Berkshire Playwrights Lab to Present OUT OF ORBIT, 7/30

The Berkshire Playwrights Lab, continues its 2014 season of readings of innovative and exciting new plays with a presentation of Jennifer Maisel's Out of Orbit at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center (14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA) on July 30 at 7:30 p.m.

Out of Orbit, starring Meeghan Holaway, Charles Socarides, and Kaileela Hobby tells the story of a mother and daughter, one a jet propulsion lab scientist, the other an underachiever. Sara lives on Mars time, spearheading the Mars Rover Expedition, visiting a planet she cannot touch, while her daughter, Lis, on earth time, falls under the spell of the cyber-cypher Edgar2330. Sometimes it takes being worlds apart for an exploring woman and a longing-to-be-explored girl to find each other in our increasingly disconnected universe.

Jennifer Maisel's Pen West Literary Award finalist There or Here was workshopped at PlayPenn before its critically acclaimed run at New York's Hypothetical Theatre. Her The Last Seder recently premiered Off-Broadway after productions in Chicago, D.C. and Los Angeles. Her other plays include Goody f-ing Two Shoes (ATL's Humana Festival), birds (Rorschach Theatre), Eden (Theatre of NOTE, Original Works Publishing). Her play #Sandy recently ran in Moving Arts' The Car Plays at the Segerstrom Performing Arts Center and opened at LiveGirls! in Seattle in June. She received an Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan foundation commission for Out of Orbit, developed at the Sundance Theatre Lab and the Gulf Shore New Play Festival. She and Amy Feinberg workshopped MATCH at the Inaugural University of the Arts Playwrights Festival before its presentation at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. Her newest play, @thespeedofJake, was Kilroy nominated. She has received awards from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays Award, Charlotte Woolard and Roger L. Stevens awards and the SCR's California Playwrights Competition. Additionally, she is a two time PEN West Literary Award finalist, five-time Heideman Award finalist, and a STAGES International finalist. She also writes for film and television. Her website is www.jennifermaisel.com.

Joe Cacaci, BPL Co-Artistic Director, is the founding director of East Coast Arts, where he produced twenty world premiere plays over seven seasons. He is also Producing Director, with Dan Lauria, of The Playwrights Kitchen Ensemble in L.A. from 1993 to the present, where over 500 new plays have been given staged readings in the Monday Night Reading Series. Joe co-produced David Mamet's Obie-winning play, Edmond at the Provincetown Playhouse. His own plays have been produced at The Public Theater, The Coconut Grove Theatre (where he also directed), The Long Wharf Theater, and at The Alley Theatre in Houston. He has directed at The Westport Playhouse and commercially in Los Angeles. He has written numerous made-for-television movies and co-created the CBS prime time series The Trials of Rosie O'Neill. He was executive producer (show runner) of two prime time series: Showtime's The Hoop Life and CBS' The Education of Max Bickford, which starred Richard Dreyfuss and Marcia Gay Harden. He directed the PBS pilot Cop Shop, which starred Richard Dreyfuss and Blair Brown. Currently, Joe teaches television writing in the graduate program of the Film School at Columbia University.

The Berkshire Playwrights Lab's mission is to provide the playwright with space to create. BPL provides an opportunity for emerging and established playwrights to find a secure berth where they can develop new work and/or explore new avenues of creativity.

Founded in 2007 the Berkshire Playwrights Lab is the area's only theater dedicated exclusively to encouraging, developing, and presenting new plays. Through readings, workshops and fully-staged productions, the Lab provides emerging and established writers with a professional and creative environment, while offering audiences the engaging and provocative opportunity to share in the dramatic evolution of premiere works. Without a commitment to nurturing new voices and new talent, the American theater is losing promising playwrights. The Lab was created to provide playwrights the opportunity to develop their work and more than 25 short and 30 full-length plays have been presented under the BPL banner since its inception.

The 2014 season includes a series of four free staged readings of new works by emerging and established playwrights on Wednesdays at 7:30pm on July 2, 16, 30 and August 13. These readings offer audiences a window into the creative process as new plays and works in progress are performed and staged, script in hand, by talented casts of professional actors. Audiences are encouraged to stay after the reading for a talkback with the artists. Upcoming readings include Out of Orbit by Jennifer Maisel, the story of a mother and daughter trying to connect. Out of Orbit was the 2014 winner of the Wagner College Stanley Drama Award.

BERKSHIRE PLAYWRIGHTS LAB

Out of Orbit

Wednesday, July 30, at 7:30pm - Free / Suggested Donation $10

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

14 Castle St.

Great Barrington, MA 01230

Tickets available through the Mahaiwe - 413-528-0100 or mahaiwe.org