Seven Plays Featured in 2013 Pacific Playwrights Festival Lineup

Five new play readings and two world premiere productions make up South Coast Repertory's 2013 Pacific Playwrights Festival. The offerings range from a story about a family of grifters to the tale of a high school reunion gone horribly wrong.

"In terms of subject matter and style, the Pacific Playwrights Festival this year features a nicely rounded slate of plays," said John Glore, festival co-director and SCR associate artistic director. "We've got a good blend of exciting young playwriting talent and well-established playwrights. We're pleased to be able to share such great work with our local audience and the many National Theatre professionals who'll be joining us for the festival."

This year's festival, which takes place April 26-28, features, staged readings of new works by Carla Ching, Jordan Harrison, Michael Hollinger, Zoe Kazan and Gregory S Moss.

The two full productions - world premieres - will anchor PPF: Smokefall by Noah Haidle and The Parisian Woman by Beau Willimon.

Smokefall tells the story of three generations of an eccentric Midwestern family on the verge of big changes. Magical and tragic, funny and fascinating, with surprises at every turn, Haidle's tale offers a lyrical meditation on the mystery and fragility of life. Smokefall runs on the Segerstrom Stage March 29-April 28.

Willimon sets The Parisian Woman on Capitol Hill, where powerful friends are the only kind worth having-and scandal is a way of life. An intriguing new play by the writer-producer of "House of Cards" and the Oscar-nominated film The Ides of March. The Parisian Woman runs on the Julianne Argyros Stage April 14-May 5.

"The plays of the 2013 festival are powerful and stylistically diverse," said Kelly Miller, festival co-director and literary director, "They include a new romantic drama by Zoe Kazan, a speculative drama by Jordan Harrison, inventive comedies by Michael Hollinger and Carla Ching, and Gregory S Moss' darkly comic play about the fallout following a high school reunion."

The readings slated for the 2013 Pacific Playwrights Festival are listed below. Full playwright bios are available online:http://www.scr.org/press/12-13press/ppf13press.aspx.

Trudy and Max in Love (or That Forever Feeling)
By Zoe Kazan
WHEN: Friday, April 26, at 1 p.m., on the Julianne Argyros Stage
The spark of love sometimes sets unexpected fires. Trudy and Max have no business falling for each other, but once they do, their lives get very hot and very complicated in a New York minute.

Kazan is an award-winning stage and film actress, who recently wrote her first screenplay, Ruby Sparks, in which she stars opposite Paul Dano, Chris Messina, Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas. Her work as a playwright includes her family drama, Absalom, which was produced at the Humana Festival at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville in 2009. Her second play, We Live Here, was produced off-Broadway by the Manhattan Theatre Club in the fall of 2011.

Hope and Gravity
by Michael Hollinger
WHEN: Friday, April 26, at 3:30 p.m., on the Segerstrom Stage
When an elevator crashes in a major city, ten lives intersect in surprising ways -through love and sex, poetry and dentistry, in offices, backyards and hotel rooms-revealing the barely perceivable threads that connect us all.

Hollinger's works - including Ghost-Writer, Opus, Tooth and Claw, Red Herring, Incorruptible, Tiny Island and An Empty Plate in the Café Du Grand Boeuf - have premiered at Philadelphia's Arden Theatre Company. His plays have enjoyed numerous productions around the country, in New York City, London, Paris, Athens and elsewhere in Europe. His new translation of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, co-adapted with Aaron Posner, premiered in 2011 at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Fast Company
by Carla Ching
WHEN: Friday, April 26, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, April 27, at 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, April 28, at 2:30 p.m., in the Nicholas Studio.
They're a family. Sort of. They're grifters. For sure. But when the biggest con of a lifetime comes along, will money trump loyalty or will they finally settle down for more than a card game?

Ching wrote, performed and produced with New York City's pan-Asian performance collective, Peeling, for three years. Since then, she has written TBA, The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness, Dirty, Big Blind/Little Blind and The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up. Her work has been seen at Ma-Yi Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Lark Play Development Center, Partial Comfort Productions, Red Fern Theatre, the Hegira and Vampire Cowboys.

Reunion
by Gregory S Moss
WHEN: Saturday, April 27, at 10:30 a.m., on the Julianne Argyros Stage
This darkly comic drama shatters every cliché about high school reunions as three male friends relive the debauchery and reveal the secrets that brought them back - 20 years later.

Moss is a writer, performer and educator whose works have been seen at numerous companies, including La Comédie Française, American Repertory Theater, Guthrie Theater, Playwrights Horizons, PlayPenn, Soho Rep, Steppenwolf Garage and New York Theatre Workshop. In collaboration with composer/lyricist Joe Iconis, he is creating a new musical based on the life and work of Hunter S. Thompson for La Jolla Playhouse and Broadway Across America.

Marjorie Prime
By Jordan Harrison
WHEN: Sunday, April 28, at 10:30 a.m., on the Segerstrom Stage
What's the difference between a life lived and a life remembered? "Gone but not forgotten" takes on new meaning in this speculative drama about the desire to keep our dearly departed with us.

Harrison's play Maple and Vine recently ran at Playwrights Horizons and American Conservatory Theater after a 2011 premiere in the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville. His other plays include Doris to Darlene (Playwrights Horizons), Amazons and their Men (Clubbed Thumb), Act a Lady (2006 Humana Festival), Finn in the Underworld (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Futura (Portland Center Stage), Kid-Simple (2004 Humana Festival), and The Museum Play.

Created in 1998, PPF has grown into one of the leading festivals of new plays in the country and showcases some of the best new work on SCR's radar. The festival offerings generate lively conversation, future world premieres and subsequent productions for numerous playwrights. Over the years, the festival has helped launch some of the most prominent plays in the American theatre, including Donald Margulies' Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel, Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics, Rolin Jones' The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow and David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole.

The 2013 Pacific Playwrights Festival is made possible with support from The Shubert Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. Playwrights Festival Honorary Producers are Sophie and Larry Cripe, Yvonne and Damien Jordan, John and Sue Murphy, Thomas B. Rogers and Sarah J. Anderson, and Linda and Tod White. Special thanks to The James Irvine Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Time Warner Foundation for supporting the development of new plays.

General public tickets: The 16th Pacific Playwrights Festival has several options in offerings and ticket prices. Tickets for individual readings are $15; tickets for Smokefall and The Parisian Woman range from $20-70. Packages that include all five readings are $60, or for SCR subscribers, $50 packages are available. Tickets for the full productions range from $20-70. Tickets may be purchased by phone at (714) 708-5555, at the SCR Box Office or online at www.scr.org.

Location: South Coast Repertory is located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, at the Bristol Street/Avenue of the Arts exit off the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Folino Theatre Center, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Parking is available in the parking structure on Park Center Drive, off Anton Blvd.

ABOUT SOUTH COAST REPERTORY: Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, founded in 1964 by David Emmes and Martin Benson and now under the leadership of Artistic Director Marc Masterson and Managing Director Paula Tomei, is widely recognized as one of the leading professional theatres in the United States. SCR is committed to theatre that illuminates the compelling personal and social issues of our time, not only on its stages but through its wide array of education and outreach programs. While its productions represent a balance of classic and modern theatre, SCR is renowned for its extensive new-play development program, which includes the nation's largest commissioning program for emerging and established writers and composers. Each year, it showcases some of country's best new plays in the Pacific Playwrights Festival, which attracts theatre professionals from across the country. Of SCR's more than 460 productions, one-quarter have been world premieres, whose subsequent stagings achieved enormous success throughout America and around the world. Two SCR-developed works have won Pulitzer Prizes, and another eight were named Pulitzer finalists. In addition, SCR works have won several OBIE Awards and scores of major new-play awards. Located in Costa Mesa, California, SCR's Folino Theater Center is home to the 507-seat Segerstrom Stage, the 336-seat Julianne Argyros Stage and the 94-seat Nicholas Studio. Today, SCR produces 13 shows and eight public readings each season. More information is available at www.scr.org.