Victory Gardens Theater to Offer Series of Free Play Readings This Month

Victory Gardens Theater announces the June lineup for The VG Reading Series. This regularly scheduled program of play readings provides playwrights a platform to develop their plays-in-progress, and will give audiences opportunities to experience exciting new work throughout the year. The Reading Series adds to VG's current programming of world premieres and new plays and the IGNITION Festival of New Plays.

The Reading Series is free and open to the public and will take place at 2433 N Lincoln Avenue. More information can be found at Victorygardens.org/also-playing/reading-series/.

Upcoming plays for the VG Reading Series are:

awe/struck by christopher oscar peña

Directed by Jonathan Berry

Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 7:30 pm

Christopher Oscar Peña is a writer originally from California, now residing in Harlem and LA. Selected plays: a cautionary tail, maelstrom, icarus burns, alone above a raging sea, TINY PEOPLE (or it gets better), and awe/struck. His work has been developed or seen at the Goodman Theater, Public Theater, Two River Theater, INTAR, Ontological Hysteric Incubator, Playwrights Realm, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Old Vic, Theater For a New City, Orchard Project, Naked Angels, The Flea Theater and New York Theatre Workshop, among many others. He's the creator and co-star of the webseries 80/20, which was selected for the 2015 Outfest Los Angeles Web Series: In With the New Out, was an Official Selection for the 2013 New Media Film Festival, and won the 2013 Outstanding Achievement in writing from LAWEBFEST. His play, a cautionary tail had its world premiere at the Flea Theater in Tribeca where it sold out every performance in advance and was twice extended. A two time Sundance Institute Theater Fellow (2015 Theater Lab Fellow with awe/struck, 2014 UCross Fellow), he has also held Fellowships with the Lark Play Development Center (2014 Playwrights Workshop Fellow, 2012-2013 Van Lier Fellow) was a recipient of the Latino Playwrights Award (Kennedy Center), an NYTW Emerging Artist Fellow, Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, and was a part of the US/UK Exchange (Old Vic New Voices). His work is published through NoPassport Press and Smith and Kraus. Currently, he is working on commissions from the Goodman Theater, The Clarence Brown Theatre and Yale Rep. He's a proud member of New Dramatists, an Artistic Patriot at Merrimack Rep, was named one of "The 1st Annual Future Broadway Power List" by Backstage, and was a writer on the critically acclaimed, Golden Globe nominated, debut season of the CW show, Jane the Virgin. He teaches playwriting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and is represented by Heroes and Villains and CAA. B.A.: UC Santa Barbara / M.F.A. NYU/Tisch.

Fourth Blood Moon by Alice Austen

Directed by Henry Godinez

Sunday, June 27, 2016 at 7:30 pm

Alice Austen is a playwright and screenwriter/producer. Recent theatrical credits include ANIMAL FARM (Steppenwolf Theatre, Fall 2014), FOURTH BLOOD MOON (2015 Blue Ink Finalist), NINTH MAN OUT (Kilroys Inaugural "The List", Goodman Theatre Commission 2013), BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS (Terrence McNally Award Premier Five), PLAZA HOTEL BALLROOM (2014 Eugene O'Neill Semi-Finalist). Recent Film credits include COMING TO YOU (2016 - post-production) Writer/Producer with Kirill Mikhanovsky and Drew Houpt; GIVE ME LIBERTY (2016 - pre-production) Writer/Producer with Mikhanovsky, Houpt, and Dan Janvey; THE MERCY SEAT (development) Writer with Alix Delaporte. Alice is a member of the Timeline Theatre Company Playwrights Collective where she has developed BOLSHOI with director Jeff Calhoun. She is a Film Independent Fellow and has received Theatrical Residencies from the Royal Court (London), the Goodman Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, and the Hangar Theatre. She's the recipient of a Joseph Jefferson Award Nomination for Best New Work for WATER. Alice studied Creative Writing and Law at Harvard University.

florissant & canfield by Kristiana Rae Colon

Directed by Victory Gardens Artist Programs Manager Monty Cole

Wednesday, June 29, 2016 at 7:30 pm

Kristiana Rae Colon is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, Cave Canem Fellow, and co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. Her play but i cd only whisper had its American premiere at The Flea in New York. Her play Octagon, winner of Arizona Theater Company's 2014 National Latino Playwriting Award and Polarity Ensemble Theater's Dionysos Festival of New Work, had its world premiere at the Arcola Theater in London in September 2015. Her work was featured in Victory Gardens' 2014 Ignition Festival and in 2013, she toured the UK with her collection of poems promised instruments published by Northwestern University Press. In autumn 2012, Kristiana opened her one-woman show Cry Wolf at Teatro Luna in Chicago while her play but i cd only whisper had its world premiere at the Arcola Theater in London. Kristiana is apart of the Goodman Theater's Playwrights Unit, a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and one half of the brother/sister hip-hop duo April Fools. She appeared on the fifth season of HBO's Def Poetry Jam.

About Victory Gardens Theater

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Chay Yew, Victory Gardens Theater is dedicated to artistic excellence while creating a vital, contemporary American Theater that is accessible and relevant to all people through productions of challenging new plays and musicals. Victory Gardens Theater is committed to the development, production, and support of new plays that has been the mission of the theater since its founding, set forth by Dennis Za?ek, Marcelle McVay, and the original founders of Victory Gardens Theater.

Victory Gardens Theater is a leader in developing and producing new theater work and cultivating an inclusive Chicago theater community. Victory Gardens' core strengths are nurturing and producing dynamic and inspiring new plays, reflecting the diversity of our city's and nation's culture through engaging diverse communities, and in partnership with Chicago Public Schools, bringing art and culture to our city's active student population.

Since its founding in 1974, the company has produced more world premieres than any other Chicago theater, a commitment recognized nationally when Victory Gardens received the 2001 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, Victory Gardens Biograph Theater includes the Za?ek-McVay Theater, a state-of-the-art 259-seat mainstage and the 109-seat studio theater on the second floor, named the Richard Christiansen Theater.

Victory Gardens Ensemble Playwrights include Luis Alfaro, Philip Dawkins, Marcus Gardley, Ike Holter, Samuel D. Hunter, Naomi Iizuka, Tanya Saracho, and Laura Schellhardt. Each playwright has a seven-year residency at Victory Gardens Theater.

The Playwrights Ensemble Alumni includes Claudia Allen, Lonnie Carter, Steve Carter, Gloria Bond Clunie, Dean Corrin, Nilo Cruz, Joel Drake Johnson, John Logan, Nicholas Patricca, Douglas Post, James Sherman, Charles Smith, Jeffrey Sweet, and Kristine Thatcher.

For more information about Victory Gardens, visit www.victorygardens.org. Follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/victorygardens, Twitter @VictoryGardens and Instagram at instagram.com/victorygardenstheater/

Victory Gardens Theater receives major funding from The Wallace Foundation, Alphawood Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Shubert Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Allstate Insurance Company, Polk Bros. Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The William and Orli Staley Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The REAM Foundation. Additional funding is provided by: Abbot Downing & Wells Fargo, Alliance Bernstein, The Charles H. and Bertha L. Boothroyd Foundation, Exelon, The Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, John R. Halligan Charitable Fund, Illinois Tool Works, Italian Village Restaurants, Mayer Brown LLP, The McVay Foundation, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg, LLP, The Prince Charitable Trusts, The Saints, Charles & M.R. Shapiro Foundation, Southwest Airlines, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Whole Foods Market, and Wrightwood Neighbors Conservation Association.

To post a comment, you must register and login.