THE LINGERING LIFE and More Set for Playwrights Foundation's 2013 Winter Rough Readings, Now thru 3/12

The Playwrights Foundation announces the 2013 Winter Rough Readings Series, running today, January 14 - March 12, 2013 at Stanford University and in San Francisco. The winter readings series features: Chiori Miyagawa's This Lingering Life, January 14 & 15; Jonathan Spector's In From the Cold February 11 & 12 and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's The World of Extreme Happiness March 11 & 12. The 2013 Winter Rough Readings Series (10/1-12/13, 2012) are presented on Mondays in Roble Hall at Stanford University and Tuesdays at NOH Space and A.C.T.'s Costume Shop in San Francisco.

The Winter series features a dynamic group of playwrights tackling issues of life and death zooming in on character, global perspectives, and forgiveness. Chiori Miyagawa's This Lingering Life calls forth a parade of characters - performed in Japanese Noh style theater, who are haplessly negotiating the bardo, Jonathan Spector's In From The Cold explores the secret life of a Russian spy turned CIA operative, and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's The World of Extreme Happiness deadlocks two kids from a rural Chinese village between familial duty and Americanized ambitions of consumer driven happiness.

The Rough Readings Series is like a professional playwriting gym. Selected writers are assigned a stellar cast and director drawn from the 'A' list of local talent, and eight hours in our studio to work out with a new play in its early development,. The plays are then subject to two open rehearsal sessions in front of audiences who are eager to hear this rough work. The results are often extraordinary. Many of these plays and playwrights are first introduced to the Bay Area theaters through the series, or are presented in collaboration with theaters interested in producing the work.. Some illustrious examples from previous Rough Readings Series are Katori Hall (The Mountaintop), Rajiv Joseph (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) and Peter Nachtrieb (Bob).

The Playwrights Foundation's 2013 Winter Rough Readings Series will take place from January 14- March 12, 2013 at Stanford University on Mondays and in San Francisco on Tuesdays. (*see schedule for times and locations) Readings are 100% FREE of charge. A $20 donation in advance comes with a reserved seat & a drink! To RSVP, email rsvp@playwrightsfoundation.org or call 415.626.2176.

Getting to the Shows: Stanford University - Roble Hall, Stanford University; NOH Space - 2840 Mariposa Street, SF; A.C.T.'s Costume Shop - 1119 Market Street San Francisco

Chiori Miyagawa's This Lingering Life January 14 & 15
Directed by Jublith Moore
Monday, January 14, 7:30pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, January 15, 7pm. NOH Space, San Francisco

Jonathan Spector's In From the Cold February 11 & 12
This Reading is produced in partnership with Aurora Theatre Company
Directed by Josh Costello
Monday, February 11, 7:30 pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, February 12, 7pm at A.C.T. Costume Shop, San Francisco

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig The World of Extreme Happiness March 11 & 12
Directed by Desdemona Chiang
Monday, March 11, 7:30pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, March 12, 7pm. Location TBD

*THE PLAYS, PLAYWRIGHTS, DATES & TIMES:

Chiori Miyagawa's This Lingering Life
Directed by Jublith Moore
Monday, January 14, 7:30pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, January 15, 7pm. NOH Space, San Francisco

This Lingering Life is a tragicomedy that takes place in life and in Bardo (a place in between life and death) where we meet a woman with tragic hair, feudal warriors, a mother whose son was kidnapped, a blind beggar, dead lovers, a pathetic old man in love with a teenager, a boy whose father is an arrow, and many other sentient beings. It all happens in the present time, except when it happens in an ancient era. As in the Japanese Noh plays from the fourteenth century that inspired it, this new play looks at the human condition through the Buddhist concept of Karma.

Chiori Miyagawa is a NYC-based playwright and a resident playwright at New Dramatists. Her plays plays have been produced off-Broadway (Vineyard Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Women's Project, Culture Project), at renowned performance houses in NYC (HERE Arts Center, Performance Space 122, Ohio Theater) and regionally. A collection of seven of her plays, Thousand Years Waiting and Other Plays, is published by Seagull Books; and another collection of five plays, America Dreaming and Other Plays is published by NoPassport Press.She is a recipient of many fellowships including a New York Foundation for the Arts Playwriting Fellowship, a McKnight Playwriting Fellowship, a Van Lier Playwriting Fellowship, an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, a Rockefeller Bellagio Residency Fellowship, and a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship at Harvard University. She is a member of Lark Play Development Center and a Usual Suspect of New York Theatre Workshop. Chiori teaches playwriting at Bard College where she created an undergraduate playwriting program under the chair JoAnne Akalaitis. She was an Associate Artist at The Public Theater during Ms. Akalaitis' artistic directorship.

Jonathan Spector's In From the Cold
This Reading is produced in partnership with Aurora Theatre Company
Directed by Josh Costello
Monday, February 11, 7:30 pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, February 12, 7pm at A.C.T. Costume Shop, San Francisco

A cold war spy's past maybe isn't past after all, the secret meaning of '80s movies is revealed, and it's ladies night at Chili's.

Jonathan Spector is a director and playwright based in Berkeley. He is the Co-Artistic Director of Just Theater, where his directing credits include Anne Washburn's The Internationalist and I Have Loved Strangers, Jason Grote's 1001, and Melissa James Gibson's Current Nobody. With Muguwumpin co-directed/conceived This Is All I Need, and his own plays including Sandal Weather, Be What You Wish to Seem, and The World To Come, have been developed and produced by Just Theater, PlayGround, the Source Theater Festival, and St. Bonaventure College. He is a former Associate Artistic Director of Playwrights Foundation where he developed many new plays with writers including Gordon Dahlquist, Thomas Bradshaw, Rachel Axler, Brian Thorstenson, Marcus Gardley and Sam Hunter. He is currently pursuing his MFA in playwriting at San Francisco State.

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig The World of Extreme Happiness
Directed by Desdemona Chiang
Monday, March 11, 7:30pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, March 12, 7pm. Location TBD

When Sunny is born in a rural vilage on the Yangtze River, her parents dump her in a slop bucket and leave her to die because she isn't a boy. Sunny survives, and at 14 leaves home for a Shenzhen factory to fund her brother's education. There she works grueling shifts cleaning toilets and dreams of promotion. Desperate to maximize her only capital--her youth--Sunny attends self-help classes and learns ways to improve her chances at securing a coveted office position. But when her dogged attempts to pull herself out of poverty hurt a fellow worker, Sunny begins to question the design of a system she has spent her life trying to master, and starts to fight for an alternative.

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's play Lidless received the Yale Drama Series Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the Keene Prize for Literature, and the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize. In 2011 she was awarded the Wasserstein Prize by the Educational Foundation of America. She has been a finalist for the Blackburn Prize, received residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Ragdale, and the Santa Fe Art Institute, and is under commission from South Coast Rep and Seattle Rep. Her plays have been produced by Trafalagar Studios 2 on the West End, Page 73 Productions in New York, Interact Theatre in Philadelphia, and the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in West Virginia. They have been developed at the Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, Seattle Rep, PlayPenn, the Alley Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Ojai Playwrights Conference, the Playwright's Foundation and Yale Rep. Frances received an MFA in Writing from the James A. Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, a BA in Sociology from Brown University, and a certificate in Ensemble Created Physical Theatre from the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. Her work has been published by Glimmer Train, Methuen Drama, and Yale University Press. Frances was born in Philadelphia, and raised in Northern Virginia, Okinawa, Taipei and Beijing.

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