TCG Publishes Lynn Nottage's BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has announced the publication of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ruined. Declared "one of our finest playwrights" by Time Out New York, Lynn Nottage premiered her newest play at Second Stage Theatre in spring 2011. In the 2013-2014 season, the play will receive productions at seven theaters across the country, including the ALLIANCE THEATRE in Atlanta and the Actor's Theatre of Charlotte.

In By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Lynn Nottage examines the legacy of African-Americans in Hollywood in a dramatic stylistic departure from her previous work. Fluidly incorporating film and video elements into her writing for the first time, Nottage's comedy tells the story of Vera Stark, an African-American maid and budding actress who has a tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star desperately grasping to hold onto her career. When circumstances collide and both women land roles in the same Southern epic, the story behind the cameras leaves Vera with a surprising and controversial legacy scholars will debate for years to come. As a compliment to the play's experience, the author has developed two websites that will tell the continuing story of Vera Stark: MeetVeraStark.com and FindingVeraStark.com.

Lynn Nottage's plays include Ruined; Intimate Apparel; Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine; Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por'knockers and POOF! Nottage is the recipient of the 2010 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant, Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the inaugural Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play (Ruined), Helen Hayes Award (Ruined), the Lee Reynolds Award and the Jewish World Watch iWitness Award. Her other honors include the Madge Evans and Sidney Kingsley Award, the National Black Theatre Festival's August Wilson Playwriting Award, the 2005 Guggenheim Grant for Playwriting, the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels Award, as well as fellowships from the Lucille Lortel Foundation, Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists and New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a co-founder and producer at Market Road Films LLC, a film Production Company. www.lynnnottage.com

For over 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the U.S. Center of the InterNational Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 12 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine and ARTSEARCH?, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org

By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
by Lynn Nottage
Paperback 112 pages
978-1-55936-442-3 $14.95
eBook 978-1-55936-648-9
September 2013

Other titles by Lynn Nottage, available from TCG:

Crumbs from the Table of Joy and Other Plays
978-1-55936-214-6 $18.95

Intimate Apparel/Fabulation
978-1-55936-279-5 $14.95

Ruined
978-1-55936-355-6 $14.95 paperback
978-1-55936-369-3 $28.00 hardcover
978-1-55936-629-8 $14.95 eBook

TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution. Orders: 800-283-3572. SAN number: 63170X. Individuals may call 212-609-5900 or visit our online bookstore at www.tcg.org. For postage and handling, add $6.50 for the first book and $1.00 for each additional copy.