Playwright Residencies 2009 To Be Held At Donmar Warehouse

New York's premier play festival, the Summer Play Festival (SPF), is partnering with London's Donmar Warehouse for the fifth year in a row to create an international playwriting program for emerging writers. The Donmar Warehouse / SPF Residency Program brings together professional theatre makers from the highly acclaimed Donmar to work with selected SPF playwrights in a focused collaboration of classroom experiments, workshops, and rehearsals, culminating in a full reading of their play. The writers will spend up to three weeks in London becoming immersed in the local theatre scene, and exchanging ideas and techniques with professional artists. The Donmar staff will guide and support the writers throughout their time in London, offering them a unique insight into the dynamics and complexities of the British theatre industry.

This year's selected playwrights are Sylvia Reed (SPF 2008, The Ones That Flutter) and Stephen Brown (SPF 2008, Future Me).

The Donmar Warehouse, located in the heart of London's West End, has a reputation as one of the UK's leading producing theatres. Since 1992, Donmar-generated productions have received 30 Olivier Awards, 15 Critics' Circle Awards, 19 Evening Standard Awards, and 13 Tony Awards from nine Broadway productions. This spring Mary Stuart, a Donmar production directed by Phyllida Lloyd, will open on Broadway.

Previous SPF / Donmar Residents include Beau Willimon (SPF 2007, Lower Ninth), Rob Handel (SPF 2006, Milicent Scowlworthy) and Victoria Stewart (SPF 2006, Hardball).

Since its inception in 2004, the Summer Play Festival has produced over 70 original works, and has provided an opportunity for writers to present their material and craft in a protected environment, guided by established professionals, with full financial support. The Summer Play Festival has had tremendous success in helping to identify talented, emerging artists, and many of our writers have enjoyed Broadway, off-Broadway, international and regional productions. Others are now developing projects with film and television companies.

Vist www.spfnyc.com for more information.

Biographies

The Summer Play Festival (SPF) stages original new plays and musicals by emerging writers during the summer months at the legendary Public Theater in New York City. Since its inception in 2004, SPF has invested millions of dollars in emerging theatre artists, produced over 500 public performances, and has provided an opportunity for 75 writers, as well as hundreds of directors, designers, actors, stage managers, and interns to present their work in a protected environment.

Founded by Broadway producer Arielle Tepper Madover, SPF is also committed to providing a low ticket price of only $10 to bring in new audience members. As a result, the Festival has sold out its four-week performance schedule for each of the past five years and has attracted a diverse audience of over 45,000 theatre patrons, the majority under the age of 35.

SPF playwrights have gone on to receive productions on Broadway, off-Broadway, regionally and internationally. Their work has been presented at institutions such as Lincoln Center Theater, the Roundabout Theatre Company, Manhattan Theater Club, the Atlantic Theater Company and Playwrights Horizons in New York City; the Royal National Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse in London; and dozens of acclaimed theatres across the United States and around the world.

The Donmar Warehouse, under the artistic leadership of Michael Grandage, the theatre has presented some of London's most memorable award-winning theatrical experiences, as well as garnered critical acclaim at home and abroad. The theatre has a diverse artistic policy that includes new writing, contemporary reappraisals of European classics, British and American drama and small scale musical theatre. Over the last 16 years the theatre has created reputation associated with artistic excellence: it has showcased the talent of some of the industry's premier creative artists, and built an unparalleled catalogue of work.

Sylvia Reed, of Palmetto, Florida, is a recipient of a 2009 Florida Individual Artist Fellowship Award for The Ones That Flutter, which premiered in New York City in July 2008 as part of the Summer Play Festival at The Public Theater. The Ones That Flutter won first prize in Boston Theatre Works' 2006 BTW Unbound competition and New Stage Theatre's (Jackson, Mississippi) 2008 Eudora Welty New Play Series. Sylvia is working on a screen adaptation of the play. Her most recent play is Kingfisher, which will have a first reading by Theatre Odyssey in Sarasota, Florida, in January. Other plays are Full Moon Rabbit Dance and Alligators, which won Florida Playwrights' Process awards and were gold medal finalists for the Pinter Review Prize for Drama. Her short plays - American Flag and Works in Progress, are published in Smith and Kraus' Best 10-Minute Plays 2007, 2 Actors and Best 10-Minute Plays 2007, 3 or More Actors. Sylvia is represented by Ron Gwiazda, of Abrams Artists Agency in New York City.

Stephen Brown scripted Filter Theatre's sell-out hit Faster (BAC, London / Lyric Studio, London / UK tour / Frankfurt / 59E59, New York). His play Future Me premiered at Theatre503 in London in June 2007 to wide acclaim, had its US premiere in Berkeley in April 2008 and its New York premier in July 2008 as part of the Summer Play Festival at The Public Theater. The script is published by Oberon Books. Future Me will tour the UK in Spring 2009 and is being translated into French. Stephen is working on two commissions: an original script for The National Theatre in London and an adaptation of Rory Stewart's bestselling memoir Occupational Hazards (published in the US as The Prince of the Marshes). Other past work includes adaptations of Bleak House and The Master and Margarita and scripting Filter Theatre's Elephant. He has worked as a critic, book editor and translator. He was publisher of the London-based political magazine Prospect. Stephen is represented by Rose Cobbe at United Agents in London.