Ken Urban's A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK to Close Playwrights' Center's 2015-16 New Play Series

On Monday, April 4 and Tuesday, April 5 at 7 p.m. the Playwrights' Center will present readings of Core Writer Ken Urban's new play A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK, the final play of the 2015-16 Ruth Easton New Play Series.

The readings are at the Playwrights' Center, 2301 E. Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, and are free, but reservations are encouraged. Reserve tickets at pwcenter.org, info@pwcenter.org or (612) 332-7481.

In A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK, a young aid worker on his way home after a year in East Africa goes back to a shabby Amsterdam hotel room with a fellow American. The two strangers replay their pasts and confess their shared fear that they betrayed the people who needed them most.

Two actors play four roles: Nate Cheeseman and Owiso Odera* (*Member of Actors' Equity). Odera was seen recently in "The Piano Lesson" at McCarter Theatre Center and Twin Cities audiences will know him from Mixed Blood Theatre's "Stepping Out of the River at Dawn"; his television credits include "The Originals" and "Madam Secretary." Dan Dukich will join the workshop as sound design consultant, and Jeremy B. Cohen will direct.

Playwright Ken Urban says, "I decided to focus on the theme of homecoming because when I was interviewing the Doctors Without Borders volunteers, they all spoke about how they got so much training for going overseas, but they were not prepared for what happened when they returned home to New York-they felt ostracized and couldn't get back into their normal lives. Even small things, like friends complaining about going to the grocery store or problems with the subway, would make them very angry because they didn't have a place to vent and process what they had experienced. At the same time that I was doing those interviews, I started watching a number of documentaries about the rise of anti-gay and lesbian violence in Uganda and other countries in East Africa. Those two interests dovetailed together to become that first draft of A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK."

"This is Ken's next play examining relationships between East Africans and Americans, following his beautiful 'Sense of an Ending,'" says Playwrights' Center Producing Artistic Director Jeremy B. Cohen. "His writing explores a range of experiences across the African diaspora, and leans into the thorny places inside and outside of this diaspora where sexual orientation, class, and gender intersect."

Ken Urban is a playwright and screenwriter based in New York. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 59E59 Theatres, The Summer Play Festival at The Public, and Studio 42. He has developed new work at Playwrights Horizons, The Huntington, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Donmar Warehouse (London). Recent productions include "A Future Perfect" at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, "Sense of an Ending" at Theatre503 in London and 59E59 Theatres in New York, and "The Awake" at Chicago's First Floor Theatre. Awards include the Weissberger Playwriting Award, Huntington Theater Playwriting Fellowship, Headlands Artist Residency, Djerassi Artist Residency, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, and MacDowell Colony Fellowships. He is a Core Writer at the Playwrights' Center. He wrote the screenplay for "The Happy Sad," which screened internationally at over 25 film festivals, and is now available on iTunes and Amazon. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and Methuen. He plays in the band Occurrence and they will release their new album "The Past Will Last Forever" this fall.

The Ruth Easton New Play Series provides Playwrights' Center Core Writers with 20 hours of workshop time to develop a new play in collaboration with top-notch actors and other theater artists, as well as two public readings, giving audience members a unique and immediate way to experience new work and a chance to be part of the creative process. Plays recently seen in the Ruth Easton New Play Series that have productions this theater season include Gabriel Jason Dean's "Terminus" (The Vortex), Mona Mansour's "The Way West" (Labyrinth Theater Company), Samuel D. Hunter's "The Few" (Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, CoHo Productions, Steep Theatre), and Idris Goodwin's "The REALNESS: A Break Beat Play" (Merrimack Repertory Theatre).

All events in the Ruth Easton New Play Series are free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended; reserve your spots at pwcenter.org or by contacting the Playwrights' Center at (612) 332-7481 or info@pwcenter.org.