HAMILTON MIXTAPE, FOUND & More Included in 2013 Powerhouse Season!

New York Stage and Film (Johanna Pfaelzer, Artistic Director; Thomas Pearson, Executive Director; Mark Linn-Baker, Max Mayer, Leslie Urdang, Producing Directors) and Vassar College (Ed Cheetham, Producing Director) have announced the line-up of their 2013 Powerhouse Theater Season, which includes new works from actor, writer and prolific, Grammy Award-winning musician Steve Martin and Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Broadway'sIn the Heights, among many others. The 2013 Powerhouse Theater Season runs from June 21st - July 28th at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York), and a full calendar and description of events are below. Casting is underway and will be announced shortly.

"The 2013 season has the wide variety of voices and perspectives that Powerhouse is known for," says Artistic Director Johanna Pfaelzer. "Some of the artists are household names, and some our audiences will encounter for the first time. Much of this year's work is rooted in a specific time and place - New York City in the 1970s, the Blue Ridge Mountains after World War II, even a superhero's secret hide-out. But these stories have a universal quality that transcends their time and place. That's something made possible by an artist's singular vision, and we are thrilled to welcome this extraordinary group this summer."

The 2013 season will include fully staged productions of new plays by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld and Mozhan Marnò, as well as two exciting musical workshops: the Steve Martin & Edie Brickell collaboration Bright Star (featuring music from their newly released recording "Love Has Come For You"), directed by Tony Award-winnerWalter Bobbie (Chicago); and A new musical inspired by The Brooklyn Hero Supply Company, music and lyrics by Peter Lerman, book by Simon Rich, based on characters created by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, directed by Tony Award-winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening). In addition, there will be readings of Lin-Manuel Miranda's newest work The Hamilton Mixtape, which reunites the In the Heights creator with director Thomas Kail and musical director Alex Lacamoire; and Yellow Kingdom by Emmy Award winning actress and playwright Patricia Wettig (F2M). The season will also include developmental workshops of two additional plays, two week-long Readings Festivals, and free outdoor theater presented by the Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Company.

"Each summer we are given another incredible opportunity to welcome a wide range of theatrical artists both established and new. We nurture each project just as we nurture each student in the training program, preparing him or her for the next step of his or her journey," said Producing Director, Ed Cheetham.

The full season which runs June 21-July 28 is as follows:

June 26 - July 7
DOWNTOWN RACE RIOT
By Seth Zvi Rosenfeld
Directed by Scott Elliot

There's a riot on in Washington Square Park and a motley band of feckless, funny young men are spoiling for a fight. Against this backdrop of tribal loyalties and petty beefs, 18-year old Pnut McPartland has to pick sides and hustle his family and his friends just to stay alive. Seth Zvi Rosenfeld (The Flatted Fifth, Servy-n-Bernice 4ever; HBO's "How To Make it in America") and director Scott Elliott (Hurlyburly, Mike Leigh's Ecstacy) bring us this electric portrait of a city and a boy in crisis.

July 17 - 28
WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT
By Mozhan Marnò
Directed by Kate Whoriskey

On the night of the Northeast blackout of 2003, six New Yorkers connect through interwoven stories. In the darkness, two strangers fall in love during an epic walk across Manhattan; an older couple marooned in their apartment must finally grapple with their past; and a conflicted Iraqi immigrant makes her way across the Brooklyn Bridge chasing memories of her lost son and her homeland through The Shadows. Mozhan Marnò will be joined for her playwriting debut by director Kate Whoriskey (world premieres of Ruined, The Piano Teacher, Fabulation).

July 12 -14BRIGHT STAR
Music by Edie Brickell and Steve Martin
Lyrics by Edie Brickell
Book by Steve Martin
Based on an original story by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell
Directed by Walter Bobbie

Renowned actor/playwright/composer Steve Martin and iconoclastic musician Edie Brickell (The New Bohemians) join with the Tony Award-winning director of Chicago and Venus in Fur tobring to life a stirring story set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The story takes us between 1945 and 1922, as a young man returns from war and uncovers hidden yearnings and dark secrets about his past. Features a live bluegrass score including songs from Brickell and Martin's new album "Love Has Come for You."

July 26 - 28
A NEW MUSICAL Inspired by the Brooklyn Hero Supply Company
Music and Lyrics by Peter Lerman
Book by Simon Rich
Based on Characters Created by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman
Directed by Michael Mayer

Trey Swieskowski, an idealistic young Brooklynite, fantasizes about becoming a superhero. Meanwhile, Astrolass (AKA "Astroman's daughter") is desperate to pack in her cape and escape the burden of her father's legacy. When the two of them cross paths, they hatch a plan to change their lives forever. Director Michael Mayer (Side Man, American Idiot, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) returns to Powerhouse to develop this exciting new pop musical.

July 12-14
FOUND
Book by Hunter Bell & Lee Overtree
Music & Original Lyrics by Eli Bolin
Based on the Found books and magazines by Davy Rothbart
Additional Material Created in Collaboration with Story Pirates
Directed by Lee Overtree

Based on Davy Rothbart's popular Found magazine, comes a new musical comedy about the things we've lost and the ways they bring us together. Tony-nominated bookwriter Hunter Bell ([title of show]) joins composer/lyricist Eli Bolin to create the semi-autobiographical account of Davy's life and loves as he performs around the country and imagines the stories behind the discarded notes, diaries, love letters, to-do lists, photographs - anything that is a glimpse into someone else's life. When Davy meets and falls for Kate, a schoolteacher, he is forced to choose between his wild existence on the road and a life with her. Found explores not just the things, but the people we find in life and proves we all have stories worth telling.

July 19 - 21
MOTHER OF INVENTION
By James Lecesne
Directed by Michael Wilson

When Dottie Rupp's children come to move her into assisted living, they end up having to deal with more baggage than just her Samsonite. As her memory fails and the truth about her life blurs, a mysterious stranger arrives and the Rupps face big questions: was Dottie more or less than they imagined her to be? How do we go on living after our own stories have disappeared? And where do we look for new ones? A warm-hearted comedy from the Emmy-nominated writer of Further Tales of the City, Word of Mouth, and the film Trevor, and director Michael Wilson (Broadway's The Trip to Bountiful and Gore Vidal's The Best Man).

Readings Festival at Susan Stein Shiva Theater

THE HAMILTON MIXTAPE by Lin-Manuel Miranda with Music Direction by Alex Lacamoire, directed by Thomas Kail

IDYLLWILD by Patrick Burleigh

KINSHIP by Carey Perloff, directed by Maria Mileaf

PETTY HARBOUR by Martyna Majok

SWIMMERS by Rachel Bonds

YELLOW KINGDOM by Patricia Wettig

Please note: Additional works-in-progress will be announced shortly.

The Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Program Public Performances

Soundpainting:
Thursday July 4, 11, 18, 25 at 6pm.
Part of "Late Night at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center")LOOK DON'T LOOK

A devised performance about how we pay attention, created for the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center by Tomi Tsunoda with members of the Apprentice Company. The performance is created in part through the language of Soundpainting, the multidisciplinary sign language used for live composition, created by Walter Thompson.

Performances of the Classics:

At the Vassar Farm & Ecological Preserve (rain location: Matthew's Mug, College Center, Main Building)

July 5-8 at 6:30pm
AGAMEMNON
By Aeschylus
Directed by Mark Lindberg

July 12-15 at 6:30pm
BLOOD WEDDING
By Federico Garcia Lorca
Directed by Emily Mendelsohn

July 19-22 at 6:30pm
AS YOU LIKE IT
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Drew Cortese

Subscriptions to the 2013 Powerhouse Theater Season are available online beginning May 15, with single tickets available online on June 5 athttp://powerhouse.vassar.edu/boxoffice. The Powerhouse Theater box office on the Vassar College campus (124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY) opens June 12: (845) 437-5599 or PHTBoxOffice@vassar.edu.

Powerhouse Theater is a collaboration between Vassar College and New York Stage and Film dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of new works for theater and film. The Powerhouse program consists of an eight-week residency on the Vassar campus during which more than 250 professional artists and 40 apprentices live and work together to create new theater works. Many shows from past seasons have found their way to Broadway, Off-Broadway, and theaters nationwide, including Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet (Roundabout Theater); Seminar by Theresa Rebeck (Golden Theater); Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash's Murder Ballad (Manhattan Theater Club, Union Square Theater); Pulitzer finalist Nathan Englander's The Twenty-Seventh Man (The Public Theater); andStorefront Church, John Patrick Shanley's final installment to his "Church and State" trilogy that began with Doubt (Atlantic Theatre Company). Other projects developed at the Powerhouse include the Tony Award-winning Side Man and Tru; the multi-award-winning Doubt; the groundbreaking Broadway musical American Idiot, and A Steady Rain, produced on Broadway in 2009 with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. Each summer Vassar and New York Stage and Film also collaborate on the Powerhouse Theater Training Program, one of the country's leading theater immersion programs for young artists. The program brings together 40-50 participants from across the country to form the Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Company. They are current college and high school students and recent graduates, who over six weeks on the Vassar campus study a discipline (acting, directing, or writing), create their own work, and assist the professional productions of the Powerhouse season. The result of a unique collaboration between New York Stage and Film and Vassar College, the Powerhouse program consists of an eight-week residency on the Vassar campus during which more than 250 professional artists and 40 apprentices live and work together to create new theater works.

New York Stage and Film is the not-for-profit company dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development of new works for theater and film. Since 1985 New York Stage and Film has played a significant role in the development of new plays, provided a home for a diverse group of artists free from critical and commercial pressures and established itself as a vital cultural institution for residents of the Hudson Valley and the New York metropolitan region. For more information, visitwww.newyorkstageandfilm.org/.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1861. Consistently ranked as one of the country's best liberal arts colleges, Vassar is renowned for its long history of curricular innovation, and for the natural and architectural beauty of its campus. More than 50 academic departments and degree programs - from Anthropology to Cognitive Sciences to Urban Studies - encompass the arts, foreign languages, natural sciences, and social services, and combine to offer a curriculum of more than 1,000 courses. Vassar College is sited in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley in Poughkeepsie, NY. www.vassar.edu

Powerhouse Theater Training Program is the educational component of the Powerhouse season. 40-50 student apprentices from across the country come together to form the Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Company. These young artists - current students, recent graduates, and future theater professionals - are provided with a distinctive opportunity to create their own work as well as work on the development of theater and musical productions headed for Broadway and top-ranked theaters nation-wide. This educational experience is not replicated anywhere else in the country.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos