FST to Open 2014-15 Burdick Reading Series This Month

Florida Studio Theatre announces its annual Richard and Betty Burdick New Play Reading Series, which will present three new staged readings by contemporary American playwrights. The series will take place in the Keating Theatre on Saturday, April 25 at 2:00pm, Saturday, May 2 at 2:00pm, and Saturday, May 9 at 2:00pm, and is part of FST's Sarasota Festival of New Plays. Tickets for the series are 3 staged readings for $25, or individual readings for $10. Additionally, FRIENDS of FST can purchase a subscription for all 3 staged readings for $15. They may be purchased by calling the FST Box Office at (941) 366-9000 or by visiting floridastudiotheatre.org.

FST's Associate Artist Jason Cannon describes the unique nature of this series stating, "FST's commitment to new work manifests most tangibly in our annual Burdick Reading Series.
We spend months talking with playwrights and investing in the development of their newest work. The shows we choose to present in this Festival are strongly considered for our Mainstage. Dancing Lessons was presented in the Burdick Reading Series last season and went on to be a big hit for us this season. That decision was due in large part to the audience response and feedback during the Burdick reading."

This series begins on Saturday, April 25 with Sans Merci by Johnna Adams. Sans Merci is the story of an idealistic young woman who is a crippled survivor of attempted murder by South American revolutionaries. When she is visited by the conservative mother of the other attack victim, the two dance slowly through their grief. Truths are uncovered about what brought these two attack victims together, and why they undertook their humanitarian missions that led to that fateful day.

Next will be Uncanny Valley by Thomas Gibbons. Claire, a neuroscientist, has spent her life building artificial humans and attempting to balance her unstable relationship with her husband. Gibbons creates a touching story about friendship, personal interaction, and what it really means to be "human."

The final play of the series is The Sparkley Clean Funeral Singers by Lori Fischer and Don Chaffer. Cut to small town America with a quirky country singing duo of sisters. After losing their recording contracts and having nothing left to work toward, they move home to help their father run his dry cleaning business. With a recent rise of deaths in the community, in comes Pastor Phil to request their services as funeral singers. Lori Fischer creates sentimental and comical characters full of perseverance held together by a single thread - life or death.

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Each reading is followed by a talkback with the playwright where audience members have the unique opportunity to provide feedback. This series gives audiences the opportunity to be a part of the development and creation of exciting potential new plays here at FST.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Johnna Adams received a Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association Citation in April 2013 for her play Gidion's Knot. She is the 2011 recipient of the Princess Grace Award and a 2012 Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Gidion's Knot was published in the December 2012 edition of American Theatre Magazine. The Contemporary American Theatre Festival premiered Gidion's Knot in Shepherdtown, WV, in summer of 2012 and twelve regional productions are planned around the country for the 2013-14 season, including productions at InterAct Theatre (Philadelphia), Profiles (Chicago), Kitchen Dog (Dallas), Stages (Houston) and Furious Theatre Company (Los Angeles).

Thomas Gibbons is playwright-in-residence at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, which has premiered eight of his plays: Pretending to America, 6221, Axis Sally, Black Russian, Bee-luther-hatchee, Permanent Collection, A House With No Walls, and Silverhill. He is the recipient of seven playwriting fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Roger L. Stevens Award from The Fund for New American Plays, the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwriting Award, the NAACP Theatre Award, two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Lori Fischer is the "2008 New York University Harry Kondoleon Graduate Award in Playwriting" recipient and a 2008-09 Dramatists Guild Fellow. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed musical Barbara's Blue Kitchen, which played Off-Broadway at The Lamb's Theatre in 2006 and was published by Samuel French in 2007. Lori received her M.F.A. from the N.Y.U. Dramatic Writing Department in 2008. Currently, Lori teaches writing at NYU. For more information go to www.lorifischer.net

Don Chaffer(www.waterdeep.com). Musical Theater: composer/lyricist/book co-writer Son of A Gun (workshops: O'Neill National Music Theater Conference, Playwrights Horizons- Drama League New Directors New Works Grant; Joe's Pub. produced by Firebone Theater 2012)
Co-composer/co-lyricist The Sparkley Clean Funeral Singers (Richard Rogers Award Finalist, Eugene O'Neill Musical Theatre Conference Semi-finalist, produced at Capital Rep) Musical Theater awards: for Son of a Gun, Georgia Bogardus Holof Lyricist award. Television: Private Practice, Pretty Little Liars, One Tree Hill.