THE SURROGATE to Conclude 2016 Women Playwrights Series at Centenary Stage Company

Fans of television's Modern Family will love THE SURROGATE, by Patricia Cotter, which will be the final presentation of the 2016 Women Playwrights Series at the Centenary Stage Company, on Wednesday, April 27th at 7:30 PM in the Lackland Center.

A smart, funny play about what we can ask of our friends, our parents and spouses, and whether we'll get any of our important life decisions right, THE SURROGATE was a runner up in the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference this year.

Emmy Award and Ovation Award-winning playwright, Patricia Cotter is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts Letters, Richard Rodgers Award for musical theater. Her plays include RULES OF COMEDY - Humana Festival of New American Plays, 2015; THE ANTHROPOLOGY SECTION (2015), and RULES OF COMEDY (2014) performed by The Actors Theatre of Louisville . Her musicals (librettist/adaptations) include ROCKET SCIENCE: A MUSICAL and THE BREAK UP NOTEBOOK: A MUSICAL. Cotter adapted MULAN, JR. for Disney Theatrical. She won The LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Production in 2013 for JUSTIN LOVE. She is currently writing a new musical with composer Lori Scarlett, LADYKILLERS, which they developed at the Rhinebeck Writer's Retreat. She is a member of the Playground Writers Pool, where she received the 2014 June Anne Baker Prize and commission which honors the top female playwright representing a gifted new comedic or political voice for the stage. She is a 2016 Playwrights Foundation Resident Playwright.

THE SURROGATE will be directed by Molly Noble. Noble is a company member of Playground - The Bay Area's Leading Playwright Incubator, and also serves on the Theatre faculty at College of Marin Fine Arts. She is the founder of Porchlight Theatre Company, which was a beloved and award-winning theatre company located in Marin in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The CSC Women Playwrights Series, led by Catherine Rust, celebrates its 25th year in 2016, having featured the work of more than 60 emerging playwrights in the developmental WPS process, and having taken 15 plays to full production from the series, including "The English Bride" by Lucile Lichtblau, which transferred from CSC to New York City in 2013. The program offers playwrights the opportunity to work with professional actors and directors in a workshop rehearsal process, and to hear their work in front of a live audience - a critical part of the development process. Lively talk-backs with the playwright and cast follow each presentation, and one play is selected each year as the winner of the Susan Glaspell Award, which promises a full production in the main-stage season at CSC.

Admission to the WPS is by donation and reservations are requested. For information and reservations, call the CSC box office at 908 979 0900, or log on to www.centenarystageco.org.

The WPS receives support from the Zonta Club of Morristown, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The Deborah Little Memorial Fund, the NJ State Council on the Arts, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation and season sponsor Heath Village.