Plays from Coast to Coast this Week!

Oh, blog... since we last spoke, I've quit my job, sold my car, packed up my stuff, spent the summer at home on the farm, and moved to central New Jersey.  This is my year of CHANGE!


I miss my friends and colleagues in Los Angeles, but have been enjoying being in lovely Princeton, where I'm the lucky recipient of the Hodder Fellowship in Playwriting for this academic year.  I've also been enjoying being New York adjacent.  I can go see a world-class museum, a Broadway show, and a panel discussion with a bunch of my favorite playwrights, then stroll through Central Park on my way back to the train station, eating a bagel and trying to remember which pocket I hid my Metrocard in.


This post is not about my new life, though.  It's about WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS WEEK!!  Which is really the best of both worlds, as I have readings happening in both New York and Los Angeles.  I hope you will check one or the other out, if you're in the vicinity! 

Thursday, November 18th at 7pm

KGB Bar in New York, NY

SIX BOTTLES OF HEINEKEN AFTER THE SILVERADO at "Drunken! Careening! Writers!"

Featuring yours truly, reading with Aaron Simms!

Saturday and Sunday, November 20-21 at 2pm

Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon, CA

APPLE SEASON in "Backyard Fruit"

Directed by Jen Bloom, and starring Victoria Hilyard and Carl Palmer.

Let me know if you can attend either event!  They both should be lots of fun.

  

Ferber, Lewis, Warnock at Drunken! Careening! Writers!

Thursday, November 18 · 7:00pm - 8:30pm

KGB Bar

85 E. 4th St.

New York, NY

Drunken! Careening! Writers! is a reading series based on the proposition that readings should be by 1) good writers; 2) who read their work well; and 3) something in it makes people laugh (nervous laughter counts). And 15 minutes tops.

Lisa Ferber

EM Lewis

Kathleen Warnock

"The Write Stuff"

FREE

Lisa Ferber is a multidisciplinary satirist. Her paintings and illustrations have shown at National Arts Club, Location One, Governors Island Art Fair, Manhattan Borough President's Office, and other galleries, and have sold to private collectors. Her plays and songs have been performed at La Mama, The Duplex, The Brick, Theater for the New City, and other venerable locations, and her play "Bonbons for Breakfast" was a New York magazine "notable production." Her play "Lisa Ferber's 'An Evening With Molly Hadafew'" is published in "The Book of Estrogenius 2008." Her film "The Celery Stalker" toured US film festivals. Her stories have been read at Dirty Laundry, Barbes, and she was featured in the KGB evening "People Who Get More Done Than I Do." She made her singing debut in the musical "Whimsellica's Grand Inheritance," which she wrote with Emmy-nominated composer Robert Firpo-Cappiello. She co-composed the music to match her lyrics on "You Left Me for a Tranny and I'm Still Drinkin'" and "Married Don't Mean Unavailable." She was a guest celebrity on WVOX Radio and was profiled on BroadwayAfterDark.com. She experiences frequent bursts of gratitude for living in New York City.

EM Lewis won the 2009 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for her play "Song of Extinction" (published by Samuel French, and playing at the Guthrie early next year) and the 2008 Francesca Primus Prize for an emerging woman theater artist for "Heads" from the American Theater Critics Association. Her work has been produced across the country, as well as in Canada, China, South Africa, and at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is currently working on a new play called "Magellanica: A New and Accurate Map of the World" at Princeton University, where she is the 2010-2011 Hodder Fellow in Playwriting.  www.dramatistsguildweb.com

/members/emlewis

Kathleen Warnock is a New York City-based playwright and editor. She has curated Drunken! Careening! Writers! since 2004 and enjoys it more and more each year. Her plays have been produced in New York City, regionally, and in London and Dublin, Ireland. She is Playwrights Company Manager for Emerging Artists Theatre, and Curator of the Robert Chesley/Jane Chambers Playwrights Project at TOSOS Theatre. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild. She is series editor for Best Lesbian Erotica (Cleis). By day, she edits travel guides for Frommer's. 

BACKYARD FRUIT
Botanicum Seedlings Fall (short) Playreading Festival
Eight new plays by emerging and award-winning playwrights
November 20 & 21

TOPANGA, CA – November 3, 2010 – Theatricum’s play development program, Botanicum Seedlings, continues to foster its relationship with local playwrights by producing its first ever festival of new short plays.The Fall (short) Playreading Festival features the works of emerging and award-winning writers based in the L.A. area, all of whom have been involved with Seedlings. A harvest of eight short plays based on the theme “backyard fruit,” along with gourmet seasonal refreshments, The Fall (short) Playreading Festival takes place Saturday and Sunday, November 20 & 21, at 2 pm. Admission is Free; donations gratefully accepted.

“Although our program supports the work of playwrights from across the country, we’re always on the lookout for ‘locally grown’ writers we can nurture in new ways,” says Seedlings literary manager Julie Retzlaff. “With this festival, we wanted to reach out to LA-area writers we’ve worked with in the past, and at the same time plan an event that would bring together the community of Topanga and Theatricum artists. The summer season of classics is over, so we’re offering something fresh and different to our audiences.” Retzlaff is producing the Festival together with Theatricum playwright-in-residence Jennie Webb.

The plays composing “Backyard Fruit” on both performance dates are:

• “Night” by Ella Martin - Bathed in moonlight, a garden is full of possibilities. Especially to a young, impressionable radish. Ella Martin is a writer, director and actor whose plays have been developed by Rubicon International Theatre Festival, Theater Charity, and PianoFight LA. She is founder and artistic director of Theatre Mab.

• “Apple Season” by EM Lewis – Lissie has no problem selling the family farm she’s inherited.  But Billy hadn’t bargained on her asking price. EM Lewis is the recipient of numerous awards including the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, Francesca Primus Prize and LADCC Ted Schmitt Award. She is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.

• “The Fruits of Their Labor” by Michael Premsriart – Not everyone in Russia is ready to turn their piece of the motherland over to an American real estate speculator. Michael Premsriart has had plays presented at the Public Theatre, Asian American Theater Company and the Asian American Repertory Theatre in San Diego. He’s a member of LA’s Playwrights Arena.

• “Trick Ride” by Mary F. Casey – Life is like a rodeo. The saddle gets harder, the competition gets younger and your memory starts to play tricks on you. But what a ride. Mary F. Casey’s plays, including Unspeakable Acts, have won the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award and Zane Gray Playwriting Contest. She received the Butcher Scholar Award from the Autry National Center.

• “The Ladder” by Damon Chua - A married couple deals with the loss of gravity, and the gravity of loss, all in their own backyard. Damon Chua is the author of numerous plays including the Ovation Award-winning Film Chinois (published by Samuel French). His pieces have been presented in Los Angeles New York, Boston, Alaska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, London and Singapore.

• “Community Property” by Tira Palmquist – Even in the perfect neighborhood, a good fence doesn’t make for good neighbors when a property dispute turns sour. The author of full-length plays featured on stages and in festivals across the country, Tira Palmquist is a writer, director and teacher. Her short plays have recently been produced in Los Angeles, Chicago and Virginia.

• “A Strawberry for Your Thoughts” by Shannon Lee Clair – A tender look at young love and what flavors the future may hold on the eve of a backyard wedding. Shannon Lee Clair is a graduate of Princeton University, where she wrote and directed her first play. She has studied abroad at LAMDA and worked locally with the La Mirada Theatre’s Young Artist Project.

• “Sour Fruit” by Tiffany Antone – A play about politics, double standards and the cost of getting elected… particularly if the candidate is a woman who’s got a choice to make. Tiffany Antone’s award-winning plays have been presented in Los Angeles, New York, D.C. and Minneapolis, and published by Samuel French. She is the literary manager for LATE.

The Festival features the work of five directors working collaboratively with the playwrights, and and an ensemble cast that features members of Theatricum’s company along with new actors brought in specifically for the Festival. The “Backyard Fruit” directors are Jen Bloom, who developed the Performing Arts Program at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum and has extensive credits on the East Coast and in L.A. (Rogue Machine Theatre, Chalk Rep and the Playwrights Union); Katherine James, a playwright, artistic director of Free Association Theatre, and frequent Seedlings collaborator; Julie Retzlaff, who works on primarily new works, as a producer and director, in N.Y. (Ensemble Studio Theatre and Arclight Theatre Company) and California (Pacific Repertory Theatre and Seedlings); Ann-Giselle Spiegler, an award-winning director for theater, film and music video based in Los Angeles; and Joy Howard, artistic director of LA’s critically-acclaimed LOFT ensemble.

Initiated in 2002, the Botanicum Seedlings series acts as an adjunct to the Theatricum Botanicum’s Summer Repertory Season, mounting spring playreadings as the season opens, and culminating after the season winds down with a fall workshop production or playreadings. Throughout the calendar year, plays are also selected to receive GreenReads, providing an unrehearsed, fresh look at scripts in various stages of development.
“Backyard Fruit,” Botanicum Seedlings Fall (short) Playreading Festival takes place Saturday, November 20 and Sunday, November 21 at 2 pm. Admission to the festival is free and open to the public; gourmet refreshments will be served and donations to support this series will be gratefully accepted. The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum is located at 1419 North Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Topanga, midway between Malibu and the San Fernando Valley. For further information, the public should call (310) 455-2322 or visitwww.theatricum.com. The theater is outdoors; dress warmly and please call the theater in case of inclement weather.