38th Bay Area Playwrights Festival Begins Today

The Playwrights Foundation's 38th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) kicks off today, July 17, where it runs through July 26, 2015 at the Tides Theatre in San Francisco.

BAPF 2015 builds on the festival's historic legacy of innovation in theater that then moves to theaters across the country. This year's BAPF includes Lauren Gunderson's The Revolutionists and Geetha Reddy's On a Wonderverse, both newly penned plays by highly regarded Bay Area playwrights with national profiles, and are being developed In partnership with national and regional theaters. The BAPF 2015 also features Kara Lee Corthron'sWelcome to Fear City and Christine Evans' Galilee; and exceptional works coming from graduate playwriting programs, including Tearrance Chisholm's Hooded or Being Black for Dummies (Catholic University), Sam Lahne's #julys (University of Iowa), and Brendan Pelsue's Read to Me (Yale University).

"These playwrights represent a new aesthetic shift that privileges formal structure over intimate content. These are 21stcentury writers, pushing the boundaries of playwriting into new storytelling modalities." states Amy Mueller, Playwrights Foundation's Artistic Director. Chosen from hundreds of submissions, the seven selected plays will receive a deep developmental process, paired with the Bay Area's top directors, dramaturgs and actors. The public showcases of the work allow audiences to experience vivid readings of the work and engage with the artists in advancing these plays towards production.

This 2015 BAPF season features plays by Lauren Gunderson and Geetha Reddy that are results of PF's Producing Partnership Initiative. Lauren Gunderson's The Revolutionists (In Partnership with Cincinnati Playhouse) is a comedic feminist quartet about four very real women who lived boldly during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. In Geetha Reddy's On a Wonderverse - (In Partnership with Crowded Fire Theater) A brilliant female physicist succeeds in creating a new universe 'from nothing' within a particle collider. Will it provide insight into the origins of our universe, or will it destroy her?

"In our rapidly changing world, it's fitting that all of the plays in this year's festival are about transformation," says Festival Producer Karen Altree Piemme. "Told from a wide diversity of perspectives, we experience the transformation of an individual, a family, a community, an ecosystem, a nation, and a universe." With Tearrance Chisholm's Hooded or Being Black for Dummies rhythm, repetition and erudition reveal the commonalities between two wildly different black youths. Nietzsche and 2pac may not be all that far apart, after all. Kara Lee Corthron's Welcome To Fear City is a throw-back to the South Bronx in the '70s, as the roots of hip hop and a new black revolution ignite a community and a nation. In Christine Evans's Galilee a tiny coastal town along the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the competing economic and environmental forces threaten global catastrophe. Samuel Lahne's #julys is a suspenseful farce complete with hacktivists and bumbling FBI agents, in which a troubled teen loses control of his on and offline identities. In Brendan Pelsue's Read to Me a child living with cancer... and maybe dying... is mentored by Elmo the Shaman and the oldest woman in Alaska.

Playwrights Foundation's 38th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival opens on July 17, 2015 with Lauren Gunderson's newest work, The Revolutionists, a comic tragedy about four very real women who lived (and died) boldly during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror is directed by Eleanor Holdridge, who will direct the premiere at Cincinnati Repertory Theatre.

The Festival continues Saturday, July 18th with three festival readings at 12n, 4pm and 8pm [see detailed schedule below]: Geetha Reddy's On a Wonderverse, a partnership with Crowded Fire Theater, directed by Jessica Heidt; Tearrance Chisolm' Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies, directed by Jessa Brie Moreno; and Kara Corthron's Welcome to Fear City, directed by UNIVERSES member Gamal Chasten. Chisolm, who is an MFA candidate in Catholic University's playwriting program, and Corthron are both writing about contemporary Black urban youth - the former references Trayvon Martin, and transracial identity, and the latter the rise of hip-hop and the black power movement of the 1970's. To augment the experience, and to gather community around them, the local group 'Hip Hop for Change' will host a daylong event at the Tides Theatre complex of panels and performances for the community.

"These two plays are very different: one touches on the rise of hip hop culture and beginnings of the black power movement, while the other focuses on the present - one playwright is already a force in theater, while the other is just beginning his playwriting career" comments PF's Artistic Director Amy Mueller. "And yet, these plays tie in so closely and address the struggles of being black in America - one of the most pressing matters we are facing today, with humor, fresh poetic language, and in formally inventive ways."

On Sunday, July 19, festival-goers will keep up the momentum for another full day of readings at 11am, 3pm and 6pm; Yale MFA candidate Brendan Pelsue's Read to Me, a journey into the imagination of a 10-year old living with a terminal illness, directed by Christine Young; Iowa Writer's Workshop MFA candidate Sam Lahne's internet coming-of-age story,#julys directed by the Artistic Director of Custom Made Theatre, Brian Katz; and finally, BAPF alumnae and Brown University Professor Christine Evan's long-awaited return to San Francisco with Galilee, which explores the environmental degradation of the Great Barrier Reef on the coast of her home country, Australia, directed by Rebecca Novick (founder of Crowded Fire Theater), with dramaturg Jayne Wenger - who is Playwrights Foundation's previous Artistic Director.

Directors for the festival include Gamal Chasten, Jessica Heidt, Eleanor Holdridge, Brian Katz, Jessa Brie Moreno, Rebecca Novick, and Christine Young.

Dramaturgs for the festival include Karen Altree Piemme; Laura Breuckner, Ph.D.; Sonia Fernandez, Ph.D.; Christina Novakov-Ritchey, Ph.D, Candidate; Doyle Ott; Lisa Marie Rollins; and Jayne Wenger.

The Plays

Lauren Gunderson's The Revolutionists The Revolutionists is a brutal, feminist, comedic quartet about four very real women who lived boldly during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe De Gouge, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, write plays, murder Marat, defend their heads, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793's Paris. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world. More at therevolutionists.tumblr.com.

Geetha Reddy's On A Wonderverse - A journey through space and time exploring the intersection between high-energy physics, women in science, and Hindu mythology, On A Wonderverse is set at CERN's (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, where brilliant young physicist Alpheratz Schen has lead a research team to prove the existence of 'Nothing.' When Schen's role is overlooked when her male co-author receives the coveted Nobel Prize, her despair and determination lead her to make an extraordinary new discovery in the lab: a brand-new universe within the collider. Though this discovery could give priceless insights into the origins of life, the universe has the potential to unleash destruction, too - and the unwilling Schen is thrust suddenly into the mythic role of the Hindu god Shiva, destroyer of the universe.

Tearrance Chisholm's Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies Marquis and Tru are both fourteen-year-old black boys, but they exist in two totally different worlds. Marquis is a book-smart prep-schooler living in the affluent suburb of Achievement Heights, while Tru is a street savvy kid from deep within the inner city of Baltimore. Their worlds overlap one day in a holding cell, where Tru decides that Marquis has lost his "blackness" and pens a manual entitled "Being Black for Dummies". He assumes the role of professor, but Marquis is a reluctant pupil. They debate, wrestle, and ultimately prove that Nietzsche and 2pac were basically saying the same thing.

Kara Lee Corthron's Welcome to Fear City - It is July 1977 and the South Bronx is HOT: from a heat wave, from this new thing that would come to be known as "hip-hop," and from an astounding number of fires burning the borough to the ground. E, a young African-American man, dreams of being a poet, but unemployment, a raging fiscal crisis, and a family on the brink of disaster drive him to ask a dangerous question: Can you love your 'hood if you take part in its destruction? Welcome to Fear City is about a community trying to get by in the midst of crime, social apathy, poverty, and a whole new art form that's about to electrify the world.

Christine Evans' Galilee Galilee takes place amidst the collision of competing economic and ecological forces in a small Australian coastal town on the Great Barrier Reef. As the sea temperatures rise and the world's first hybrid black-fin sharks appear, biology student Carol, her mother Mardy, and the old-time diver Jimmy struggle with their own decisions-fight, flee, or adapt to the changing environment?

Sam Lahne's #julys When his father abandons him and his mother to move to Israel, Avram does what any troubled teen with an internet connection who's just found out he was adopted would do: he creates an anti-Semitic conspiracy website/forum. As the site and Avram's anonymous posts gain notoriety and a devoted following, Avram struggles to keep his offline and online identities separate. And it becomes even harder after his site is attacked by hacktivists, his anonymity is threatened by a disgruntled follower, a bumbling FBI agent shows up at his door, and his mom begins to snoop through his browser history. #JULYS is a suspenseful farce that examines self-hatred, free speech, racism, and the creation of identity - on and offline.

Brendan Pelsue's Read to Me Eight year-old Tony is dying--or might be. His father, Sam, tries not to let Tony know the truth of his condition. When a hospital tutor, Lawrence, breaks the family's silent equilibrium, father and son are torn apart. Sam flees to the woods, while Tony starts a letter writing campaign to strangers, including a shaman named Elmo and the oldest woman in Alaska. As they move towards reconciliation, each engages in a deep, personal, and sometimes funny conversation about love and how we face the end of life.

The Playwrights:

Lauren Gunderson is the 2014 winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play award and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for I and You, which has seen over 30 productions and is headed Off-Broadway next year. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her work has been commissioned, produced and developed at companies across the US including South Cost Rep (Emilie, Silent Sky), The Kennedy Center (The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful And Her Dog!), The O'Neill, Denver Center, Berkeley Rep, Shotgun Players, TheatreWorks, Crowded Fire, San Francisco Playhouse, Marin Theatre, Synchronicity, Olney Theatre, CentralWorks and more. Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You, Exit, Pursued By A Bear, The Taming, andToil And Trouble) and Samuel French (Emilie). She is a Playwright in Residence at Playwrights Foundation, and a proud Dramatists Guild member. LaurenGunderson.com and @LalaTellsAStory.

Geetha Reddy's plays include Safe House (SF Playhouse Sandbox 2010), Blastosphere (with Aaron Loeb, CentralWorks 2009), Girl in a Box, Me Given You, Blue God Countdown, and Book Club! The Musical. She received the 2005-2006 June Anne Baker Prize, five "Emerging Playwright" awards, and multiple alumni commissions from PlayGround. Her plays have been included in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Playwright's Revolution Festival, the Playwrights Foundation's 'Rough Reading' series, and the Just Theatre PlayLab. Her short plays have been featured in the Best of PlayGround Festival, the Santa Rosa Quickies Festival, and the SF Fringe Festival, where she won Best of Fringe. She is a Playwright's Foundation Resident Playwright and member of the Dramatist's Guild.

Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm's plays include Burning Books (MU New Play Series), Liddy's Samiches Potions & Baths (Arkansas Rep; Voices on the River), Vulpicide (MU New Play Series), Month of Sundays (Midwinter Madness Short Play Festival; NYC) and In Sweet Remembrance (Endstation Theatre Company and Sweet Briar College). Tearrance has also been published in interJACtions: 75 Monologues by some of America's Finest Playwrights and Arcadia Magazine. He has worked closely with Endstation Theatre Company (Lynchburg, VA), Theatre Alliance (Washington DC), and the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and has held residencies at The Virginia Center for Creative Arts and The Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference (Playwright Observer). He is pursuing an MFA in playwriting at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

Kara Lee Corthron's plays include Julius By Design (Fulcrum), Etched In Skin On A Sunlit Night (InterAct), Alicegraceanon (New Georges), Holly Down In Heaven (Forum Theatre, DC), Listen For The Light, and Welcome To Fear City. She's the 2014-2015 Naked Angels Issues Project Resident Playwright, and her awards include the Boomerang Fund for Artists Grant, 2012-2014 Women's Project Lab Time Warner Fellowship, Vineyard's Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Princess Grace Award, the Helen Merrill Award, three MacDowell fellowships, and residencies at Skriðuklaustur (Iceland), Djerassi, Hawthornden (Scotland), and the Millay Colony. Her work has been developed by Ars Nova, Berkeley Rep, CenterStage (Baltimore), E.S.T., Haulbowline Theatre Group (Ireland), New Dramatists, New Georges, Orchard Project, P73, PlayPenn, Seven Devils (Guest Artist, 2012), South Coast Rep, the Vineyard, and the Women's Project. Her writing for TV includes Kings (NBC-Universal, 2008-2009). A Juilliard alumna, Kara is also the author of the young adult novel, The Distance From Me To You, forthcoming from Simon Pulse/http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=21Simon & Schuster in 2016. You can learn more at www.karaleecorthron.com

Christine Evans' plays are produced in Australia, the US and the UK, and published by Samuel French, (Trojan Barbie), Smith & Kraus (annual Best Monologues series, 2010), NoPassport Press (War Plays) and online by ITN (Slow Falling Bird and You Are Dead. You Are Here). World premieres include Trojan Barbie (American Repertory Theater); Slow Falling Bird (Crowded Fire), My Vicious Angel and Pussy Boy (Belvoir St., Sydney); Weightless, Mothergun and All Souls' Day (Perishable Theatre); and Can't Complain (forthcoming, Spooky Action Theater, 2015.) Her first novel, Cloudless, will be released in 2015 by UWA Publishing. Honors include the Rella Lossy Playwrights Award, the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, Bogliasco Foundation and Rockefeller Bellagio Center Fellowships, residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell Colony, an Australia Council New Work grant and two Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowships. A Fulbright alumna and Playwrights Center Core Member, she holds an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from Brown, taught playwriting at Harvard from 2007-12, and joined Georgetown University's Department of Performing Arts faculty in 2012. www.christine-evans-playwright.com

Sam Lahne's plays include #julys, Water Bound, I Meant to Build a House, and Magicicada. His work has been produced or developed by the Jewish Plays Project, Endstation Theatre, Studio Trim Tab, Forum Theatre, Rorschach Theater, The Amoralists, and Red Bull Theatre. He has been a finalist for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, InterAct Theatre Company's 20/20 Commission, DC Source Festival, and Cutting Ball Theatre's "Risk Is This" Festival. Sam received his BA from Vassar College and is an MFA candidate in playwriting at the University of Iowa.

Brendan Pelsue is a writer and performer from Newburyport, Massachusetts. He is currently pursuing an MFA in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, where his past projects include Parking Lot, Riverbank: a Noh Play for Northerly Americans, and a translation/adaptation of Molière's Dom Juan. Future projects include the libretto for Hagoromo, a new dance opera that will premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November 2015.

The Play Development Process at BAPF

The? annual? BAPF? brings? together? a? select? group? of? playwrights? and? professional? directors, dramaturgs, the Bay Area's top actors, and new this year, designers, to? engage ?in an? in-depth? development ?process? of? six new? plays? over? three? weeks, including a three-day artists retreat outside the city, and two weeks of rehearsals during which artistic teams support the playwright's dramaturgical investigations. The? work? leads? to? two? public? staged? readings? of? each? play, with? a? week? for? rehearsal? and? rewriting? in? between? the? readings.

ABOUT THE BAY AREA PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL

The BAPF is the oldest and most successful new play festival in the US. Established in 1976 by Robert Woodruff, the festival has continuously discovered original and distinctive new voices in the theater, and invested in the development of their work. Among the first crop of writers at the inaugural BAPF was the young Sam Shepard - little did Woodruff know at that time how Shepard's work would shape the landscape of American theatre. Since then many prize winning, nationally significant playwrights got their first professional experiences on the BAPF. Examples include Nilo Cruz long before he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, the young Marcus Gardley, while still a student at Yale, long before his phenomenal national career took hold, Annie Baker prior to her 2014 Pulitzer Prize, Sam Hunter, prior to his 2014 MacArthur Award, Katori Hall and Rajiv Joseph prior to their Broadway debuts. The BAPF's ongoing success in discovering and supporting newly emerging writers is its enduring legacy.

ABOUT PLAYWRIGHTS FOUNDATION

Playwrights Foundation (PF) was founded in 1976, and is today widely recognized as one of the top play development labs in the U.S. Our artistic purpose is to support and champion contemporary playwrights in the creation of new works to sustain theater as a vital, dynamic art form. PF seeks to identify exceptional emerging artists and give them space and time to explore new theatrical ideas and forms in an environment free from the pressures of the marketplace. By providing a creative home for largely unknown, exceptional local and national playwrights, and committing to accelerating their careers, PF fulfills an essential need in the cultural ecology of the Bay Area. In so doing, we have earned a national reputation for introducing a truly diverse range of singular, boundary-breaking new voices to the American stage, challenging assumptions about subject matter and artistic complexity. The only development lab of its size and scope on the West Coast, PF is widely recognized for its programmatic excellence. Our programs include the Bay Area Playwrights Festival; the Resident Playwrights Initiative; the Producing Partners Initiative, which includes our monthly Rough Readings Series; the annual One-Minute Play Festival; and alumni co-productions. We also actively engage younger artists through a robust mentorship program.