Colt Coeur Kicks Off 3rd Annual #ParityPlaysFest Today

Colt Coeur Artistic Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt and Festival Associate Producer Brittany Coyne announce the line-up for the company's 3rd Annual #ParityPlaysFest celebrating the work of female & trans playwrights & directors. The four-reading festival will occur September 14th and 21st, during the run of Colt Coeur's 8th world premiere production, Empathitrax, by Ana Nogueira.

In the spirit of promoting opportunities for female and trans playwrights and directors Colt Coeur will produce four public readings of new plays during the run of Empathitrax at HERE in SoHo. Inspired in part by advocacy groups including #MakeItFair, The Kilroys and The Lilly Awards, Colt Coeur is committed to gender parity in programming, staffing, and representation within narratives. Congrats to How to Live on Earth playwright and CoCo company member MJ Kaufman whose play Eat and You Belong to Us was selected for The Kilroys 2016 List.

HERE is located at 145 6th Avenue, NY, NY, though the entrance is on Dominick, 1 block south of Spring Street. All readings are free and open to the public however reservations are encouraged. Email coltcoeur@gmail.com to reserve your seat. There will be a reception between readings on both Wednesdays.

The schedule is as follows:

Today, September 14th:

2pm
Carlo at the Wedding
by Bryna Turner // directed by Ellie Sachs
Cast: Phebe Barnett, Keilly McQuail, Mike Shapiro, Claire Siebers, Danielle Slavick, Rachel Yong

5pm
Flee
by Stephanie del Rosso // directed by Sash Bischoff
Cast: Teddy Bergman, Bill Buell, Laura Esterman, Keilly McQuail, and Ronald Alexander Peet

Wednesday, September 21st:

2pm
A Patron of the Arts
by Kate Cortesi, directed by Amy C. Ashton
Cast will be announced soon.

5pm
Flat Sam
by Antoinette Nwandu
directed by Danya Taymor
Cast will be announced soon.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Amy C. Ashton (director, A Patron of the Arts) is a producer, director, and dramaturg with experience working in commercial and non-profit theatre regionally, on, off Broadway. She is in her fifth season as Managing Director of Colt Coeur Theatre Company, producing one World Premiere per season (Empathitrax, Cal in Camo, How to Live on Earth, Dry Land, Everything is Ours, and Recall). She is an associated artist with The Woodshed Collective, serving as producer on Empire Travel Agency and a resident director of Hero Theatre. She produced the 2015 Prototype Festival production of Kansas City Choir Boy starring Courtney Love and Todd Almond, as well as developmental readings of Booth and Alexandria. She served as Artistic Associate at Roundabout Theatre Company for five seasons. Selected dramaturg/assistant director credits include Talley's Folly (Roundabout), The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (Roundabout and Hartford Stage), Macbeth (Chicago Shakespare), Midsummer Night's Dream (Hartford Stage), Motherhood Out Loud (Rose Productions), Culture Clash's Zorro in Hell (La Jolla Playhouse). She also joined the music department on the first national tour and Chicago production of Jersey Boys.

Antoinette Nwandu (playwright, Flat Sam) is a New York-based playwright via Los Angeles whose plays include Pass Over (Steppenwolf World Premiere, June 2017); Breach (2016 Ignition Festival); and Flat Sam (PlayPenn 2016). Antoinette is a member of the Ars Nova Play Group, the 2015-16 Naked Angels Issues PlayLab Resident Playwright, and a Dramatists Guild Fellowship alum. She has had plays produced and developed by Cherry Lane Mentor Project (mentor: Katori Hall), Page73, Ars Nova, Southern Rep, The Flea, Naked Angels, Fire This Time, The Movement Theater Company, WordBRIDGE and Dreamscape Theatre. Honors include a spot on the 2016 Kilroys list, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Negro Ensemble Company's Douglas Turner Ward Prize, and a Literary Fellowship at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference. Antoinette is also a Ruby Prize finalist, PONY Fellowship finalist, Page73 Fellowship finalist, NBT's I Am Soul Fellowship finalist, and two-time Princess Grace Award semi-finalist. Education: Harvard, The University of Edinburgh, Tisch School of the Arts.

Bryna Turner (playwright, Carlo at the Wedding) is originally from a tiny town in Northern California. She now lives in Brooklyn and writes plays-comedies mostly-about queer women. Her work has received readings with LCT3, Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Rutgers University, and Rainbow Theatre Project in DC. Her plays include: Bull in a China Shop; The Apprentice; Lights Over Philo; The Stand-In; and How to Separate Your Soul from Your Body (in ten easy steps!). She is a member of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writer's Group, and holds an MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers University, where she studied with Kathleen Tolan, Christina Anderson, David Adjmi, Madeleine George, and Anne Washburn. www.brynaturner.com

Ellie Sachs (director, Carlo at the Wedding) is a Brooklyn-based director. Ellie has worked with Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons, Atlantic Acting School, #serials @ The Flea, The Motor Company, Colt Coeur, Magic Theatre, and Williamstown Theatre Festival in various directorial and developmental capacities. Ellie has also taught and facilitated theatre classes with both adults and young people at The Cooper Street Correctional Facility, Wolverine Human Services, the San Francisco County Jail, and starting this fall at the Fishkill Correctional Facility. This past spring she devised and directed an original play with LGBTQIA+ youth at the Grand Street Settlement. Ellie just finished up a year with Clubbed Thumb in Artistic Programming where, among other things, she was the SuperLab Assistant for all the SuperLab workshops produced in association with Clubbed Thumb and Playwrights Horizons. B.A. and B.T.A. from University of Michigan. Special thank you to Adrienne for being the best mentor a gal could ask for.

Danya Taymor (director, Flat Sam) is a director and translator originally from Northern California. Recent work includes Justin Kuritzkes' The Sensuality Party (The New Group), Sarah Gancher's The Place We Built (The Flea), Antoinette Nwandu's Flat Sam (PlayPenn), Susan Soon-He Stanton's Cygnus (Women's Project, BrIan Watkins' Wyoming (Lesser America) and My Daughter Keeps Our Hammer (The Flea), Anna Moench's In Quietness (Dutch Kills), Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (Stella Adler), Lucy Teitler's Engagements (Ensemble Studio Theater), Legom's I Hate f-ing Mexicans (The Flea) and Shakespeare's The Tempest (NYU/Stella Adler). Translations include Alejandro Ricaño's We Are Getting Better at Saying Goodbye, Luis Enrique Guitierrez Ortiz Monasterio's I Hate f-ing Mexicans, and Ettore Scola's Working on a Special Day. She is a 2014-2016 Time Warner Directing Fellow at Women's Project, a 2050 fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, an Artist in Residence at Theatre for a New Audience, an Associate Artist at The Flea Theater, New Georges Affiliated Artist and a semi-finalist for the Lange-Taylor prize with Dominic Bracco. She is a frequent volunteer at Covenant House, and has taught theater in Ecuador and Slovakia. Other awards/fellowships include: Van Lier Directing Fellowship; Gates Foundation Grant, Rough Draft Residency at the Drama League and Lincoln Center Directors Lab. BA: Duke Univesrity. Upcoming work: Dan McCabe's ChrisTina Martinez (Juilliard), Shakespeare's Julius Casaer (Atlantic Stage 2, NYU)

Kate Cortesi (playwright, A Patron of the Arts) has penned One More Less, Great Kills, and A Patron of the Arts. Her work has been produced or developed by Primary Stages, terraNOVA Collective, The Lark, New Dramatists, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Premiere Stages, and has been featured on the 2016 Kilroy's List. Kate is the 2014-2015 Princess Grace Playwriting Fellow, a 2016 NYFA awardee, and a resident playwright at New Dramatists.

Sash Bischoff (director, Flee) is a director whose credits include LONG DIVISION (Portland Center Stage), FLEE (NYSAF/Naked Angels), FUCK MARRY KILL (Lincoln Center workshop), HOTEL (The Civilians), CANDYLAND, LIFE, and TABOO (Ars Nova), SHREK (National Tour), THE WHITE PARTY (Clubbed Thumb, National Black Theatre), BABS THE DODO, SWEPT, TALK TO ME OF LOVE, COLD, and SEVEN CATEGORIES (Williamstown), MINE (Chautauqua), HOW THE MOON WOULD TALK (Keen Company), The Johnsons (Judson), NORWAY (The ____ Space), THE NINTH HOUR (Rockwood), #SERIALS (The Flea), ELEVEN SHADES OF BLUE and BODEGA PRICING (Pipeline), Chary/Gwinn Concert (54Below), THE AGE OF MAN (NYU Grad), UN-UTERO (Columbia MFA), TOP GIRLS (Stella Adler), I SHOULD SAVE THIS (Dixon Place), THE BOX SHOW (Radd, Dixon, Fringe). Upcoming: FUCK MARRY KILL (Less Than Rent), THE BOX SHOW (United Solo Theater Festival). BA Princeton University. www.sashbischoff.com

Stephanie Del Rosso (playwright, Flee) has had her plays developed or presented with Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, New York Stage and Film, Naked Angels, Judson Memorial Church, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Caldera Arts, the Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal, and others. She is an alumna of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and Clubbed Thumb's Early-Career Writers' Group, a two-time semi-finalist for Clubbed Thumb's Biennial Commission, and a New Georges Affiliated Artist. In the fall of 2016, she will begin pursuing an MFA in Playwriting at the University of California-San Diego.

Adrienne Campbell-Holt (executive producer) is the Founding Artistic Director of Colt Coeur, a Brooklyn-based theatre company. Upcoming: Dear Evan Hansen (Broadway, Assoc. Director). Recent world premieres: Cal in Camo (Colt Coeur/Rattlestick), Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel (Colt Coeur @ HERE, NYC), Kings by Sarah Burgess (workshop production, WP Theater), The Surgeon and her Daughters by Christopher G. Nuñez (Cherry Lane), The Nest by Theresa Rebeck (Denver Theatre Company), One Child Born (Oberon at American Repertory Theater), How to Live on Earth by MJ Kaufman (Colt Coeur @ HERE, September 2015), 52nd to Bowery... by Chiara Atik (EST Marathon), REUNION by Greg Moss (South Coast Rep), Everything is Ours by Nikole Beckwith (Colt Coeur @ HERE), Recall by Eliza Clark (Colt Coeur @ Wild Project), Fish Eye (Colt Coeur @ HERE). Other productions: Dear Elizabeth and Red starring Tim Daly (Dorset Theater Festival, VT), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Yale), world premiere of Seven Minutes in Heaven by Steven Levenson (Emerging America Festival, Huntington Theatre Company and Colt Coeur @ HERE). Adrienne is a Time Warner/Women's Project Lab 2014-2016 Fellow. She has developed work with the Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, and EST. Director of #makeitfair. BA Barnard College, Columbia University.

Brittany Coyne (associate producer) is a New York-based director and stage manager. She recently finished her time as the first Artistic Director intern for the TEAM and currently house manages for Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Upcoming work includes Amerinda's The Winter's Tale. Past directing credits include The Crossover for TinyRhino's Birthday Party, UPStages' Urinetown, Stop Kiss, and Matt & Ben, and assisting at Community Performance Series and Seattle Children's Theatre. BA University of Pittsburgh.

Colt Coeur, an artists' ensemble, collaboratively creates theater from the ground up. Founded in 2010, Colt Coeur has created and produced seven world-premieres: Seven Minutes in Heaven, together as a company with playwright Steven Levenson; Fish Eye, with playwright Lucas Kavner; Recall, by Eliza Clark; Everything is Ours, by Nikole Beckwith, Dry Land, by Ruby Rae Spiegel, How to Live on Earth, by MJ Kaufman, and Cal in Camo, by William Francis Hoffman (co-production with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater). All seven of Colt Coeur's productions have been New York Times and/or Time Out New York critic's picks and played to sold-out houses.

For more information, visit www.coltcoeur.org.