'In Conflict' Wins Fringe First Award at Edinburgh; Off-Broadway Bound

In Conflict, the first show of Culture Project’s (Allan Buchman, Artistic Director) fall season, has won a ‘Fringe First’ Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it was announced today.  The acclaimed Temple University production, which makes its Off Broadway debut next month at the Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow Street), is one of only 18 productions to win the prestigious award, out of the 480 award eligible shows at the 2008 festival.  Tickets are now on sale for Culture Project’s production, which begins in New York on September 18, 2008.  Opening Night is set for Wednesday, September 24 at 7:30 p.m.

Based on Yvonne Latty’s acclaimed 2006 book of the same name and adapted and directed by three-time Helen Hayes Award-winner Douglas C. Wager, In Conflict captures the unheard voices and unpredictable experiences of 15 Iraq War veterans whose lives have been changed forever.  Featuring men and women from all branches and ranks, Republican and Democrat, straight and gay, immigrants and natives, hailing from all parts of the country, these remarkable veterans represent America and its complexity.  In Conflict answers the question so often asked of soldiers when they return home: What happened? Their honest answers and extraordinary accounts will affect the way we think about war.

Following Culture Project’s critically acclaimed World Premiere of George Packer’s Betrayed, In Conflict explores the Iraq War from the American perspective and asks a different set of questions.  What is the nature of patriotism and service in today’s America? With an all volunteer army fighting a bewildering conflict (with doubts about the necessity and mission of this particular war), why is the re-assimilation process as brutal as it is?  Why are these young soldiers essentially disenfranchised from the political process of war?  And who is - or should be - held accountable?

After premiering last year at Temple University in Pennsylvania (where Philadelphia Weekly named it Best New Play of the Year), In Conflict traveled to Edinburgh Fringe Festival and will also play the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, before finally having its much anticipated Off Broadway premiere at Culture Project.  The cast of 11, all young actors who have been with the show for its entire journey, are the same age as the majority of today’s troops and casualties -- a generation that is paying the highest price for this war.

The cast of In Conflict features Tim Chambers, Stan Demidoff, Ethan Haymes, Amanda Holston, Suyeon Kim, Sean Lally, Joy Notoma, Sam Paul, Danielle Pinnock, Tom Rader and Damon Williams.

The design team for In Conflict includes Andrew Laine (Set Design), Marian Cooper (Costume Design), J. Dominic Chacon (Lighting Design), Warren Bass (Video Design), Gary Yong (Video Assistant), Christopher Cappello (Sound Design), Paul Winnick (Music Advisor) and James McCaffrey (Stage Manager).

Culture Project's mission is to bear witness to injustice, to stimulate challenging conversation about the most profound and urgent matters of our time and to convert interest, energy and engagement into a motivational demand for progressive change.  Culture Project has premiered celebrated shows including The Exonerated, Sarah Jones’ Bridge & Tunnel, Guantanamo, Lawrence Wright’s My Trip To Al-Qaeda, Tings Dey Happen, the Lucille Lortel Award-winning World Premiere of George Packer’s Betrayed and most recently, Lenelle Moïse’s Expatriate.

In Conflict begins performances September 18, 2008 and will be performed in rotating rep with The Atheist, beginning October 6, 2008. Performances of In Conflict are (every other week) Tuesday – Thursday at 8:00 p.m., Friday at 9:00 p.m., Saturday at 4:00 p.m. & 9:00 p.m. and Sunday at 4:00 p.m.  The preview performance schedule varies.  Tickets are $25 for preview performances and $35 for regular performances and are available by calling 212-352-3101 or visiting www.cultureproject.org.  Student tickets ($15) are also available for all performances.  Culture Project at the Barrow Street Theatre is located at 27 Barrow Street at 7th Avenue.

Yvonne Latty is the author of In Conflict: Iraq War Veterans Speak Out on Duty, Loss and the Fight to Stay Alive (Polipoint Press 2006), and the critically acclaimed We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans, from World War II to the War in Iraq (Harper Collins/Amistad 2004). In Conflict inspired and was featured in Voices In Conflict, a Wilton High School play that was banned by the school's superintendent and went on to be performed Off-Broadway. Latty worked for the Philadelphia Daily News for 13 years where she was an award winning reporter specializing in urban issues. She was featured in two History Channel’s Documentaries – “Honor Deferred” and “A Distant Shore: African Americans at D-Day.”  Born and raised in New York City, she earned a BFA in Film/Television and later an MA in Journalism from New York University. She is a journalism professor at New York University.  Her nonfiction short stories have been published in It’s A Girl: Women Writers On Raising Daughters (Seal 2006), The African American History Bibliography (Oxford Press 2008) and Callaloo, the premier African American literary magazine. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Chicago Sun Times, BET.com and numerous other media outlets.

Douglas C. Wager currently serves as a full tenured professor, Artistic Director and Head of Directing for Temple University.  He came to Philadelphia in 2003 to serve as Senior Director in Residence for the Prince Music Theater, where he staged It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, the world premiere of The Great Ostrovsky by Cy Coleman and Avery Corman and the world premiere of Gemini, the Musical. Prior to that, he spent several years working in Los Angeles working in film and television.  Mr. Wager served as Arena’s Artistic Director of Arena Stage for seven seasons, from 1991 to 1998, participating in over two hundred Arena productions, beginning his distinguished career there as an intern in 1974.  For his work as a director in Washington, DC, Mr. Wager has received three Helen Hayes awards and thirteen nominations for Outstanding Director.   His copious and nationally celebrated work as a director has been seen in New York both on Broadway and off, and regionally at major theaters across the country such as The Mark Taper Forum, The Guthrie Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, The Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theater and the Washington Opera.  In 2002, he was invited to direct The Front Page as the opening production of England’s acclaimed Chichester Festival Theatre’s 40th Anniversary Season. For television, Mr. Wager directed the series premiere and several episodes of The Lot, a single-camera period comedy/drama produced by AMC Network. He is also currently developing an independent feature film, English Majors, for production through his LLC production company, Fat Chance Films.  Professionally, he most recently directed Joe Orton’s Loot for the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia, Comedy of Errors for The Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC, Measure for Measure for NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a concert reading of Duke Ellington’s Shakespeare Suites for the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.