Photo Flash: YEAR ZERO Hits Victory Gardens As Part Of Ignition Festival 9/11 Thru 10/25

Victory Gardens' most daring new play development projects in 36 years, Ignition boasts overlapping world premieres of a pair of fresh new plays by two of America's fastest rising playwrights: Year Zero by Michael Golamco, and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz.

Ignition actually began in spring 2008, when 120 writers of color under 40 answered Victory Gardens' nationwide call to submit new scripts for the first phase of the festival. The top six plays were selected, workshopped, and presented as staged readings in an incredibly well received, weeklong festival last summer, curated by Victory Gardens Associate Artistic Director Sandy Shinner.

Ignition truly catches on fire this fall, first with Michael Golamco's Year Zero, an intimate family drama about a Cambodian family in modern-day California, September 11-October 18, 2009. Fueling even more excitement for Ignition, Year Zero has the added distinction of being the debut show in Victory Gardens new, 120-seat Studio Theater, now in the final phase of construction on the second floor of the Biograph. Press opening for Year Zero is Monday, September 21 at 7:30 pm.

Related new play readings, industry panels, the late night Spark Plug party on October 9, and the opportunity to invite producing theaters to visit Chicago for a wider viewing of the playwrights' work promise to make Ignition Chicago's hottest theater ticket next fall, and the culmination of a new play festival of national acclaim.

The Victory Gardens Biograph Theater is located at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Single tickets for both Ignition world premieres are on sale now, for $30-$48. Five-play subscriptions to Victory Gardens' 2009-2010 season start at only $80, and can include one or both Ignition plays. To inquire about tickets or subscriptions, call the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater box office, 773.871.3000 or visit victorygardens.org. The Ignition Festival is sponsored in part by the Chicago Community Trust.

YEAR ZERO is by Michael Golamco and directed by Andrea J. Dymond. It runs from September 11 - October 25, 2009.

Vuthy Vichea is a 16-year-old Cambodian American. He loves hip-hop and Dungeons and Dragons. He is a weird kid in a place where weirdness can be fatal: Long Beach, California. And since his best friend moved and his mother died, the only person he can talk to is a human skull he keeps hidden in a cookie jar.

Sharp, funny, and packing an emotional wallop, Year Zero is a touching family drama about being chased across an ocean by death, standing firm, and confronting it head on. An Ignition Festival standout last spring, Year Zero also won the Grand Prize of Chicago Dramatists' Many Voices Project, subsequently won the Pacific Century Playwriting Competition at East-West Players, and was a finalist at the 2009 Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference.

This touching family drama promises to be wonderful pick for Victory Gardens' first world premiere in its intimate new Studio Theater. Previews of Year Zero are September 11-20: Tuesday through Thursday at 7 pm; Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm; Sunday at 3:30 pm. Previews are $30 - $37. Press opening is Monday, September 21 at 7:30 pm. Regular performances are September 23-October 18: Tuesday through Thursday at 7 pm; Friday at 7:30 pm; Saturday at 4 pm and 7:30 pm; Sunday at 3:30 pm. Performances are $37-$48. Added matinees are Wednesday, October 7 and 14 at 2 pm. No evening performance Tuesday, September 22 or September 29. Ask the box office about student, senior, Access, rush and "10 @ $20" discount offers.

Photo Credit: Lola Farragut