The Theatre @ Boston Court announces PLAY/ground, the annual New Play Festival December 10-11, 2011 at Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, CA. Literary Managers Aaron Henne and Emilie Beck, in concert with Artistic Directors Jessica Kubzansky and Michael Michetti, have selected five plays to be presented as staged readings in the Marjorie Branson Performance Space.
The Theatre @ Boston Court's play festival presents plays that are in keeping with Boston Court's mission, which urges artists to fearlessly and passionately pursue their unique voice and vision. Play selection encompasses a wide variety of genres, with a special emphasis on nurturing playwrights and new play development, which are inherently theatrical, textually rich, and visually arresting.
This year's lineup includes "Everything You Touch" by Sheila Callaghan, "Egyptian Song" by James Christy Jr., "The Golden Dragon" by Roland Schimmelpfennig, "Cassiopeia" by David Wiener and "Seven Spots on the Sun" by Martin Zimmerman.
Callaghan's "Everything You Touch," directed by Jessica Kubzansky, will be read Saturday, December 11 at 11am. Victor is a haute couture fashion designer in the 1970s teetering at the top of his game. Esme, his dramatic protégé and muse, is pushed aside when an ordinary woman with ordinary tastes upends their haute partnership. A generation later, Jess, a woman struggling with a healthy dose of self-loathing, must wrestle her own fashion demons to find her way through a world that wouldn't give her a second look, much less make clothing in her size. Skipping back and forth in time, this is a viciously funny look at the struggle to seek a self that goes beyond skin deep.
Christy's "Egyptian Song," directed by
Scott Smith, will be read Saturday, December 11 at 2:30pm. A profound look inside the ways in which a society forms its rules for conducts of behavior, and traces the steps by which a social code can overwhelm familial love. This moving and urgent play follows the adolescence of an Egyptian brother and sister between the world wars. While the gifted young Zahia tries to sing her way to personal liberation following the example of
Josephine Baker, her brother Nahal falls in with a group of radicals bent on liberating Egypt from foreign influence. Two actors play almost a dozen characters in this very theatrical story of filial love betrayed by world views colliding.
Schimmelpfennig's "The Golden Dragon," directed by
Michael Michetti, will be read Saturday, December 11 at 5pm. Against a background of powerful theatrical imagery, we witness moments from the lives of 15 people, played by an ensemble of 5 actors, who live and work in a modern multi-ethnic community. At the center of the story is "The Golden Dragon," an Asian restaurant, and a young Chinese man suffering from a serious toothache. Built around this is a mosaic of intersecting lives whose common denominator is the silent cry of contemporary society: "I wish I was someone else."
Wiener's "Cassiopeia," directed by Emilie Beck, will be read Sunday, December 11 at 11am. "Cassiopeia" is about the curious business of remembering. Quiet, a mathematical prodigy in his later years, and Odetta, a maid from the rural south in the middle of her life, are voices in the wilderness of a society that doesn't quite fit them. As they recount the stories of their disparate but parallel lives, they are united in their common isolation, and their passionate theories about time, space, longing, and desire. Their stories unfold in a delicate tracery of their invisible struggles to find connection, their silent triumphs, and their serendipitous collision in the moment of breaking free.
Zimmerman's "Seven Spots on the Sun," directed by
Dan Bonnell, will be read Sunday, December 11 at 2pm. San Isidro has been without its doctor, Moisés, since the day the army brutally took his wife away during the country's civil war. However, when a mysterious plague begins to ravage the countryside around San Isidro, the local parish priest convinces Moisés to take action. Upon examining his first patient, the doctor discovers he has the miraculous power to heal with the touch of his hand. A meditation on mourning, redemption, and revenge, "Seven Spots on the Sun" follows different characters' attempts to come to terms with the extraordinary loss they have both suffered and inflicted, and
The Miracles they have witnessed.
The free readings are open to the public and reservations can be made by calling (626) 683-6883. The audience is invited to attend an artist reception following the final reading, at 4:30 on Sunday, December 11.
Sheila Callaghan's plays have been produced and developed with
Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons,
South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, Woolly Mammoth, and Rattlestick Playwright's Theatre, among others. Sheila is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, aMacDowell Residency, a Cherry Lane Mentorship Fellowship, the
Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and the prestigious Whiting Award. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Norway, Germany, Portugal, and the Czech Republic. These include "Scab", "Crawl Fade to White", "Crumble (Lay Me Down,
Justin Timberlake)", "We are Not These Hands", "Dead City", "Lascivious Something", "Kate Crackernuts", "That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play" and "Fever/Dream".
James Christy, Jr.'s full-length plays include: "Never Tell", produced by Broken Watch Theatre Company in August 2006, and published by Playscripts Inc., "A Great War" (Phoenix New Works Conference), "Love and Communication" (PlayPenn Playwrights conference, produced by Passage Theatre, winner of the Barrymore's Brown Martin Award). "Egyptian Song" had a staged reading as part of Premiere Stages Play Festival and was selected for the National New Play Network for 2011. Short plays include "Creep" (Actors Theater of Louisville's Heideman Award for Best Short Play, published in 10 Minute Plays for Two Actors.) James has had six other plays as finalists for the Heideman.
Roland Schimmelpfennig is one of the most widely produced playwrights in Europe. His plays have been translated into over 20 languages and he made his US debut in 2007 with a production of "Arabian Nights" (NYC's Play Company.) He is resident playwright at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. In 2010, Schimmelpfennig was awarded the Mühlheimer Dramatists Award for his play "The Golden Dragon." He also received the highest Playwriting Award in Germany, the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Prize, to honor his entire Oeuvre.
David Wiener's play's include "Extraordinary Chambers", "System Wonderland", "Guts", "La Arana", "Love Song of the Apocalypse", "Blood Orange", "in vitro", "Huera", "Cassiopeia", and "Baltimore Star". "Extraordinary Chambers" was the recipient of the 2010 ACT New Play Award and premiered at
Geffen Playhouse in 2011 (Ovation Nomination, Best Playwriting). Mr. Wiener is the recipient of the Cherry Lane Fellowship, The Rossetti Fellowship, The Lark Fellowship, and The Reynolds Price Award for Drama as well as commissions from
Atlantic Theater Company,
South Coast Repertory,
Soho Rep, and
A Contemporary Theatre.
Martín Zimmerman's plays include "White Tie Ball", "The Making of a Modern Folk Hero" and "Seven Spots on the Sun". His plays have been produced or developed at The Kennedy Center, The Playwrights' Center, the
ALLIANCE THEATRE,
Primary Stages, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Theatre Row, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Borderlands Theater, the Source Festival, The Gift, Red Tape, The University of Texas at Austin, and
Duke University. A recipient of the Carl Djerassi Playwriting Fellowship, the National New Play Network's Smith Prize, and a Core Apprenticeship at The Playwrights' Center, Martín is a member of the 2011-2012 Playwrights' Unit at
Goodman Theatre, where he is currently under commission.
The Theatre @ Boston Court is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Founding Director Z. Clark Branson, and the generous contributions of Boston Court supporters and contributors.
The Theatre @ Boston Court is the award-wining resident theatre company at Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, CA. Michael Seel, Executive Director, Jessica Kubzansky and Michael Michetti, Co-Artistic Directors, Hillary Metcalf, Managing Director.
