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Thursday, May 21, 2015

A PLETHORA OF NEW PLAY READINGS COMING UP IN MADISON

NEW PLAY READINGS

WHEN: All readings begin promptly at 7 PM
WHERE:
the Barn Theatre on the campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Route 24, Madison
ADMISSION: free; however, reservations are required and can be made online at www.ptnj.org

“This is on opportunity for us to celebrate all of the play development works we do,” said John Pietrowski, Artistic Director of Playwrights Theatre. “Offerings will include plays from our New Jersey Emerging Women Playwrights Program, the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest, our Adult Playwriting Workshop, and FORUM Reading Series.”

Schedule of Events:

Friday, May 29, at 7 PMTHE NEWSCASTER’S MOTHER by Maryanne Melloan Woods

Monday, June 1, at 7 PM – New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival – Elementary and Junior High School Plays

Tuesday, June 2, at 7 PM New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival – High School Plays

Thursday, June 4, at 7 PM Adult Playwriting Workshop will have various readings from Claire Porter, Dania Ramos, Ed Shakespeare, Larry Schwartz and Gregory Cole

Friday, June 5, at 7 PM – Reading of HAPPY YET?? by Joe Sutton, part of the FORUM Reading Series which had to be rescheduled due to snow.

Wednesday, June 10, at 7 PM - MIDWIVES by Suzanne Trauth 

Playwrights Theatre’s New Jersey Emerging Women Playwrights Project (NJEWP) is part of Playwrights Theatre’s larger ongoing effort to provide meaningful support to playwrights through an authentic development process that focuses on the specific and individual needs of the writer. New Jersey has an abundance of talented and committed women playwrights, but there are very few opportunities for these artists to form relationships with organizations that will make a long-term commitment to developing both their work and their presence in the community. The NJEWP puts into place a process that identifies writers, provides a long-term writer-driven development process, and provides connections for the writer to other writers, informed audiences, and the larger theatrical community, both in New Jersey and nationwide. Two of this season’s participants (Maryanne Melloan Woods and Suzanne Trauth) will have readings of their plays during the Barn Theatre series. The third NJEWP, Chisa Hutchinson, had a reading of her play THE WEDDING GIFT during the FORUM Reading Series in January 2015.

On Friday, May 29, 2015 there will be a reading of THE NEWSCASTER’S MOTHER by Maryanne Melloan Woods. In this new comedy, Joyce, the owner of a garden center who also runs a popular gardening blog, finds her already chaotic life upended even more when her son, a popular major-market news anchor, gets himself into a highly-visible scandal, and retreats to her home. Long-festering family secrets and resentments surface, and Joyce is forced to confront her role in the mess that is unfolding under the glare of news trucks in the front yard.

The winning plays of the 32nd Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest will be showcased in a festival. The Elementary and Junior High School plays will be presented on Monday, June 1, 2015, at 7pm and the High School plays on Tuesday, June 2, 2015, at 7pm. The readings will feature professional actors and directors.

In the High School Division (grades 10-12), the winners are:

  • Pretty Girl by Laura Diorio, Middletown High School South, Middletown
  • Listen by Jack Kimber, Chatham High School, Chatham
  • Worn Thin by Gabrielle Poisson, Newark Academy, Livingston
  • Thanksgiving Surprise by Betsy Zaubler, Newark Academy, Livingston

In the Junior High School Division (grades 7-9), the winners are:

  • The Angel Side by Evelyn Doskoch, Columbia Middle School, Berkeley Heights
  • Love Bites by Cathryn Mesce, Union County Academy for Performing Arts, Scotch Plains
  • Doppelganger by Paige Warnock, Union County Academy for Performing Arts, Scotch Plains

In the Elementary School Division (grades 4-6), the winners are:

  • Sibling Rivalry by Artha Abeysinghe, Torey J Sabatini School, Madison
  • Storm in a Cup by Frances Wan, St. Vincent Martyr School
  • Stitches – Dun, Dun, Dun by Josephine Walker, Torey J Sabatini School, Madison

Playwrights Theatre is reaching out to former winners to find out where their lives have taken them. Many have gone on to pursue careers as published prose and poetry writers as well as playwrights and journalists. Others have become have become lawyers, professors, and comic book illustrators.

On June 4, 2015, a selection of work from participants in Playwrights Theatre's Adult Playwriting Community, a year-round Monday-night Workshop for writers at all levels of experience. This evening's plays will include works by winners of the NJ State Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowship, past participants in Playwrights Theatre's New Jersey Emerging Playwrights Program, and a Guggenheim Award-winning writer/choreographer.

June 5, 2015 Pulitzer Prized nominated playwright, Joe Sutton, will have a reading of his play HAPPY YET?? Benny, a twenty-something slacker Jersey-Boy suddenly finds himself agreeing to be the mayor of New Corners, New Hampshire. Not knowing exactly what to do, he decides he is going to focus his administration on “The Pursuit of Happiness.” His journey brings him across some colorful and unusual characters, both real and imagined, as he bumbles his way towards his goal.

On Wednesday, June 10, 2015, Suzanne Trauth’s MIDWIVES will receive a staged reading. In the summer of 1913, at Viareggio, Italy, Eleonora Duse, foremost actress of her day, invited Isadora Duncan, foremost dancer of her time, to recuperate following the deaths of Isadora’s two children. In the days following, these towering artists of the early twentieth century engaged in a passionate contemplation of love, motherhood, and art. It would prove to be a transcendent time for both of them.

For more information about Playwrights Theatre, visit www.ptnj.org or call (973) 514-1787.

Playwrights Theatre’s New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest receives generous funding from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; Investors Savings Bank Charitable Foundation, the Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, and the Provident Bank Foundation. The New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival and New Jersey Young Playwrights Program are registered to the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission.

 

 

About Playwrights Theatre:

Founded in 1986, Playwrights Theatre is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit professional theatre and arts education institution dedicated to developing and nurturing the dramatic imagination of artists, students, and audiences. Our New Play Program, which includes the The New Jersey Emerging Women Playwrights Program and the Literary Artist Fellowship Program creates development opportunities for professional writers through readings, workshops and productions, and invites audiences to participate in authentic feedback experiences. Our New Jersey Writers Project, Poetry Out Loud, New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest and Festival, and Creative Arts Academy programs provide a comprehensive and hands-on arts education experience to over 31,000 students, Pre-K through adult.

Writers in the New Play Program are drawn from across the country, including our affiliation with the National New Play Network, a nation-wide group of theatres dedicated to the development and production of new work. Teaching Artists in our Education Programs are professional artists working in their field in the New Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia metropolitan areas. From 2003-2016, we have been designated a Major Arts Institution by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (along with only five other theatres: The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, George Street Playhouse, McCarter Theatre Center, Two River Theatre and Paper Mill Playhouse) as “an anchor institution that contributes vitally to the quality of life in New Jersey.”

Funding for our activities comes from: the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Community Foundation, the F.M. Kirby Foundation, Inc., Dramatist Guild Fund, The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, The Shubert Foundation, Novartis, The Victoria Foundation, and many corporations, foundations and individuals.

Playwrights Theatre is a member of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, the National New Play Network, and Madison Arts & Culture Alliance.