AracaWorks Holds Readings for Plays by Kotis, Norman, et al., 12/6-10

AracaWorks is a five-day, five-play series celebrating new plays.  Each night, audiences will be treated to a reading of a new play at an early stage of development.  Araca's goal with this project is to present plays that have not yet received a fully realized production in New York City and to create a platform for the development of new plays and new voices.  AracaWorks will pair each playwright with a director and a group of New York actors.  The series will provide an outlet for playwrights to explore their material in a forum open to the public, yet safe from critical reviews.   
 
WHEN: December 6-10, 2010 @ 7:00PM
 
WHERE: The Black Box Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
111 West 46th Street,
New York, NY  10036 (between 6th and 7th avenues)
 
Admission is free and open to the public. 
Seating is limited.  Reservations are suggested and may be made online at www.aracaworks.com
Follow Twitter: @aracaworks (www.twitter.com/aracaworks)
 
Schedule of Readings
 
Monday: Lunchtime - written/directed by Greg Kotis
About Lunchtime: "Somebody's dirtying up the salad bars of New York. It'll take a dirty cop to find out who." 

Tuesday: Suicide, Incorporated - written by Andrew Hinderaker/directed by Doug Hughes
About Suicide, Incorporated: "It's been a tough week at work. Profits are down, lawsuits are up, and you totally forgot to bring something to staff potluck. Worst of all, your boss suspects that you're trying to ruin the company by keeping its clients alive." 

Wednesday: How the World Began - written by Catherine Trieschmann
About How the World Began: "When Manhattanite Susan Pierce accepts a job teaching biology in Plainview, Kansas, she's ready for more than a little culture shock, but she's not prepared for the violent controversy that seizes the town when she makes an off-handed comment about the origins of the universe." How the World Began was originally commissioned by Manhattan Theatre Club through the Alfred P. Sloan Institute.
 
Thursday: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys - written by Robert Zander Norman/directed by Lucie Tiberghien (Note: Winning Entry in the AracaWorks Undergraduate Playwriting Contest)
About My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys: "Clay, a nine-year-old boy, fantasizes about becoming a noble cowboy like his Wild West heroes from books and movies.  When he is confronted with schoolyard outlaws, he is forced to summon the strength of his idols in order to find out who he really is." 

Friday: Disgraced - written by Ayad Akhtar/directed by Will Frears

About Disgraced: "When Amir Randawa - an affluent Muslim-American lawyer married to the gorgeous (and white) Emily - finds out he's been passed up at his law firm for a partnership he's long been expecting, the wheels come off. Over the course of a single evening, the truism that whatever you deny in yourself will eventually surface and dominate you finds a particularly dramatic enactment." 

Creative Bios:
 
The Araca Group is a theatrical production and live event merchandising company.  As producers, Araca's credits include: Urinetown The Musical, Wicked,  Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, Boeing, Boeing, The Laramie Project, Debbie Does Dallas, The Vagina Monologues, The Scene, Fault Lines, The Wedding Singer, Match,  A View From the Bridge, and Lend Me a Tenor. As merchandisers, Araca's operations include productions on Broadway and throughout the world.
 
Playwrights:

Ayad Akhtar - Disgraced From Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ayad Akhtar is a graduate oF Brown University.  He spent a year working with world-renowned acting theorist and pioneer, Jerzy Grotowski (Towards a Poor Theater).?He has taught acting on his own and alongside Andre Gregory (My Dinner With Andre, Vanya on 42nd St) in New York City & Vienna, Austria for the past decade.  Also an alumnus of the Graduate Film Program at Columbia University, with a degree in directing, Akhtar's work at Columbia earned him the New York Documentary Center's Young Documentary Filmmakers' Award, an IFP Audience Choice Award and Programming Committee's Award for Best Film at the 2003 Columbia University Film Festival.  Author of numerous screenplays, including Child Soldier, based on world-renown activist China Keitetsi's true story, Ayad was star and co-writer of The War Within (HDNet Films, Mark Cuban), which was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay.??He is currently starring in HBO's film adaptation of Andrew R Sorkin's bestseller about the financial crisis, Too Big to Fail, alongside William Hurt, Billy Crudup, Paul Giamatti, And Cynthia Nixon. His first novel, American Dervish, is being published by Little, Brown in Fall of 2011, and is currently being translated into thirteen languages worldwide.

Andrew Hinderaker - Suicide, Incorporated

Andrew Hinderaker is the author of several plays, including Suicide, Incorporated, which premiered at Chicago's Gift Theatre in June 2010 to critical acclaim (Jeff Award Nomination - Best New Work). His new play, Kingsville, a finalist for the 2009 Woodward/Newman Drama Award, premiered at Chicago's Stage Left Theatre in October 2010. Hinderaker's plays have been developed and produced throughout his hometown of Chicago, at such theaters as Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens, American Theater Company, the side project, and Chicago Dramatists, where he is a Resident Playwright. Additional recognitions include Finalist/Semi-Finalist status at PlayLabs, the Austin Film Festival, the Princess Grace Award, the Heideman Award, and a nomination for the 2010 New Voices in American Playwriting Award.

Greg Kotis - Lunchtime
 
Greg Kotis is the author of many plays and musicals including Yeast Nation (Book/Lyrics), The Truth About Santa, Pig Farm, Eat the Taste, Urinetown (Book/Lyrics, for which he won an Obie and two Tony Awards), and Jobey and Katherine. Greg is a member of the Neo-Futurists, the Cardiff Giant Theater Company, ASCAP, and the Dramatists Guild. He grew up in Wellfleet, Massachusetts and now lives in Brooklyn with his wife Ayun Halliday, his daughter India, and his son Milo.
 
Robert Zander Norman - My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
Robert Zander Norman was born in Tokyo, Japan and raised in San Jose, California.  He is currently 20 years old, and a Junior in NYU's Dramatic Writing Department.  His short plays have previously been produced in San Jose, Santa Cruz and San Francisco.  When he was little, his hero was Shane McConkey.Catherine Trieschmann - How the World Began

Catherine Trieschmann's plays include The Bridegroom of Blowing Rock (L. Arnold Weissberger award), crooked, The World of Others, Hot Georgia Sunday, Small and Selfish Creatures, and How the World Began. Her work has been produced Off-Broadway at the Women's Project, the Bush Theatre (London), Florida Stage, the Summer Play Festival, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, Theatre in the Square, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the New York International Fringe Festival. It has been developed with LARK, LAByrinth, Williamstown, Florida Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, and the Dallas Theatre Center, among others. She has received commissions from South Coast Repertory Theatre and Manhattan Theatre Club. Her work is published by Samuel French, Methuen, and Smith & Kraus, as well as featured in The Best New Playwrights of 2009. She also wrote the screenplay for the film Waska (First Snow), featuring Jeremy Piven and Kate Walsh. Originally from Athens, Georgia, she currently resides in a small town in western Kansas.
 
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