribers, he explains that companies rarely have a vested interest in the plays whose readings they produce.

Meshejian doesn't discourage readings, but as they infrequently lead to a full production, he describes their purpose more "as a way [for theaters] to do a play that they don't believe their audiences will accept during their season."

While developing a play is certainly a far more involved process than a reading, development is a ubiquitous term that can lead to a host of problems, as playwright J.T. Rogers explains.

"A lot of the time a development means everyone telling the playwright what's wrong with their play," he says. "I'm a little befuddled by the movement in American theater where more and more experts have to come in and assist with the development of the play."

Rogers is encouraged by the New Play Development Conference, though, because it's focused entirely on the playwrights, and the directors were chosen by the playwrights themselves. "The playwright is the steward of the play," Rogers says. "The directors coming to the conference are respectful of that."

Another element of the conference that excites Rogers is the actors. Philadelphia is known for its strong acting pool, and Rogers says the directors and other playwrights-all of whom are New York-based-were surprised by the accomplished acting exhibited at the auditions.

For Rogers the simple act of putting talented artists in a room together creates its own energy. When that occurs in an open environment, she says, developing a new play can be a thrilling process.

New Play Development Conference Public Readings
Fri., July 29-Sat., July 30, 3pm and 8pm. Free, reservations recommended. Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St. 215.568.8079

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PLAYPENN ANNOUNCES SYMPOSIUM TO KICK OFF INAUGURAL NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s Professional New Play Development Conference will begin the events of its 2005 Conference activities Thursday, July 28th at 7:00 pm at the Adrienne Theatre with a symposium entitled Writing On Commission or What Price Story? Panelist will include literary agent Judy Boals, playwright Bruce Graham, playwright Michael Hollinger and Woolly Mammoth literary manager Mary Resing. The symposium will be moderated by dramaturg and Washington College assistant professor Michele Volansky.

We encourage your attendance in the interest of more complex thinking about the exigencies of commissioning new plays. In recent months the questions surrounding new play commissions have resulted in active disagreement amongst writers, producers, literary managers and funders that have raised questions about the purpose and efficacy of new play commissions as a way of pursuing the creation of new work. This panel will explore those areas of difference in an attempt to reach a clearer understanding of the multiple factors involved in that process and its results. Admission is free but reservations are encouraged.

To attend the symposium, call 215.568.8079 ext 7 to ensure your place.

Our panelists and moderator are:

JUDY BOALS - Panelist

Judy Boals started her career at The Dramatists Guild working as an assistant in the legal department. She then joined the Lois Berman Agency in 1987, which represented playwrights exclusively and worked with Ms. Berman until her retirement in 1997. Judy then formed a talent and literary agency, Berman, Boals & Flynn, Inc. with Jim Flynn until October of 2002 when she formed her own company, Judy Boals, Inc. She represents writers, actors and directors; Lee Blessing, Charles Busch, Dael Orlandersmith and Sam Shepard among others.

Bruce Graham - Panelist

Published Plays: Burkie, Early One Evening At The Rainbow Bar & Grille, Moon Over The Brewery, Minor Demons, Belmont Avenue Social Club, The Champagne Charlie Stakes, Desperate Affection and Coyote On A Fence (1998 Rosenthal Prize winner - nominated for two DRAMA DESK Awards) According to Goldman, recently premiered at the Philadelphia Theatre Company and Coyote on a Fence (starring Ben Cross) opened in London’s West End in April ’04. Feature Film Credits: Dunston Checks In, Anastasia, Steal This Movie. Television Movies: Hunt For The Unicorn Killer, The Christmas Secret, Right On Track, and A Ring Of Endless Light (2003 Humanitas Award Winner - Best Children's Film) and Tiger Cruise (starring Bill Pullman). The Theatre Exile production of his new play, The Philly Fan (Starring Tom McCarthy) opens at the Arden Theatre in March of ‘05. Currently he is working on the movie version of his play, Moon Over The Brewery, for ABC Family Channel. Graham has received awards from the Pew Foundation, Theater Association of Pennsylvania, the Rockefeller Foundation and was the 1992 Princess Grace Foundation Statuette recipient. He teaches film and theater courses at Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania. Graham lives in Media, Pennsylvania, with Stephanie and Kendall.

Michael Hollinger - Panelist

Michael Hollinger is the author of RED HERRING, INCORRUPTIBLE, AN EMPTY PLATE IN THE CAFE DU GRAND BOEUF, and TINY ISLAND, all of which premiered at Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre Company and have together enjoyed productions around the country, off-Broadway, and abroad. These plays are all published by Dramatists Play Service; TINY ISLAND also appears in NEW PLAYWRIGHTS: BEST PLAYS OF 1999, published by Smith and Kraus. His latest play, TOOTH AND CLAW, was commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science and Technology Project, and received its world and New York premieres in the spring of 2004 at the Arden and EST, respectively. Michael has written seven touring plays for young audiences, as well as the 3D Laser Show EXTREME CHOICES for New Jersey's Liberty Science Center. For PBS, he has written three short films and co-authored the feature-length PHILADELPHIA DIARY. Awards include the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays, a Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play, the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist, a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award, and fellowships from the Independence Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Michael is a resident playwright of New Dramatists and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University.

Mary Resing - Panelist

As director of new play development at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Mary Resing has dramaturged seven world premieres—Grace, Radiant Abyss, Jump/Cut, Tommy J and Sally, Spain, Andromeda Shack, and Wonder of the World – and overseen six commissions. She is a former vice president of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, a member of the literary committee of the National New Play Network, on the Artistic Advisory Board of the Emigrant Theatre in Minneapolis, and a panelist for the Prince Georges County Arts Council. She has published and traveled widely and has a Fulbright Fellowship to Armenia beginning in September.

Michele Volansky – Moderator

Michele Volansky is Assistant Professor of Drama at Washington College (MD), from which she earned a B.A. in English. She has worked on over one-hundred new and established plays in her professional career, developing new works by such writers as Sam Shepard, Daniel Stern, Warren Leight, Jeffrey Hatcher, Bruce Graham, Tina Landau, Charles L. Mee and Bruce Norris, along with many others. Her work on Shepard’s rewrite of Buried Child (directed by Gary Sinise) and Dale Wasserman’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (directed by Terry Kinney and starring Gary Sinise) earned her two Broadway credits and participation in the Tony Award for Best Revival of Cuckoo’s Nest. She has guest dramaturged at the Arden Theater Company, South Coast Rep, the Atlantic Theatre Company, Victory Gardens and Next Theatre, in addition to her staff time at Actors Theatre of Louisville (1992-95), Steppenwolf Theatre Company (1995-2000) and Philadelphia Theatre Company (2000-2004). Her own play Whispering City was produced as part of the Steppenwolf Arts Exchange Program in the Fall of 1999. Ms. Volansky has served as an artistic consultant for the TCG playwright residency program, a reader for the Eugene O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference, as well as a grants review panelist for the 5-County Arts Council and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is the 1999 inaugural co-recipient of the Elliot Hayes Award for Dramaturgy and was the President of LMDA, the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (2002-2004). Ms. Volansky is a member of the Advisory Board for “Theatre Forum” magazine, an artistic advisor for both the Chicago-based Serendipity Theatre Company and Chicago Dramatists and serves on the advisory board of PlayPenn. She is currently working on a playwriting book with Bruce Graham, as well as two projects with Philadelphia-area playwrights. Volansky also holds an M.A. in theater from Villanova University.

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PLAYPENN PRESENTS FIRST NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE JULY 18-JULY 31
Focus On Creating Laboratory Environment For Playwrights To Develop Works-In-Progress

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s only professional new play development organization, announces the finalists for its inaugural New Play Development Conference on July 18-July 31 at The Adrienne Theater (2030 Sansom Street) in Philadelphia. The playwrights are Sheila Callaghan (We Are Not These Hands), Jordan Harrison (Act A Lady), J.T. Rogers (The Overwhelming), and Lydia Stryk (On Clarion). All the writers are new to Philadelphia audiences, with the exception of J.T. Rogers, whose play White People received its world premiere at Philadelphia Theatre Company.
“One of the few missing pieces in the thriving Philadelphia theatre scene is an organization that provides professional resources for writers,” said Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director of PlayPenn. “With so many theatres mining the canon of existing dramatic literature and vying for rights to new lays that have already proven themselves in production in New York and the regions, it has become more important than ever to foster the development of new work here in our own community.”
The chosen playwrights will bring their work-in-progress to Philadelphia for two weeks of intensive work with a professional director of their choice, dramaturgical assistance and professional actors from the Philadelphia theater community. Playwrights will rehearse up to 20 hours/week with a team of artists devoted to the progress of their work and culminating in staged readings open to the public on July 29 and July 30.
Conference writers were chosen from a field of 110 playwrights who were nominated by a nationwide team of Literary Managers and Artistic Directors. The four finalists were culled from a group of ten semi-finalists that also included Lisa Dillman (Homeland), Kirsten Greenidge (Rust and An Illustrative Limbo), Joel Drake Johnson (A Blameless Life), Melanie Marnich (Cradle of Man), Brett Neveu (American Dead), and Laura Schellhardt (Courting Vampires).
PlayPenn’s mission is to support the development of the written work and those who use it to create new plays for the American theatre. PlayPenn is made possible through the generous support of the Five-County Arts Fund, a Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, administered by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and the Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trust B.
For further information, please call 215-242-2813.
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FOUR PLAYWRIGHTS RECEIVE STAR TREATMENT AT PLAYPENN’S FIRST NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT
CONFERENCE JULY 18-JULY 31
Conference Culminates in Free Staged Readings on July 29 and 30

PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s only professional new play development organization, presents the inaugural New Play Development Conference on July 18-July 31 at the Adrienne Theater (2030 Sansom Street) in Philadelphia. The Conference will feature two weeks of intensive work on four works-in-progress by Sheila Callaghan (We Are Not These Hands), Jordan Harrison (Act A Lady), J.T. Rogers (The Overwhelming), and Lydia Stryk (On Clarion). The Conference will culminate in staged readings of the plays on July 29 and 30 which are free and open to the public.

“Our New Play Development Conference, the first ever in Philadelphia, is modeled after the Playwright’s Center in Minneapolis, in which a laboratory environment enables the playwright to develop their play further,” said Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director of PlayPenn. “These playwrights show tremendous artistry and skill. The selected plays offer great promise, although they are not yet ready for production.”
We Are Not These Hands by Sheila Callaghan explores the effects of rampant capitalism on a country that is ill-prepared for it. Ever since their school blew up, Moth and Belly have taken to stalking an illegal internet café in the hopes of one day being allowed in. They take particular interest in Leather, a skittish older man doing research in the café. He is a self-proclaimed "freelance scholar" from a foreign land with a sketchy past and a sticky secret.

Sheila Callaghan's plays have been produced and developed with SohoRep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, Annex Theatre, Moving Arts, and LABrynth, among others. Sheila is the recipient of a 2000 Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a 2001 LA Weekly Award for Best One-act, a 2001-02 Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a 2002 Chesley Prize for Lesbian Playwriting, a 2003 Mac Dowell Residency, and a 2004 NYFA grant. She is currently working on commissions from Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, and EST/Sloan. Her full-length plays include Scab, The Hunger Waltz, Crawl Fade To White, Crumble, Dead City, Lascivious Something, Kate Crackernuts and her opera Elemental with music by Sophocles Papavasilopoulos. Three monologues from her plays are featured in Heinemann's series, Monologues For Women, By Women.

Act a Lady by Jordan Harrison is a rollicking fable about the woman in every man and the man in every woman. When the men of a tiny Prohibition-era town don petticoats to perform a period melodrama, the biggest surprise is that more eyebrows aren’t raised. The task of “acting a lady” awakens the passions between Miles and his skeptical wife Dorothy, and the less speakable desires of Casper, the local photographer. As opening night approaches, the play-within-the-play begins to spill off the stage as purloined emeralds, silk snoods, and hungry ghosts descend upon the Midwestern cattle farming town, causing one to wonder who is on which side of the red velvet curtain.

Jordan Harrison’s play Kid-Simple premiered in the 2004 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville and has been produced in Chicago, Providence, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, and off Broadway at the SPF Summer Play Festival. His play Finn In The Underworld will be produced this fall at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Jordan has enjoyed developmental experiences at Playwrights Horizons, Seattle Rep, PlayLabs, Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, and Signature Theatre Company. He is the recipient of the Heideman Award, two Jerome Fellowships and a McKnight Grant from The Playwrights' Center, and an NEA/TCG Playwright-in-Residence Grant with the Empty Space Theatre. He has been commissioned by The Guthrie Theater/Children’s Theatre Company and the National New Play Network. Jordan is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a graduate of Brown University’s MFA Playwriting program.

The Overwhelming by J.T Rogers is the gripping story of an American family, newly arrived in Kigali, Rwanda in early 1994, who come face-to-face with the realization that nothing and no one around them is what they understood it to be. Finding themselves embroiled in events beyond their understanding, three Americans struggle to discover who they can trust and what they will do when faced with matters of life and death.

J.T. Rogers was selected as one of ten playwrights in the nation to receive a NEA/TCG Theatre Residency for 2004-2005, through which he is currently playwright in residence at the Salt Lake Acting Company. His latest play, Madagascar, received the American Theatre Critics Association’s 2004 M. Elizabeth Osborne Award and was a finalist for the ATCA’s Steinberg New Play Award. Madagascar will be seen this July in the New Play Festival in NYC and at The Adirondack Theatre Festival. In 2004, Rogers was also awarded a playwrighting fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is the author of White People which had its world premiere at the Philadelphia Theatre Company and went on to receive L.A. Drama Critics Circle and Barrymore Award nominees for “Best Play of the Year”, Seeing the Elephant which was nominated for Kesselring Prize for “Best New American Play”, and Murmuring in a Dead Tongue, which was presented last season in NYC by Epic Rep, where he is company member. Regionally, his works have been seen at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, New Theatre of Miami, New Actors Union Theatre (Moscow), Road Theatre (L.A.), and many times at the Salt Lake Acting Co. His plays Bob Comes to Life, Above and Beasts, and Frankfurt have been seen in NYC at The Next Stage, where he is a founding member. Rogers has been an artist-in-residence at the Eugene O’Neill Center (Sept. ’04), a guest artist at Truman State University (MO), and has lectured at the North Carolina School of the Arts’ and University of Utah’s schools of drama and at the Claremont-McKenna School of Economics.
Set in 1954, the super-bomb era, On Clarion by Lydia Stryk follows a charismatic woman who gathers a group around her to take the ultimate journey - off the face of the planet. Loosely based on a true story, this dark comedy asks what we do when existential fears and real destruction lead to yearnings for a better place.

Lydia Stryk has written over ten full-length plays including Lady Lay, The Glamour House, Monte Carlo, and most recently, Safe House, On Clarion and American Tet. Her plays have been produced at Denver Center Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Victory Gardens, and Perseverance Theatre among others and seen as part of new play festivals and in public reading series off-Broadway and across America. Safe House was part of the Biennale Bonn in the summer of 2004. The House of Lily can currently be seen in repertory at Theaterhaus Stuttgart and Schauspiel Essen. America Tet will have its American premiere at The Contemporary American Theatre Festival this summer. She is a recipient of a Berrilla Kerr Foundation Playwright’s Award.

PlayPenn’s mission is to support the development of the written work and those who use it to create new plays for the American theater. PlayPenn is made possible through the generous support of the Five-County Arts Fund, a Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, administered by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and the Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trust B.
For further information, please call 610-827-2251.
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