Aurora Theater Announces Global Age Project Winners 2/2-23

Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company announces the four plays chosen as winners for the Global Age Project (GAP), the company's new works initiative that promotes the creation of forward-looking theatre: The First Grade by Joel Drake Johnson; Birnham Woods by Wendy MacLeod; Right? by Dan Hoyle; and and when we awoke there was light and light by Laura Jacqmin.

The selected plays will be presented as staged readings in a four-week festival at the Aurora Theatre, Mondays, February 2-23, 7:30pm, coinciding with the company's fully-staged West Coast Premiere of George Packer's provocative Lucille Lortel-winning play Betrayed (January 23-March 1). Each GAP reading will be followed by an audience discussion of the contemporary issues raised in each work. Additionally, the company announces that it has received a $20,000 grant from the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation to support the Global Age Project. For information on GAP events (free and open to the public) and Betrayed, the public may call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

Aurora Theatre Company's Artistic Director Tom Ross states, "This, our fourth year of the GAP, will be an exciting one. Not only have we invited two prior GAP directors back but, coincidentally, two of the four winning submissions are by playwrights who are previous GAP winners." Ross continued, "We like to think of the submitted plays as being the pulse of what's happening in the hearts of contemporary playwrights. With this year's crop of submissions, we saw a shift from plays that focused on the Middle East to what is currently happening on the American homefront. Many of the scripts served to make us laugh at ourselves, our pretensions, and the predicaments we have foisted upon ourselves and our world."

The lineup for the GAP festival is as follows:
Monday, February 2, 2009
The First Grade
By Joel Drake Johnson (Chicago, IL)
Directed by Raelle Myrick-Hodges

How are love, maturity, and family really defined? In The First Grade, an elementary school teacher living in a broken home attempts to save her physical therapist from an abusive husband. But whose life is really broken and who is really being abused? When the husband comes knocking on their door, it becomes evident that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Joel Drake Johnson is a member of Chicago's Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble where his plays Four Places, Before My Eyes, and The End of the Tour were first produced. Steppenwolf Theatre produced his plays The Fall to Earth, A Blameless Life, and Tranquility Woods. Additionally, he taught playwriting at Northwestern University and DePaul University and is currently working on a third commission from Steppenwolf.

Monday, February 9, 2009
Birnham Woods
By Wendy MacLeod (Gambier, OH)
Directed by Susannah Martin

Set in a small college town in Indiana, Birnham Woods finds bored intellectual Janice waiting for something, anything, to happen. When her handsome colleague Kevin invites her husband to do some lucrative consulting for a mysterious organization, Janice sees her ticket out. But is the new corporation really a global think tank or is it a cover for a terrorist network? And is Kevin more than just a colleague? Wendy MacLeod's play The House of Yes became an award-winning film starring Parker Posey. Her other works for the stage include Juvenilia and The Water Children, both of which premiered at Playwrights Horizons, and Things Being What They Are, which premiered at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Sin and Schoolgirl Figure both premiered at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago; Schoolgirl Figure has recently been optioned for film.

Monday, February 16, 2009
Right?
By Dan Hoyle (San Francisco, CA)
Directed by Matthew Graham Smith

Inspired by Dan Hoyle's recent travels across the country through small-town and rural America, Right? brings to the stage the characters, stories, and worldviews of people far from the liberal bubble. Featuring a variety of characters, including an itinerant gun show vendor in Arizona, an Aryan Brotherhood executive in Nebraska, and a closeted Baptist church leader in Arkansas, Right? examines the political and cultural diversity of American life. Dan Hoyle is a Bay Area-based actor and writer. A Fulbright scholar, Hoyle studied oil politics in Nigeria to create his Lucille Lortel-nominated and Glickman Award-winning solo show Tings Dey Happen, which premiered as The Nigeria Show at the GAP in 2006. Previous one-man creations include Circumnavigator and Florida 2004: The Big Bummer. His essays have been featured in the San
Francisco Chronicle and Salon, among others.
Monday, February 23, 2009
and when we awoke there was light and light
By Laura Jacqmin (Chicago, IL)
Directed by Rob Melrose

High-school senior Katie thinks she's made friends online with a boy her age, who just happens to be a child-soldier in Uganda. When she offers to help him come to the United States, she faces obstacles in the form of her liberal parents (who would rather just write a check) and her guidance counselor (who just wants to see her get into Harvard). When she learns that her new friend hasn't been completely honest with her about his past, she must decide whether to abandon her ideals or trust a veritable stranger. Laura Jacqmin is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, a member of the New Voices Network (an affiliate of the Old Vic Theatre), and a co-founder of the Yale Playwrights Festival. Her work has been produced and developed at the Kennedy Center, Steppenwolf Theatre, Culture Project, Victory Gardens Theater, and National Center for New Plays, among others. Jacqmin was a GAP 2007 finalist with her play Happyslap; her play 10 Virgins received its World Premiere as part of Chicago Dramatists' 2007-08 season. She is the recipient of this year's $25,000 Wasserstein Prize for and when we awoke there was light and light.

Handpicked by Artistic Director Tom Ross, the GAP Directors' Council is comprised of esteemed local and nationally recognized directors, including: Raelle Myrick-Hodges (Artistic Director of San Francisco's Brava Theater, founder of the award-winning Azuka Theatre in Philadelphia), who returns to the GAP to helm Joel Drake Johnson's The First Grade; Susannah Martin (Joint Artistic Director of San Francisco's Paducah Mining Co.), who will direct Wendy MacLeod's Birnham Woods; Matthew Graham Smith (American Conservatory Theater instructor and Artistic Director of Precarious Theatre Company), who will direct Right? by Dan Hoyle; and Rob Melrose (Artistic Director and co-founder of Cutting Ball Theater), who will direct Laura Jacqmin's and when we awoke there was light and light.

Seeking both serious and comedic forward-thinking new works that explored a wide range of topics such as family life, technology, business, politics, spirituality, and the arts, Aurora Theatre Company received 462 original submissions for this year's GAP. The GAP is funded in part by a generous grant from the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation; each of the four winners will be awarded a $1,000 honorarium and will be in attendance for their respective reading.

Filled with dignity, humor, and defiance, Betrayed, winner of the 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, is the provocative theatrical adaptation of journalist George Packer's eye-opening 2007 New Yorker essay about Iraqi translators who risk their lives to aid the American war effort. Robin Stanton (Permanent Collection, The Busy World is Hushed at Aurora Theatre Company) helms this astonishing West Coast Premiere, hailed as "eloquent" and full of "sharp dramatic impact and beauty" by The New York Times. Following Betrayed, Mark Jackson, who directed Aurora Theatre Company's acclaimed production of Salome, returns to the company to direct August Strindberg's Miss Julie in April. Bob Glaudini's unconventional romantic comedy Jack Goes Boating, directed by Joy Carlin, rounds out the season in June.

Aurora Theatre Company continues to offer challenging, literate, intelligent stage works to the Bay Area, each year increasing its reputation for top-notch theatre. Located in the heart of the Downtown Berkeley Arts District, Aurora Theatre Company has been called "one of the most important regional theaters in the area" by the San Francisco Chronicle, while The Wall Street Journal has "nothing but praise for the Aurora." The Contra Costa Times stated, "perfection is probably an unattainable ideal in a medium as fluid as live performance, but the Aurora Theatre comes luminously close," while the San Jose Mercury News affirmed "[Aurora Theatre Company] lives up to its reputation as a theater that feeds the mind," and the Oakland Tribune declared "it's all about choices, and if you value good theater, choose the Aurora." For tickets or more information about Aurora Theatre Company, the public can call

(510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation supports both fine arts and the performing arts in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and Marin County, California. The Foundation seeks to support smaller, independent arts organizations that present challenging and cutting-edge works.

TICKETS: For tickets to Betrayed (previews $28, regular performances $40-42, limited opening night seating $50) or for more information the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org. GAP events are free and open to the public.