Eliza Clark News

Led by Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Roberta Pereira, The Playwrights Realm is pleased to announce its 2016-17 10th anniversary season. Over the past decade, The Realm has continually produced work by brave new voices and worked to introduce new initiatives to expand its commitment to providing holistic support to playwrights as they strive to make a life in the arts.

Ato Essandoh ("Vinyl" (HBO), Mother Courage and Her Children, Shakespeare in the Park) will join Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Cal in Camo, Colt Coeur & Rattlestick Plawrights Theater), Genesis Oliver (How to Live on Earth, Colt Coeur), Adam Harrington (How to Live on Earth, Colt Coeur), Eden Marryshow (Pass Over, Cherry Lane), and Anna Loyd Bradshaw in a performance of new plays by Brooklyn public school students ages 11 to 15.

ComicCon, the media-saturated annual juggernaut of promotion and sci-fi excess that puts celebrities and their costumed super-fans together in the same breathing space is the setting for playwright Eliza Clark's engaging new play FUTURE THINKING, now having its world premiere performances at Orange County's South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa through April 24, 2016. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, this modern day play offers a fresh story that explores how many of us strive for an ideal future that's both a mix of fantasy and reality, and that, at times, these two forces are often at odds with each other as we barrel towards what lies ahead.

Women's Project Theater, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Lisa McNulty and Managing Director Maureen Moynihan, is thrilled to announce the complete lineup for the inaugural Pipeline Festival, showcasing the work of the celebrated WP Lab residency for playwrights, directors and producers from March 24 - April 23 at the McGinn/ Cazale Theater at Broadway & 76th Street.

How to Live on Earth is a haunting new play about our unrelenting obsession with the next frontier and the desire to give your life for something greater than yourself. Inspired in part by the Mars One project to colonize Mars by 2025 - this piece is a funny, wry, and deeply truthful portrait of the fears and hopes that drive us towards exploration and expansion. 

Led by Artistic Director Robert Battle, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's 2015 Lincoln Center engagement kicked off with a star-studded Ailey Spirit Gala on Wednesday, June 10th. The one-night-only benefit performance and party honoring the Ford Foundation and sponsored by FedEx featured supermodel and actor Tyson Beckford as Honorary Chair. Gala Co-Chairs were Gina F. Adams, Ricki Lander, Almaz & Marc S. Strachan, Pamela Zilly & John Schaefer and Daria L. & Eric J. Wallach, and the Vice Chairs were Michele & Timothy Barakett, Dr. N. Anthony & Robyn Coles, and Leslie & Tom Maheras. The evening helped raise over $1 million for Ailey's extensive educational programs for young people, including AileyCamp and scholarships to The Ailey School. Scroll down for photos from the event!

South Coast Repertory's 2015-16 season will take audiences- theatrically speaking-from Brighton, England, in the swinging '60s (Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors) to 18th-century Austria (Peter Shaffer's Amadeus) to the American Wild West (Beth Henley's Abundance). In addition, the season will delve into the lives of artist Mark Rothko (Red by John Logan) and writer Sandra Tsing Loh (in her adaptation of her memoir, The Madwoman in the Volvo).

Celia Keenan-Bolger (The Glass Menagerie) will join Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Dry Land, Colt Coeur), Genesis Oliver (Everything is Ours, Colt Coeur), Matt Stadelmann (SEVEN MINUTES IN HEAVEN, Colt Coeur), Katya Campbell (How to Make Friends and then Kill Them, Rattlestick) and other Colt Coeur company members in a performance of new plays by Brooklyn public school students ages 11 to 15.

Thanks to the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Brooklyn-based theatre company Colt Coeur (Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel, Everything is Ours, by Nikole Beckwith) has commissioned playwright Amelia Roper to create an original play over the next year, with an eye towards production in the company's 2015-2016 season.

This past year, a brand-new organization called The Kilroys solicited nominations from over 140 theatre professionals (primarily artistic directors and literary managers) for their favorite new plays by female-identified playwrights. In June they published The List -- the top 46 of these plays. Dry Land was one of the most recommended, and many playwrights Colt Coeur has collaborated with in the past were also on the list. In the spirit of continuing to champion gender parity in the theatre, we are hosting a Festival of Readings of plays by women during the run of Dry Land. The plays included are as follows:

Dry Land, written by Ruby Rae Spiegel and directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt, is a haunting new play about female friendships and abortion-a hilarious, savage, and deeply truthful portrait of the fears, hopes, and friendships of teenage girls. It is as gut-wrenching as it is funny, and while the play's characters may be young, the challenges facing them are ageless.

Celia Keenan-Bolger and Jimmi Simpson will host Colt Coeur's Spring Benefit tonight, May 21st at 6:30pm at NoMad Loft. The Grand (featuring Cormac Bluestone, Susan Goodwillie, Joe Tippett and Ian Unterman) will perform an acoustic set. The company will also announce their 5th world premiere production at this event.

Celia Keenan-Bolger and Jimmi Simpson will host Colt Coeur's Spring Benefit to be held Wednesday, May 21st at 6:30pm at NoMad Loft. The Grand (featuring Cormac Bluestone, Susan Goodwillie, Joe Tippett and Ian Unterman) will perform an acoustic set. The company will also announce their 5th world premiere production at this event.

Experience something(s) new: Three world premiere productions and four new play readings during South Coast Repertory's 2014 Pacific Playwrights Festival this weekend, April 25-27.

Tony Award-winner Julie White (The Little Dog Laughed) is set to host the Spring Benefit for the Off-Broadway theatre company Page 73 Productions on Friday, April 25, at City Winery, 155 Varick Street. The evening's festivities begin at 7:00pm and include dinner, cocktails (including specialty cocktail "The Clare Barron" in honor of the 2014 P73 Playwriting Fellow) and the annual New Play Bake Off.

Today, South Coast Repertory announced the actors cast for four new-play readings as part of SCR's Pacific Playwrights Festival, which runs April 25-27. Single and packaged tickets are available online at www.scr.org.

Celia Keenan-Bolger (The Glass Menagerie), Julia Jones (TWILIGHT films) and Steve Schaeffer will join Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Everything is Ours, Colt Coeur), Matt Stadelmann (SEVEN MINUTES IN HEAVEN, Colt Coeur), Katya Campbell (How to Make Friends and then Kill Them, Rattlestick) and other Colt Coeur company members in a performance of improv and new plays by 17 Brooklyn middle school students. The event is the culmination of Colt Coeur's week-long theatre intensive offered free-of-charge to public school students.

American Theater Company announces a new partnership with The Araca Group (Broadway producers of Urinetown, Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, The Wedding Singer, Lend Me a Tenor, and A View From the Bridge, among others) in the development of new American plays in Chicago. The two organizations will partner to produce AracaWorks: Chicago, a weekend of readings of world premiere American plays from August 7-9, 2014 in Chicago. One of the three plays will receive a year of development, including a workshop production the following summer at ATC.

The Visceral Company, winner of 'best LA theater season' accolades for 2013 from review aggregate site Bitter Lemons, is pleased to present the West Coast premiere of dark science-fiction thriller RECALL by Eliza Clark (writer for AMC's Rubicon and The Killing). This is the first production of the play since its off-Broadway debut.

The Visceral Company, winner of 'best LA theater season' accolades for 2013 from review aggregate site Bitter Lemons, is pleased to present the West Coast premiere of dark science-fiction thriller RECALL by Eliza Clark (writer for AMC's Rubicon and The Killing). This is the first production of the play since its off-Broadway debut.