La MaMa To Host NEW VOICES HEARD Open House 2/18, 2/19

By: Feb. 11, 2009
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On February 18 and 19, La MaMa will host an open house, "New Voices Heard," featuring a sampling of eight plays that were developed during the summer of 2008 in the La MaMa Umbria International Playwrights Retreat. This free event will take place at La MaMa La Galleria, 6 East First Street, Manhattan (between Second Avenue and Bowery), Manhattan. Admission is free. Excerpts of eight plays will be presented. Seven will be staged readings and one will be fully acted.

La MaMa Umbria International, organized by Mia Yoo and David Diamond, has offered a directors' symposium since 2000 and added a developmental writers' workshop in 2007. The writer's program is a manifestation of La MaMa's historic commitment to "the playwright and all aspects of the theater," as founder Ellen Stewart routinely reminds audiences in her curtain speeches. The 2008 workshop, from which all these plays originated, was led by master writer Niaomi Ilizuka. This presentation is the brainchild of the participating playwrights, who were so energized by the experience that they clamored for La MaMa's support in taking their plays "to the next level." The project coordinator is Raquel Almazán, a playwright originally from Madrid of Costa Rican descent, who has lived much of her life in the States and is now an emerging interdisciplinary artist.

La MaMa's annual directors' and writers' workshops are held in the 700-year-old monastery in Spoleto, Italy that La MaMa founder/artistic director Ellen Stewart converted into a spacious artists' retreat after receiving a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant in 1986. Last summer's writers hailed from Chicago, New York, California, Toronto, Pittsburgh and Italy. The plays that evolved at the workshop were as diverse as their origins. Reuniting in New York, the group celebrates the spirit of creating in an ancient locale, rejoicing in life's rituals together and exploring unchartered theatrical territory.

Each excerpt will run about 30 minutes and the evenings are programmed to run slightly more than two hours, with intermissions.

For more information on the La MaMa Umbria International Playwrights Retreat, please visit www.lamama.org.

 


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