Pookie Goes Grenading Set For First NewSCRipts Reading of SCR’s 2010-11 Season

JC Lee's Pookie Goes Grenading will have a staged reading Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. as part of South Coast Repertory's NewSCRipts series. (Please note that the date has changed since the series was first announced.) Pookie is the 112th play to receive a staged reading in SCR's venerable play reading program.

It will be directed by Nick Avila, who helmed SCR's production of The Prince and the Pauper in 2007 and has directed at such theatres as Denver Center Theatre Company and Marin Theatre Company.

This irreverent comedy centers around Pookie Doublet, a fierce, ambitious 14-year-old. When Pookie is denied the opportunity to create her greatest work of art, all hell breaks loose in Camden, N.J. Pookie embarks on a chaotic quest to create a theatrical masterpiece-and before it's over she finds herself accused of terrorism, betrayal and terrible taste.

Lee is a playwright, blogger and current Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellow at The Juilliard School. A bi-coastal native New Yorker and San Franciscan, his work has been seen throughout the country in such theatres as Crowded Fire Theatre Company, Wordsmyth Theatre, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His trilogy about the apocalypse, This World and After, is currently in production at Sleepwalkers Theatre in San Francisco.

The annual NewSCRipts series of three Monday evening play readings by emerging and established playwrights was launched in 1985 as a way to bring the audience into the process of creating new work. After the readings, which take place on the Julianne Argyros Stage, audience members engage in lively exchanges with the playwright and become active participants in the play's development, providing invaluable feedback for the writer. Plays selected for the NewSCRipts series have earned six Pulitzer Prize nominations, with Margaret Edson's Wit winning the prize in 1999.

South Coast Repertory's NewSCRipts series of play readings is generously underwritten by Elaine J. Weinberg.
TICKETS to the NewSCRipts reading of Pookie Goes Grenading can be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or in person at the SCR box office. NewSCRipts tickets are $12 each and include audience discussions with the playwright and dramaturg.

LOCATION: South Coast Repertory is located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, at the Bristol Street/Avenue of the Arts exit off the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Folino Theatre Center, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Parking is available off Anton Blvd. on Park Center Drive.

COMING UP: Sideways Stories from Wayside School (Nov. 5 - 21), A Christmas Carol (Nov. 27 - Dec. 26).

ABOUT SCR: Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, under the artistic direction of David Emmes and Martin Benson, is widely recognized as one of the leading professional theaters in the United States. Founded in 1964, SCR is committed to theater that illuminates the compelling personal and social issues of our time, not only on its stages but through its education and outreach programs. While its productions represent a balance of classic and modern theater, SCR is renowned for its extensive new play development program, including the Pacific Playwrights Festival. Of SCR's more than 445 productions, 117 have been world premieres, with subsequent stagings achieving enormous success across America and around the world. SCR-developed works have garnered eight Pulitzer Prize nominations with Margaret Edson's Wit winning the prize in 1999 and David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole in 2007. Located in Costa Mesa, California, in 2002 SCR opened the Folino Theater Center, an expanded three-theater complex that includes the 507-seat Segerstrom Stage, the 336-seat Julianne Argyros Stage and the 94-seat Nicholas Studio.

 

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