Rajiv Joseph's ARCHDUKE, 'SOMETHING WICKED' and More Set for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's 2016 New Works Festival

Continuing its commitment to developing new works, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley will gather playwrights and composers from across the nation for its 2016 New Works Festival at Palo Alto's Lucie Stern Theatre, where the public can attend performances, participate in a panel discussion with the artists, and share in the journey of developing new works for the American theatre.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's Director of New Works Giovanna Sardelli has announced this year's festival line-up, which includes two plays, three musicals, and a next generation musical event, plus other events.

This year's program runs August 12 - 21, 2016 at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto. Festival passes ($65; $49 for season subscribers) and single event tickets ($10-$19), can be purchased online at theatreworks.org or by calling (650) 463-1960.

The plays being presented include a new drama exploring the assassination of Archduke Ferdinan by Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph, and a romantic drama based on the life of Pablo Neruda by rising playwright Dipika Guha. The musicals will include Min Kahng's adventure that brings Japanese graphic novel manga to the stage, in a tale of immigrants acclimating to America; an innovative musical by Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses that follows the inner and outer lives of a boy who wants to save the world; and a chilling adaptation of a Ray Bradbury novel, by Drama Desk nominees Neil Bartram and Brian Hill. The festival also includes a time traveling musical about a modern physicist who heads back in time to 1666 to meet up with young Isaac Newton. This special Next Generation presentation was created by Joel Chapman, Weston Gaylord, Matt Herrero, Jessia Hoffman, and Ken Savage. In addition to viewing and providing comments on the readings, festival-goers will have the opportunity to interact directly with the writers in a Meet the Artists Panel.

Attracting theatregoers from across the country, TheatreWorks' New Works Festival offers audiences an extraordinary opportunity to experience new plays and musicals in their early stages of development. For two busy weeks in August, audiences will applaud, debate, and help shape new works for America's future, while meeting with their authors in the starlit courtyard of the Lucie Stern Theatre.

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The Festival line-up is as follows:

READINGS OF PLAYS:

ARCHDUKE
The Drama of a New Century

By Rajiv Joseph
8/16 @ 8pm • 8/20 @ 12pm

Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph explores the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, 1914-the flash that lit the fuse of World War I. This new play tries to answer the question, "can one man, one moment, define a century?"

Rajiv Joseph is the author of the Broadway play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama. His other plays include Guards at the Taj (recipient of the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play), The North Pool (TheatreWorks 2011), Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, and The Lake Effect (TheatreWorks 2015).

I ENTER THE VALLEY
Of Love at Last

By Dipika Guha
8/19 @ 7pm • 8/21 @ 3pm

Augusto has loved, must love. Now in the twilight of life, the famous poet gathers lovers like birds, each with gifts to give, memories to take, dreams to share. But who will remain when summer ends? Inspired by the life of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

Dipika Guha had two Bay Area premieres this spring: Mechanics of Love at Crowded Fire and The Rules at SF Playhouse. Another of her shows The Art of Gaman was developed by Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep. She is currently under commission from Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Rep and Playwrights Horizons Theatre School. She received her MFA from the Yale School of Drama under Paula Vogel.

READINGS OF MUSICALS:

THE FOUR IMMIGRANTS: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL MANGA
From the Funny Page to the Stage
Book, Music, & Lyrics by Min Kahng

Based on Manga Yonin Shosei by Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama

Translated as The Four Immigrants by Frederik L. Schodt

8/14 @ 7:30pm • 8/18 @ 8pm• 8/20 @ 8pm

In a comic musical drawn from one of the first graphic novels ever created, four endearing Japanese immigrants discover turn-of-the-twentieth-century America as a world of both possibility and prejudice. Audiences follow as they try to succeed with limited options in the land of opportunity.

Min Kahng is a Bay Area playwright and composer whose recent works include Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Bad Kitty On Stage, and The Song of the Nightingale. He is a Resident Playwright with Playwrights Foundation and received the 2014 Titan Award for Playwrights.

EDDIE THE MARVELOUS, WHO WILL SAVE THE WORLD

An Innovative New Musical
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses

8/19 @ 9:30pm • 8/21 @ 7pm

Eddie the Marvelous fronts a band, struts the stage, saves the world. Eddie the Real can't leave the house, can't hold a job, can't keep a friend. His mom makes every sacrifice, but when she finds a new man, neither Eddie knows what to say or what to sing.

The Kilbanes, a theatrical rock band led by married songwriting duo Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses, are the authors of Weightless (won "Best of Fringe" at the SF Fringe Festival in 2012) and the medea cycle (2010). Eddie the Marvelous got its start at Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor in 2014.

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

A Haunting Musical Thriller
Based on the novel by Ray Bradbury

Music & Lyrics by Neil Bartram

Book by Brian Hill

8/13 @ 8pm • 8/17 @ 8pm• 8/20 @ 4pm

1938. A tiny town. A mysterious carnival. A time-traveling carousel. Freaks and fireworks, lingering memories. And two boys bent on escaping the midway of life to find adventure, and themselves. Look there! In the dark-a tuneful, tantalizing musical parable for all ages and all time.

Neil Bartram (Music & Lyrics) BROADWAY: The Story of My Life (four Drama Desk Award nominations). REGIONAL: Chicago Shakespeare Theater: The Adventures of Pinocchio; Goodspeed: The Story of My Life, The Theory of Relativity. UPCOMING: You Are Here (Acting Up Stage Company) Senza Luce (CMTP); Bedknobs & Broomsticks (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). CAST ALBUMS: The Story of My Life (PS Classics), The Theory of Relativity (PS Classics).

Brian Hill (Book) BROADWAY: The Story of My Life (four Drama Desk Award nominations), The Little Mermaid (associate director), The Lion King (resident director). REGIONAL: Goodman Theatre: Brigadoon (revised book); Chicago Shakespeare Theater: The Adventures of Pinocchio; Goodspeed Musicals: The Story of My Life, The Theory of Relativity; UPCOMING: You Are Here (Acting Up Stage & Signature Theater), Senza Luce (CMTP), Bedknobs & Broomsticks (Chicago Shakespeare Theater).

SPECIAL EVENTS:

Keynote address

THE BLACK CAT THAT ISN'T THERE

Rajiv Joseph

8/12 @ 8pm

Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama Rajiv Joseph returns to TheatreWorks, where his play The North Pool was given its world premiere in 2011, followed by a presentation of The Lake Effect in 2015. He is also author of the Broadway play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, as well as Guards at the Taj (recipient of the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play), Gruesome Playground Injuries, and Animals Out of Paper. He has written for television and film, and is the librettist for the opera Shalimar the Clown, adapted from the novel of the same name by Salman Rushdie. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

A Next Generation Event

GRAVITY

A Newtonian Musical

Created by Joel Chapman, Weston Gaylord, Matt Herrero, Jessia Hoffman, and Ken Savage

8/14 @ 3pm

Modern day physicist Sophie travels back in time to 1666, meeting young Isaac Newton but upsetting the applecart of history in the process. An original comedy with a fresh, contemporary score, Gravity is a delightful tale of romance, feminism, and the art of science.

GRAVITY co-creators Joel Chapman, Weston Gaylord, Matt Herrero, Jessia Hoffman, and Ken Savage are artists and friends from their time working together on various musical projects at Stanford University. Since winning the Stanford Arts' 72-Hour Musical competition in January 2015, they have developed their Newtonian musical with support from Stanford Arts, Z Space, and Encore Theatre Company.

MEET THE ARTISTS

8/21 @ noon

The Festival's featured playwrights and composers share their anecdotes and insights into creating brave new works for the America Theatre. Audiences are invited to bring questions and become a part of the conversation with writers who are shaping the theatre landscape of tomorrow. This event will include a special presentation by the winners of 1440 Countdown, TheatreWorks Education Department's 24-hour playwriting festival for high school students.

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The 2016 New Works Festival is presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's New Works Initiative, which seeks out new material and serves as a collaborative matchmaker for writers and composers. The Festival has launched many new works onto TheatreWorks' stage and to national productions, including Broadway's Tony Award-winning Best Musical Memphis, which also captured Olivier Awards in London this year. The TheatreWorks 2015/16 Season featured three works that were originally developed at past New Works Festivals: Triangle, tokyo fish story, and Paul Gordon's sparkling adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. The 2016/17 Season kicks off in July with the hit of last year's Festival, Confederates.

Giovanna Sardelli is an award-winning stage director, who was appointed TheatreWorks Director of New Works in May 2014, and has helmed three well-received productions for the company's mainstage including Somewhere by Matthew Lopez, the World Premiere of Rajiv Joseph's The North Pool, and Joseph's later play The Lake Effect. Sardelli has worked on numerous plays by Rajiv Joseph (more than12 productions) including the West Coast Premiere of Guards at the Taj at the Geffen Playhouse, selected by TheatreMania as one of its Favorite Regional Productions of 2015. Earlier this year she debuted Joseph's work at his hometown's Cincinnati Playhouse with his drama Mr. Wolf. Sardelli has directed World Premieres of plays by Theresa Rebeck, Lynn Rosen, Joe Gilford, Jeff Augustine, Lauren Yee, and Zoe Kazan among others. Her West Coast Premiere of Matthew Lopez's The Whipping Man for The Globe Theatre won her an NAACP nomination for Best Director. She has worked Off-Broadway at Cherry Lane Theatre, Second Stage Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, The Playwrights Realm, Women's Project Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Roundabout Theatre Company. She has directed numerous productions for Dorset Theatre Festival, where she is Resident Director, Barrington Stage Company, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, The Old Globe, Hartford Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Hudson Stage Company, and San Francisco Playhouse. Sardelli has been part of The Lark Play Development Center since it was first formed, and has also developed plays at the Sundance Theatre Lab, The O'Neill Theater Center, Playwrights' Center, New York Stage & Film, Ensemble Studio Theatre and many other places. She spent several years on the faculty of the Dance Department and the Graduate Acting Program of NYU, the program from which she received her MFA. She is also a graduate of their Director's Lab.

With some 100,000 patrons per year, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has captured a national reputation for artistic innovation and integrity, often presenting Bay Area theatregoers with their first look at acclaimed musicals, comedies, and dramas, directed by award-winning local and guest directors, and performed by professional actors cast locally and from across the country. A home for artists developing new works, it was at TheatreWorks that Memphis, the 2010 Tony Award-winning musical that played on Broadway for three years before embarking on a 19-month national tour, was first workshopped and received its world premiere. It recently concluded an extended run on London's West End, where it captured two Olivier Awards.