27th Annual NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL Announced for Providence, RI

The Brown University Literary Arts Program and the Brown/Trinity Repertory Consortium are pleased to announce the first installment of the 27th annual NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL. A celebration of the diversity and strength of new theatrical voices, the NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL has been instrumental in bringing the work of America's finest emerging playwrights to life for nearly three decades. Alumni include Pulitzer Prize-winning Nilo Cruz (Anna in the Tropics), Pulitzer-nominated and MacArthur Genius Grant-recipient Sarah Ruhl (The Clean House, Passion Play), and Pulitzer and Tony-nominated Quiara Alegría Hudes (In the Heights, Elliot: A Soldier's Fugue).

This first installment of the festival features world-premiere plays by MFA-candidate playwrights Mia Chung and Jackie Sibblies, directed by MFA-candidate directors Michael Perlman and Christopher Windom, respectively. The plays run in repertory at the McCormack Family Theater (70 Brown Street, Providence, RI 02912) from Wednesday to Sunday. This year's festival also features an assortment of special events, including a reading of in-progress work by fellow MFA-candidate writers Mallery Avidon and Joe Waechter, a panel discussion of Chung and Sibblies' work with Brown faculty and special guests, and the late night "Smoke and Mirrors Cabaret" of new music, fiction, poetry, photography, and playwriting. A second installment of the festival, with two more world-premiere plays, is slated for April 15th - 19th.

The NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL is organized and presented by the Brown University Graduate Program in Literary Arts in conjunction with the Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium. Working under the direction of Lisa D'Amour (Head of MFA Playwriting), Curt Columbus (Artistic Director, Trinity Rep), Stephen Berenson (Chair, MFA Programs), and Beth Milles (Head of MFA Directing), MFA-candidate playwrights, directors, and actors unite with professional artists and the greater Brown and Providence communities to collaborate on this stimulating weekend of theater. Artistic Director Nadia Mahdi and Production Coordinator Rob Jarbadan helm the festival. Other artistic and production staff include set designer Andrew Evans, costume designer Jessie Darrell, lighting designer Jen Rock, sound designer Arik Beatty, technical director Eric Rudisaile, properties master KrisTina Brown, props artist Nicole LeDuc, production stage manager Sarah Perlin, stage manager Megan Tracy, dramaturg Lindsay Goss, and master electrician Doug Eacho. The acting company includes Erin Adams, Rachel Christopher, Vichet Chum, Julian Cihi, Matt Clevy, Rebecca Gibel, Sam Haley-Hill, Liz Morgan, Patrick Mulryan, Michael Obremski, Molly O'Neill, Eunice Png, Shana Tinkle, Lizzie Vieh, Monica Willey, Gillian Williams, and Emily Woo Zeller.

Tickets are FREE and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
For reservations, visit http://mf.students.brown.edu/boxoffice/

Once reserved, tickets will be available for pick-up in the lobby of the McCormack Family Theater 45 minutes before each respective performance. Unclaimed tickets will be released 10 minutes prior to curtain. If the performance is sold out, please contact NPF271@gmail.com to add your name to a wait-list.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS...

Exquisite Corpse
By Mia Chung, Directed by Michael Perlman

WEDNESDAY, February 11th & FRIDAY, February 13th at 8 PM
SATURDAY, February 14th at 2 PM

After leaving her native Korea to cross the globe for love and a better life, Miju learns that her journey has only just begun. Her husband, their son, her tongue...even her sense of smell conspire with the fracturing experience of immigration to keep "home" just beyond reach. As she contemplates her next move, she must negotiate her shifting identity and decide what to take with her and what to leave behind. Exquisite Corpse is a surreal, comedic travelogue of dislocation.

MIA CHUNG (Playwright) recently had a reading of her adaptation The Orphan of Zhao produced by Mu Performing Arts at the New Eyes Festival this past January. The play was previously produced by the Brandeis Theater Company in 2008. She has had workshop productions in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and PlayGround (SF) and was an artist resident at the Millay Colony for the Arts. She is the recipient of a 2005 Sloan Commission.

MICHAEL PERLMAN (Director). Directing credits include Hamlet and A Doll's House (Brown/Trinity Consortium), Love, I Hear (Stephen Foster Productions), Iphigenia and Other Daughters (Temporary Theater Company), The Last Five Years (Stamford Center for the Arts), Winnie-the-Pooh (Hangar Theater Kidstuff), Emperor of Ice Cream... and Romeo and Juliet (Hangar Theater Lab Company.) Assistant directing credits include King Lear (Public Theater, Director James Lapine), The Laramie Project (Matthew Shephard Foundation Benefit, Director Moisés Kaufman), and Bone Portraits (Stillpoint Productions, Director Lear deBessonet). In addition, Michael's one-person show Flying on the Wing was presented at the New York Fringe Festival, where it was the winner of Outstanding Solo Show of 2006. As a performer, Michael has been seen in Consortium productions of Camino Real and Blood Wedding, as well as the New Plays Festival production of Plutonics. Michael is proud to be a Drama League Directing Fellow.

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Mo'Reece and the Girls
By Jackie Sibblies, Directed by Christopher Windom

THURSDAY, February 12th & SATURDAY, February 14th at 8 PM
SUNDAY, February 15th at 2 PM

A dark comedy about a single black mother trying to keep her head above the water, Mo'Reece and the Girls follows the dedicated but frazzled Mo'Reece as she struggles to raise a pair of pre-teen pop-superstar wannabes in their small apartment above the Tex-Mex joint where she works. Ceaselessly harried by a chorus of wait staff from a different class and generation, Mo'Reece grapples to keep her loftier dreams alive despite the daily grind of the food service industry, the throes of motherhood, and the startling secret she uncovers in the basement...

JACKIE SIBBLIES (Playwright) is a writer and designer for theater and film. She has designed sets for productions at Galapagos Art Space and Columbia University, and costumes for music videos and independent shorts. Jackie is a graduate of Yale University and is currently an M.F.A. candidate in playwriting at Brown. Mo'Reece and the Girls is kind of her first play.

Christopher Windom (Director) received the Dean Goodman Choice Award for best choreography for Ragtime at Theaterworks in Palo Alto, California. He's directed Big River (Arrow Rock Lyceum Theater), Oh, Mr. Cadhole! (PACT) and Our Country's Good (Brown/Trinity Rep. Consortium). He's also choreographed Dessa Rose and Crowns (Theaterworks), Swing! (Stage One), City of Freaks (The A Train Plays), Parade (New York University) and most recently A Christmas Carol directed by Liesl Tommy (Trinity Rep). He's served as Associate Director/Choreographer on War Brides (Assoc. Dir., The York Theater), Smokey Joe's Cafe (Assoc. Dir/Choreo, Maine State Music Theater). Other choreography credits include Pippin, Gypsy, Peter Pan and Guys and Dolls. As a performer Christopher has performed on Broadway and National Tours in the shows Fosse and Damn Yankees starring Jerry Lewis. He's also performed in many regional theaters including The Paper Mill Playhouse, Goodspeed Opera House, Stages St Louis, The St Louis Rep, The St Louis Muny, Marriott Lincolnshire and others. He's taught Musical Theater Dance master classes at Michigan State University, Webster University, Temple University, Ema Pulido's Dance studio in Mexico City, Mexico and the Center of Contemporary Arts in St Louis, MO. Christopher graduated with a BFA in Musical Theater from Webster University and is a 2010 MFA-candidate for the Trinity Rep. Consortium Theater Directing program at Brown University.

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Smoke and Mirrors Cabaret

Late-night! FRIDAY, February 13th at 11 PM

Following its unprecedented success at Brown University last semester, the Smoke and Mirrors Cabaret returns for a special NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL appearance. Enjoy new music, fiction, poetry, photography and playwriting converge alongside artists from every corner of the Brown/RISD community. Curated by PhD students Ryan Hartigan and Elise Morrison. (No ticket reservation required)

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First Look: Plays-in-Progress
Readings of new work by Mallery Avidon and Joe Waechter

SATURDAY, February 14th from 5 - 6 PM

MFA-candidate playwrights Mallery Avidon and Joe Waechter present excerpts from their recent work. A fantastic opportunity to preview the work of writers whose plays will be featured in the second installment of the NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL later this year. (No ticket reservation required)

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Part 1: A Panel Discussion

SUNDAY, February 15th from 11 AM - 12 NOON

Join Brown faculty and special guests from the theater community as they discuss the world-premiere plays of Mia Chung and Jackie Sibblies featured in this first half of the festival. (No ticket reservation required)

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NPF 27.1 is made possible through support from an endowed fund for the
Adele Kellenberg Seaver '49 Professorship in Literary Arts http://npf27.blogspot.com/