Public's 2011 Emerging Writers Group Spotlight Series Lineup Announced

The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, Interim Executive Director Joey Parnes) will continue its popular series of free staged readings of new plays by the Emerging Writers Group, beginning Wednesday, June 1 and running through Tuesday, June 28 at The Public Theater. This year's Spotlight Series will present readings of a full-length play by each writer of the 2011 Emerging Writers Group which are directed and performed by experienced artists from the theatrical community. Tickets are free but must be reserved in advance by emailing spotlightrsvp@publictheater.org.

The Public created The Emerging Writers Group to target playwrights at the earliest stages in their careers and to create an artistic home for a diverse and exceptionally talented group of up-and-coming playwrights. In 2011, the program's fourth year, the group's eleven writers were chosen from a pool of over 350 applicants. The Spotlight Series combines first-rate theatrical talent with new works written and developed by members of the Emerging Writers Group during their time at The Public. In addition, the Spotlight Series allows the writers to hear their work in front of an audience. Join us as we introduce the next generation of great American Playwrights. Time Warner is the Founding Sponsor of The Public Writers Initiative.

Complete information on all readings will be available close to the date of each reading at www.publictheater.org.

EMERGING WRITERS GROUP SPOTLIGHT SERIES SCHEDULE

Wednesday, June 1
8 p.m.
MINE
Written by Laura Marks
Directed by Evan Cabnet

Mari is a new mother with a devoted husband, a reassuring midwife, and a mom who can't wait to babysit; but something seems different about her newborn daughter-could someone have switched her baby at birth? A contemporary thriller with age-old roots, Mine explores the shadowy border between madness and reality.

Thursday, June 2
8 p.m.
THE BALL PLAYER
Written by Aaron Wigdor Levy
Directed by Kent Gash

Everyone knows the plan: James, star of his high school basketball team, will get recruited to a top D1 school, head to the NBA, and get his family out of the projects. But as he enters his final high school season, the pressure starts affecting his game and James begins to think for himself about his future. What happens when plans change?

Wednesday, June 8
8 p.m.
KISSING CHE
Written by Augusto Federico Amador
Directed by Victor Maog

Miami, Florida, 1984. Four years after the Mariel Boatlift, a man named Reina is dying in a nursing home claiming to have been Cuba's last famous drag queen ("I turned kings into queens. And they loved me for it"). Tamika, an African-American nurse, strikes up a friendship with him. United by untold pasts, shared confessions change their lives forever.

Thursday, June 9
8 p.m.
DETROIT 67
Written by Dominique Morisseau
Directed by Robert O'Hara

It's 1967 in Detroit. Motown music is getting the party started, and Chelle and her brother Lank are making ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours joint. Always at odds, they fight over the future of the family trade. But when a mysterious white woman finds her way into their care and a string of raids increases police brutality around the city, the siblings become divided over much more than business. Suddenly, they find themselves caught in the middle of the ‘67 riots.

Monday, June 13
8 p.m.
BABEL
Written by Sevan Kaloustian Greene
Directed by Jonathan Silverstein

Luke and Issa have found a friendship in the middle of a war. But when Luke's squad is ambushed in a surprise attack, Issa finds himself interrogated for answers by Ben, Luke's father and the base's colonel. How far will Ben go to get the truth? And what if the truth is something he would never suspect?

Tuesday, June 14
8 p.m.
PERISH
Written by Stella Fawn Ragsdale
Directed by Johanna Gruenhut

When Porter's father kidnaps her son, she must go back to the woods of East Tennessee to find him, where she is distracted by a mysterious firebird. Textured with poetry and grit, this play follows the plight of women in Appalachia and the disappearance of the working class.

Wednesday, June 15
8 p.m.
"LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!!"
Written by Sukari Jones
Directed Liesl Tommy

Gladys and her daughter Asali live in a house that floats through various catastrophic events in time. Jeana, a real-estate agent cricket (as in the bug) tries to sell the place to Li and Ray-a newlywed lesbian cricket couple-but they're hesitant to buy because the humans inside seem way too crazy. A play about a daughter trying to escape her mother featuring a T-Rex, a Piece of Lava and other puppets.

Wednesday, June 22
8 p.m.
HUNGER
Written by Anna Moench
Directed by Eric Ting

In the sandy hills of China's Loess Plateau, a farming couple mourns the death of their only son. Their search for an illegal afterlife bride is complicated by the fact that before his death their son committed an act of horrifying violence, leaving them outcasts in their community and the target of a young woman looking for revenge. Told with actors and life-sized puppets, Hunger explores the boundary between life and death and the friction between tradition and progress in contemporary China.

Thursday, June 23
8 p.m.
BLISS
Written by Jerome A. Parker
Directed by Andrew Russell

After exploring the world as a fading pop star's ghostwriter, a weary Perry returns to his conservative hometown, Solomburg, Virginia, to find that his worldly ways are not welcome. A modern, American, musical re-telling of the German Tannhauser fable, which mixes the sacred and the secular.

Monday, June 27
8 p.m.
STOCKHOLM, PENNSYLVANIA
Written by Nikole Beckwith
Director TBA

After 17 years of captivity in a boarded up basement, Leia is returned home to her parents, where she discovers her birth-name is Leanne and her birthday isn't in March after all. With little understanding of the world around her, Leia struggles to find her place in it and what it means to be "Leanne." This complicated reunion with her family is made all the more trying as she longs for the life she remembers and the man who kept her in the basement; while her mother works harder than ever to get her daughter back. By any means necessary.

Tuesday, June 28
8 p.m.
ZOETROPE
Written by Javierantonio González
Directed by Steve Cosson

Inspired by the letters of the playwright's grandfather from New York to Puerto Rico in the ‘50's, Zoetrope is an irreverent reconstruction of two love stories: Severino and Inés, a perfect couple doomed by exile; and Francisca, a lesbian-looking existentialist finding love in the least expected of places. An epic romance in two parts, the play spins between four decades, two cities, multiple couples, the personal and the political.

About The Emerging Writers Group
The Emerging Writers Group strengthens The Public's commitment to creating an artistic home for a diverse group of 10 - 12 exceptionally talented up-and-coming playwrights every two years. Developed in collaboration with Time Warner's Office of Corporate Responsibility, the Emerging Writers Group is one element of The Public Writers Initiative, a long-term program that provides key support and resources for writers at every stage of their careers.

Each emerging writer receives a two-year fellowship at The Public which includes a $6,000 stipend; participation in a biweekly writers' group led by Literary Manager Liz Frankel and The Public's Literary Department; master classes with established playwrights; career development advice and artistic support from acclaimed writers and Public artistic staff; complimentary tickets to Public shows and supplemental stipends for productions at other theaters; and a reading of their work in the Emerging Writers Group Evening of Excerpts and Spotlight Series. Bios for the 2011 Emerging Writers group can be found at www.publictheater.org.

The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Joey Parnes, Interim Executive Director) 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, 151 Obies, 41 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.

TICKET INFORMATION

The Emerging Writers Spotlight Series will run Wednesday, June 1 through Tuesday, June 28 at The Public Theater (425 Lafayette Street). Check www.publictheater.org for up-to-date schedule information.