Rapp And Shinn Featured In THE BAD BOYS OF OFF BROADWAY Panel

The Off Broadway Alliance, the organization of Off Broadway producers, general managers, venue owners, press agents and marketing personnel, will hold the first in a series of planned seminars focusing on the culture, business and history of Off Broadway theater. The seminar, titled "The Bad Boys of Off Broadway", will feature playwrights Adam Rapp and Christopher Shinn with additional participants to be named. David Cote, theater editor and chief drama critic for Time Out New York, will serve as moderator.

The panel will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2010 from 12:30pm - 2:00pm at The Snapple Theater Center's Jerry Orbach Theater, 210 West 50th Street at Broadway. Admission for the seminar is free, however reservations are a must.

"How exciting for us and for the Off Broadway community to have two outstanding playwrights as part of our first Off Broadway Alliance seminar," said Peter Breger, chair of The Alliance. "The seminar is perfect for anyone with an interest in Off Broadway, from the theatergoer to the professional practitioner."

To RSVP for the event, visit http://obaseminar.eventbrite.com/ before February 26.

The Off Broadway Alliance is an open forum for Off Broadway producers, general managers, venue owners, press agents and marketing personnel who meet to promote and support Off Broadway theater, encourage and assist new producers, plan for the future of the industry, share ideas and network. Membership is open to everyone in the Off Broadway theater community.

The Alliance created and administers 20 at 20, the biannual event where you can purchase $20 tickets to participating Off Broadway shows 20 minutes prior to curtain. This past June, The Alliance released the first ever Off Broadway Economic Impact Report, which detailed Off Broadway's $461 million impact on the City of New York during the 2008 theater season.

For more information visit www.offbroadwayalliance.com.

Adam Rapp is a novelist, filmmaker, and an OBIE Award-winning playwright and director. He has been the recipient of the Herbert & Patricia Brodkin Scholarship, two Lincoln Center le Compte de Nuoy Awards, a fellowship to the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, the1999 Princess Grace Award for Playwrighting, a 2000 Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, a 2000 Suite Residency with Mabou Mines, the 2001 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, Boston's Elliot Norton Award, was short-listed for the 2003 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, received the 2006 Princess Grace Statue, a 2007 Lucille Lortel Playwriting Fellowship, and the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

His plays include NOCTURNE (A.R.T., Off-Broadway at NYTW), GHOSTS IN THE COTTONWOODS (Victory Gardens; The Arcola, London), ANIMALS AND PLANTS (A.R.T.), BLACKBIRD (The Bush, London; Pittsburgh City Theatre; Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), STONE COLD DEAD SERIOUS (A.R.T., Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), FINER NOBLE GASES (26th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, Off-Broadway at Rattlestick, 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival), FASTER (Off-Broadway at Rattlestick), TRUEBLINKA (Off-Broadway at the Maverick Theater), DREAMS OF THE SALTHORSE (Encore, S.F.), GOMPERS (Pittsburgh City Theatre; The Arcola, London), RED LIGHT WINTER (Steppenwolf, Off-Broadway with Scott Rudin Productions at The Barrow Street Theater), ESSENTIAL SELF-DEFENSE (Playwrights Horizons/Edge Theater, Drama Desk Nomination for Best Original Music), AMERICAN SLIGO (Rattlestick), BINGO WITH THE INDIANS (The Flea), THE METAL CHILDREN (Vineyard Theatre), and KINDNESS (Playwrights Horizons).

As a director, his production of BLACKBIRD (Edge Theater) received two Drama Desk Nominations. His production of RED LIGHT WINTER was the first play to completely sell-out Steppenwolf's Garage Theater and won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work. It then transferred to the Barrow Street Theatre for a six-month Off-Broadway commercial run, where it received a Citation from the American Theatre Critics Association, a Lucille Lortel Nomination for Best New Play, two OBIE Awards, and was named a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. His production of FINER NOBLE GASES at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival received a Fringe First Award, A Best Actor Award from the London Stage, and the List Magazine/Writers' Guild of Great Britain's Best Newcomer Prize. He also directed Christopher Denham's CAGELOVE at Rattlestick, Stephen Adly Guirgis' DOMINICA: THE FAT UGLY HO for E.S.T.'s Marathon '06, and Julian Sheppard's LOS ANGELES at The Flea. Most recently he directed world premieres of his plays AMERICAN SLIGO (Rattlestick) BINGO WITH THE INDIANS (The Flea), and KINDNESS (Playwrights Horizons).

His first anthology of plays, PLAYS BY Adam Rapp, is published by Broadway Play Publishing, which also publishes editions of BLACKBIRD, ANIMALS & PLANTS, FINER NOBLE GASES, and GOMPERS. RED LIGHT WINTER, NOCTURNE, STONE COLD DEAD SERIOUS AND OTHER PLAYS, and ESSENTIAL SELF-DEFENSE are all available in trade editions from Faber & Faber.

His first feature film, WINTER PASSING, starring Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, and Zooey Deschanel, received its world premiere as an Official Selection of the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in February, 2006. His second feature, BLACKBIRD, which was adapted from his play, received its world premiere at the 2007 Southxsouthwest Festival, was selected for the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival, won the Best Narrative Feature Prize at the Charlotte Film Festival, and garnered a Special Jury Prize for Achievement in Direction from the Florida Film Festival.

He is the author of the young adult novels MISSING THE PIANO (Viking/HarperCollins), THE BUFFALO TREE (Front Street/HarperColllins), THE COPPER ELEPHANT (Front Street/HarperCollins), LITTLE CHICAGO (Front Street Press), 33 SNOWFISH (Candlewick Press), UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG (Candlewick Press), which was short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and received the Schneider Book Award from the American Library Association, and most recently PUNKZILLA (Candlewick Press), which was named a 2009 Michael J. Printz Honor Book. His adult novel, THE YEAR OF ENDLESS SORROWS, is published by Farrar Straus & Giroux. He is also the author of the graphic novel, BALL-PEEN HAMMER (First Second Books).

Upcoming projects include the world premiere of his play, THE METAL CHILDREN, which he will direct at The Vineyard Theatre, to open in May, and the graphic novel DECELERATE BLUE for Fist Second Books.

A graduate of Clarke College in Dubuque, IA, where he majored in Fiction Writing and Psychology, Mr. Rapp also completed a two-year playwriting fellowship at Juilliard. He was born in Chicago, IL, and lives in New York City.

Christopher Shinn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and lives in New York. His plays have been premiered by The Royal Court Theatre, Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, the Vineyard Theatre, South Coast Rep, and Soho Theatre, and later seen regionally in the United States and around the world. He is the winner of an OBIE in Playwriting (2004-2005) and a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting (2005), was a Pulitzer Prize finalist (2008), was shortlisted for the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play (2008), and has also been nominated for an Olivier Award for Most Promising Playwright (2003), a TMA Award for Best New Play (2006), a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play (2007), and a South Bank Show Award for Theatre (2009). In 2009, his adaptation of Hedda Gabler premiered on Broadway at the Roundabout (American Airlines Theatre) and he has also written short plays for Naked Angels, the 24 Hour Plays, and the New York International Fringe Festival (2002 winner, Best Overall Production). He has received grants from the NEA/TCG Residency Program and the Peter S. Reed Foundation, and he is a recipient of the Robert S. Chesley Award. His plays are published in collections from TCG and A&C Black, and in acting editions from Dramatists Play Service and Playscripts. He teaches playwriting at the New School for Drama.

David Cote is theater editor and chief drama critic for Time Out New York. He's also a contributing critic for NY1's On Stage. His reporting, blogging and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, Opera News, The Guardian, The Times (UK), Salon and on WNYC. He has contributed essays for the Best Plays Yearbook series on Shining City, Blackbird and The Receptionist. His popular companion books to Broadway musicals include Wicked: The Grimmerie, Jersey Boys and Spring Awakening: In the Flesh. David is also a playwright and librettist. He's working on a commission from the Gingold Theatrical Group and ongoing opera collaborations with composers Stefan Weisman and Robert Paterson. In the 1990s, he was an actor and director, appearing in work by Richard Foreman, Richard Maxwell and Iranian exile Assurbanipal Babilla, which toured around the U.S. and Europe. From 1996 to '98 he founded and edited the underground broadsheet OFF: a journal for alternative theater. Fellowships: The MacDowell Colony. B.A. Bard College, 1992.

Photo credit: Peter James Zielinski