Forward Flux Productions to Present BEAUTIFUL PROVINCE at IX Flux Salon

Forward Flux Productions will present the North West Regional premiere reading of Clarence Coo's award winning play "Beautiful Province" at the IX Flux Salon gathering in Seattle. The play was selected by Tony Award-winning playwright John Guare to be the winner of the Yale Drama Series Prize in 2012. In his foreword, Guare calls Coo's work "elusive and haunting . . . funny, desperate, insane." In addition to the reading, visual art will be on display from Seattle artist Angel O'Leary, and there will be a musical performance by local French band Le Trio. The Flux Salon presents new works by fresh voices in intimate spaces throughout Seattle. The Salon is June 9th at 7:00pm, by invitation only, and will be held at a secret location in Pioneer Square. Email salon@forwardflux.com to request the ticketing link.

About Beautiful Province: A fifteen-year-old boy decides to accompany his severely depressed high school French teacher on a road trip to the Canadian province of Quebec, where the mother tongue of Voltaire and Balzac is still spoken and cherished. Clarence Coo's mesmerizing new play is a delicious amalgam of farce and tragedy, a carnival funhouse with very dark corners. Wildly inventive and heartbreakingly sad, the strange odyssey of Jimmy and the unpredictable Mr. Green takes many surprising turns, crossing the border from reality to fantasy and back again while encountering displaced characters from history, literature, and the mundane, often dangerous world.

The reading will be presented by Matt Aguayo, Maximillian Davis, Patrick Hurlburt, and Malachy Sreenan.

Clarence Coo received the 2012 Yale Drama Series Prize for Emerging Playwrights, which was judged by John Guare, for "Beautiful Province". The play was developed at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Inkwell. His other plays include "People Sitting in Darkness," "Bahala Na," "Braids," "Proof Through the Night," and "Removing the Glove." His work has been produced or developed at Second Generation, the New York International Fringe Festival, Mu Performing Arts, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Round House Theatre, East West Players, the Mark Taper Forum, the Young Playwrights Festival, and the Kennedy Center. His work has also been published by Temple University Press, the New Press, and Samuel French. He received his MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University where he studied under Charles Mee. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, a 2012-2013 Dramatists Guild fellow, and the program administrator of Columbia's MFA Writing Program.

The Flux Salon is an arts gathering featuring new play readings, performances, and conversation in intimate spaces throughout Seattle. Past venues have included restaurants, bars, private living rooms, houseboats, and basements. The series started in January, 2014, and is produced by Forward Flux Productions.

Forward Flux Productions is a dynamic live arts production company devoted to presenting innovative projects that connect people with art in unexpected ways. The company challenges the boundaries of tradition by re-imagining the audience experience. Forward Flux is committed to presenting work about the right now, and striking a meaningful dialogue that stirs a lasting impression. Founded in NYC in late 2010, moved to Seattle in 2014. Visit www.ForwardFlux.com for more.