Dallas Theater Center is pleased to announce it is commissioning two new works from playwright Kristoffer Diaz in collaboration with The Public Theater. The commission is part of The Public's new Gail Merrifield Papp Fellowship, which Artistic Director Oskar Eustis announced at The Public Theater's Gala on Monday.
DTC and The Public will co-commission two plays from Diaz during the one-year fellowship and The Public will serve as his artistic home. The co-commission with Dallas Theater Center will continue the relationship between The Public Theater and Dallas Theater Center, which began in 2009 with Tracey Scott Wilson's The Good Negro and continues next season with the musical Giant, which will premiere in Dallas Theater Center's 2011-2012 season. Diaz's play, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and received a Lucille Lortel Award, an Obie Award, a Drama Desk nomination, and Equity Jeff Awards including Best Production and Best New Work."Kris Diaz creates highly theatrical, deeply insightful and extraordinarily entertaining work. His ideas speak directly to contemporary audiences," says Dallas Theater Center Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty. "These things make Diaz a perfect fit for Dallas Theater Center. We are excited to work with The Public to debut two new works from this talented playwright and to engage Dallas audiences in new, unexpected ways."ABOUT The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Joey Parnes, Interim Executive Director):
The Public was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 and is now one of the nation's preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals and productions of classics at its downtown home and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public Theater's mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day on stage and through extensive outreach programs. Each year, more than 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe's Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public Theater's productions have won 42 Tony Awards, 158 Obies, 42 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. Fifty-four Public Theater Productions have moved to Broadway, including Sticks and Bones; That Championship Season; A Chorus Line; For Colored Girls...; The Pirates of Penzance; The Tempest; Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk; The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Topdog/Underdog; Take Me Out; Caroline, or Change; Passing Strange; the revival of HAIR; Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Merchant of Venice. www.publictheater.org.
ABOUT Dallas Theater Center (Kevin Moriarty, Artistic Director; Heather Kitchen, Managing Director):
One of the leading regional theaters in the country, Dallas Theater Center (DTC) performs to an audience of more than 90,000 North Texas residents annually. Founded in 1959, DTC is now a resident company of the AT&T Performing Arts Center and presents its Mainstage season at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, designed by REX/OMA, Joshua Prince-Ramus and Rem Koolhaas. DTC also presents productions at its original home, the Kalita Humphreys Theater, the only freestanding theater designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright. The mission of DTC is to engage, entertain and inspire our diverse community by creating experiences that stimulate new ways of thinking and living. DTC produces a six-play subscription of classics, musicals and new plays and an annual production of A Christmas Carol; extensive education programs including Project Discovery, Summer Stage and partnerships with Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts; and community outreach efforts including leading the DFW Foote Festival and collaborations with the Dallas Holocaust Museum, North Texas Food Bank and Dallas Black Dance Theater. Throughout its history, DTC has produced many new works, including The Texas Trilogy by Preston Jones in 1978, Adrian Hall's All the King's Men in 1986 and recent premieres of The Trinity River Plays by ReGina Taylor, the revised It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, Give it Up! (which later became Lysistrata Jones off-Broadway) by Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Finn, Sarah Plain and Tall by Julia Jordan, Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin and The Good Negro by Tracey Scott Wilson.
Are you an avid theatergoer? We're looking for people like you to share your thoughts and insights with our readers. Team BroadwayWorld members get access to shows to review, conduct interviews with artists, and the opportunity to meet and network with fellow theatre lovers and arts workers.
Interested? Learn more here.
Videos