On Her Shoulders to Present WOMEN OF PROVINCETOWN PLAYERS Readings on 5/21

On Her Shoulders will present a FREE staged reading of three short plays by women of The Provincetown Players on Wednesday, May 21: The Widow's View by Alice Rostetter (1919), The Rescue by Rita Creighton Smith (1918) and Aria da Capo by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1919.) Elysa Marden directs; Shana Komitee is dramaturg. Doors open at 6:30pm. The Play in Context, which situates the script in its historical time and place, kicks off the evening at 6:45pm. Running time, including a post-performance Q&A is 2.5 hours. The performance is at The Dramatists Guild, 501 Broadway, 7th Floor. R.S.V.P toOnHerShouldersReservations@gmail.com

From their beginnings on Cape Cod in 1915 to their disbanding in New York City in 1922, the Provincetown Players staged nearly one hundred scripts, roughly a third of which were written by women, and in the process changed American drama and theater forever. Dedicated to fostering new work by Americans, the group attracted an impressive collection of talented theatre artists, and among its offerings were some of the first modernist plays written in the United States. The three plays selected for ON HER SHOULDERS offer a cross-section of plays dealing with women's concerns during a period of intense civil rights activity just prior to the granting of female suffrage.

ELYSA MARDEN (Director) directs in New York City, regionally, and internationally. Off-Broadway, she directed the world premieres of Esoterica (DR2), and I Hear/Oigo. For New Perspectives' Women's Work LAB:Marla and Her Prayers by Kim Merrill; short plays by Christine Toy Johnson, Andrea Lepcio, Jaqueline Goldfinger, Marisa Petsakos, and Alexis Roblan. She has developed new plays with Liz Amberly, P. Seth Bauer, Mariana Carreno, Gary Giovannetti, Dana Leslie Goldstein, Henry Guzmán, Arlene Hutton, and Glyn Maxwell at such venues as New Dramatists, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, Verse Theatre Manhattan, WorkShop Theater Co., Mabou Mines, Women's Project, York Theatre Co, NYMF, and the A-Train Plays. SDC.

SHANA KOMITEE (Dramaturg) is a Faculty member of the Juilliard School Drama Division. At Juilliard, she teaches graduate-level MFA courses on American theater history and playwriting; is an Instructor at the Evening Division; and serves as Drama Division Dramaturg. Most recent work includes script and production dramaturgy for The Green Bird and Richard III (Juilliard), and historical research for Tales from Red Vienna(Manhattan Theater Club). Shana did her PhD training in Theater and Performance Studies at Harvard University.

NEW PERSPECTIVES THEATRE COMPANY is an award-winning, multi-racial company now in its 22nd season. The Company's mission is to develop and produce new plays and playwrights, especially women and people of color; to present classic plays in a style that addresses contemporary issues; and to extend the benefits of theatre to young people and communities in need. Our aim is not to exclude, but to cast a wider net. All of NPTC's work is infused with a strong sense of history and tradition, creating linkages between the past and the present, and recovering forgotten and/or overlooked elements of the human journey, www.nptnyc.org

THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DRAMA: The creative home for the future of performing arts. Agile. Engaged. innovative. Multi-disciplinary. The New School for Drama is home to a dynamic group of young directors, writers, actors, creative technologists, and award-winning faculty. With a core belief in rigorous creativity and collaborative learning, our programs embrace civic awareness across performance disciplines to create work imbued with professionalism, imagination and social context. For more information, please visit www.newschool.edu/drama

On Her Shoulders presents monthly staged readings of plays by women from across the spectrum of time, with contemporary dramaturgs contextualizing--and in some cases adapting--them for modern audiences. The program is working to make it impossible to deny or ignore the great tradition and value of women's contribution to the theatrical canon.. The Play in Context, the dramaturgical and scholarly presentation component to the program, is sponsored in part by the League of Professional Theatre Women, a not-for-profit organization promoting visibility and increasing opportunities for women in theatre since 1982. www.theatrewomen.org

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