South Coast Repertory Announces 2011 Pacific Playwrights Festival Lineup

South Coast Repertory's 14th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival (PPF) will take you through time and across the map, from tornado-tossed Kansas to not-quite-past, not-quite-future London, from a ramshackle trailer in the Colorado desert to the visiting area of a Massachusetts prison.

The festival, which takes place April 29 - May 1, will feature fully-produced world premieres by Itamar Moses and Lauren Gunderson and staged readings of brand-new works by Sharr White, Catherine Trieschmann, Octavio Solis and Adam Gwon, Meg Miroshnik and Steven Drukman.

"The plays of this year's festival are stylistically diverse and exciting," said festival co-director Kelly Miller, "including a powerful new musical collaboration between playwright Octavio Solis and composer Adam Gwon, an inventive drama about the end of theatre by emerging playwright Meg Miroshnik, compelling dramatic stories from Sharr White and Catherine Trieschmann, and Steven Drukman's quirky family comedy set in the Down the Lake section of Boston."

Since its creation in 1998, PPF has grown into one of the leading festivals of new plays in the country, devoted to showcasing some of the best new work on our radar, in hopes of generating lively conversation, future world premieres and subsequent productions for myriad playwrights. Over the years, the festival has helped launch some of the most prominent plays in the American theatre, including Donald Margulies' Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel, Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics, Rolin Jones' The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow and David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole, among many others.

Anchoring the 14th annual Pacific Playwrights Festival are productions of Silent Sky, a beautiful historical drama based on the life of turn-of-the-century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, and Itamar Moses' Completeness, a comedy about two graduate students who find that love is the most complicated algorithm of all.

The festival kicks off Friday afternoon with Steven Drukman's The Prince of Atlantis, also featured in January's NewSCRipts reading. Funny and full of surprises, it finds an imprisoned seafood importer trying to manage the sudden appearance of the son he gave up for adoption 30 years earlier.

Following that are two very different plays that are both interested in the uneasy relationships between religion and government. In How the World Began, veteran Catherine Trieschmann explores a modern-day dust-up over evolution in a Midwestern school. And in The Droll, newcomer Meg Miroshnik's imagines a ragtag troupe attempting to organize a secret performance of Hamlet in a world in which theatre has been outlawed.

Saturday morning brings a new SCR-commissioned work by Sharr White. Annapurna, which takes its name from one of the world's highest mountains, investigates the relationship between a dying, reclusive poet and his ex-wife, who re-appears at his trailer doorstep just as suddenly as she disappeared 20 years earlier.

Things conclude on Sunday with something of a PPF rarity: a new musical titled Cloudlands. Written by Octavio Solis, who gave us La Posada Magica, and Adam Gwon, who made a big splash last season with his musical Ordinary Days, Cloudlands is a play about family secrets and deadly desires.

The Pacific Playwrights Festival is made possible with support from The Shubert Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pacific Playwrights Festival Honorary Producers (Sophie and Larry Cripe, Yvonne and Damien Jordan, John and Sue Murphy, Thomas B. Rogers and Sarah J. Anderson, and Linda and Tod White). Special thanks to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust and The Edgerton Foundation for supporting the development of new plays.

The Wyndham Orange County Hotel is the Official Hotel of the Pacific Playwrights Festival.

TICKET PRICES for the 14th Pacific Playwrights Festival are $12 per individual reading, and $31-$66 for Silent Sky and Completeness. The festival runs April 29-May 1. Tickets can be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or in person at the SCR box office.

(Please note: Theater professionals interested in attending the festival should contact Kimberly Colburn at (714) 708-5841 or kimberly@scr.org. A special festival package consisting of one ticket to each of the seven events is available.)

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.

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 programs, including the Pacific Playwrights Festival. Of SCR's more than 450 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.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Lauren Gunderson received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch, her BFA from Emory, and is an NYU Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her play Emilie was commissioned and premiered at SCR in 2009, and has now been published by Samuel French. Fire Work was developed at The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, and is a 2011 finalist for Aurora Theatre Company's Global Age Project. Her 2011 three-city rolling world premiere of Exit, Pursued By A Bear includes Synchronicity Theatre, Crowded Fire and ArtsWest Theatre. She is currently developing a musical with Harry Connick, Jr. and John Rando. She has developed plays with Second Stage Theatre and Primary Stages in NYC, New Repertory Theatre in Boston, Playwrights Foundation, Crowded Fire, Aurora Theatre Company and Magic Theatre in San Francisco, Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, Actor's Express and Horizon Theatre Co. in Atlanta, JAW/West in Portland, WordBRIDGE and Brave New Works, among others. She received a Sloan Science Script Award (2008) for her screenplay Grand Unification. She teaches and speaks on the intersection of science and theatre, and writes for The Huffington Post.

Itamar Moses is the author of the full-length plays Outrage, Bach at Leipzig (produced at SCR in 2006),Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets, Back Back Back and The Den, a collection of short plays titled Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used to It), as well as various one-acts. He is presently adapting Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude for the stage with composer Michael Friedman and director Daniel Aukin. His work has appeared Off-Broadway and at regional theatres across the country, in Canada, France and Brazil; has been published by Faber & Faber, Heinemann Press, Playscripts Inc., Samuel French and Vintage. He has received new play commissions from McCarter Theatre Center, Playwrights Horizons, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Wilma Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory and Lincoln Center Theater. He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and has taught playwriting at Yale and NYU. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, MCC's Playwriting Coalition, Naked Angels Mag 7, and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. He was born in Berkeley and now lives in Brooklyn.

Steven Drukman is thrilled to return to the Pacific Playwrights Festival, where his play Truth and Beauty was presented in 2002. His play The Bullet Round-read as part of South Coast Repertory's NewSCRipts-received its world premiere at Arena Stage in Portland, Oregon, in 2009. His newest play, The Innocents, premiered this month at Asolo Repertory Theatre. In This Corner (on the Louis/Schmeling bouts) premiered January 2008 at The Old Globe and won the Critics' Circle "Best New Play" award. Other produced plays: Another Fine Mess (Portland Center Stage, Pulitzer Prize Nomination for Drama, 2003), Going Native (Long Wharf Theatre), Flattery Will Get You (Connecticut Repertory Theatre), Collateral Damage (Illusion Theater, Minneapolis) and Snowmaiden (Bob Hope Theatre, Dallas). Drukman's work has been developed by Mark Taper Forum, Intiman Theatre, Sundance Theatre Lab, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Lark Play Development Center and many others. Awards: Edgerton Award for New Plays, Craig Noel Award, Paul Green Award, Alfred P. Sloan Award, Ovid Foundation, and Boston Theatre Works. Other writing: The New York Times, The Village Voice, The International Herald Tribune, The Nation and others. He is the former senior editor of American Theatre magazine. Drukman teaches playwriting at NYU.

Adam Gwon was named one of "50 to Watch" by The Dramatist magazine and won the 2008 Fred Ebb Award for excellence in musical theater songwriting. Gwon's projects include Ordinary Days (Roundabout, South Coast Repertory, London's West End), as well as the upcoming The Boy Detective Fails (book: Joe Meno) and Bernice Bobs Her Hair (book/lyrics: Julia Jordan). His other honors include the ASCAP Harold Adamson award, the MAC John Wallowitch award and a MAC award nomination for best song, as well as commissions from South Coast Repertory, Signature Theatre, Broadway Across America, and the EST/Sloan Project. Recordings: Ordinary Days (Ghostlight Records). Fellowships: MacDowell Colony, Dramatists Guild. Education: NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Meg Miroshnik's plays include The Tall Girls and The Recessions are Coming!. Her work has been produced by Perishable Theatre, Yale Cabaret, Brown University's New Plays Festival; developed by South Coast Repertory, WordBRIDGE, A.R.T. Institute, The Powerhouse Theater; and published in Best American Short Plays, 2008-2009 (Applause, 2010). Her play The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls is the winner of the 2011-2012 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award and will be produced by ALLIANCE THEATRE in February 2012. She is the recipient of a commission from South Coast Repertory and was a Visiting Instructor in Theater at Wesleyan University during the Fall 2010 semester. Meg is currently an MFA candidate at the Yale School of Drama (graduation expecTed May 2011), studying playwriting under Paula Vogel.

Octavio Solis is a playwright and director living in San Francisco. His works Lydia, June in a Box, Lethe, Marfa Lights, Gibraltar, The Ballad of Pancho and Lucy, The 7 Visions of Encarnacion, Bethlehem, Dreamlandia, El Otro, Man of the Flesh, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, and La Posada Mágica have been mounted at Yale Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company, Dallas Theater Center, Magic Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, South Coast Repertory Theatre, San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Shadowlight Productions, Venture Theatre, Latino Chicago Theatre Company, Summer Play Festival, Teatro Vista in Chicago, El Teatro Campesino, Undermain Theatre, Thick Description, Campo Santo, Imua! Theatre Company, and Cornerstone Theatre Company. His collaborative works include Burning Dreams, co-written with Julie Hebert and Gina Leishman; Shiner, written with Erik Ehn; and Great Highway, written with Wendy Weiner. Solis has received an NEA 1995-97 Playwriting Fellowship, the Roger L. Stevens award from The Kennedy Center, the Will Glickman Playwright Award, a production grant from The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the 1998 TCG/NEA Theatre Artists in Residence Grant, the 1998 McKnight Fellowship grant from the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and the National Latino Playwriting Award for 2003. He is the recipient of the 2000-2001 National Theatre Artists ResidenCy Grant from TCG and the Pew Charitable Trust for Gibraltar at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Solis is a Thornton Wilder Fellow for the MacDowell Colony, a New Dramatists alum, and a member of the Dramatists Guild. Prospect is an independent feature film which he wrote and directed.

Catherine Trieschmann's plays include The Bridegroom of Blowing Rock (Weissberger Award), crooked, The World of Others, Hot Georgia Sunday and Small and Selfish Creatures. Her work has been produced Off-Broadway at Women's Project & Productions, the Bush Theatre (London), the New Theatre (Sydney), American Theatre Co., Florida Stage, Summer Play Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Theatre In The Square, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, FringeNYC. It has been developed with Manhattan Theatre Club, Lark Play Development Center, LAByrinth Theatre Co., Williamstown Theatre Festival, Florida Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, and Dallas Theater Center. She has received commissions from South Coast Repertory and Manhattan Theatre Club. Her work is published by Samuel French, Methuen, Smith & Kraus and is featured in The Best New Playwrights of 2009. She also wrote the screenplay for the film Angel's Crest, featuring Jeremy Piven and Kate Walsh. Originally from Athens, Georgia, she currently resides in a small town in western Kansas.

Sharr White's plays have been developed or produced at theatres across the country, including Actors Theatre of Louisville, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Marin Theatre Company, Lincoln Center Theater's Directors Lab, Key West Theatre Festival, and South Coast Repertory. White's The Other Place is just finishing its world premiere Off-Broadway with MCC Theatre, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Laurie Metcalf. The Other Place is a recipient of the 2010 Playwrights First Award and the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation's Theatre Visions Fund Award. White's Sunlight was a South Coast Repertory commission, appeared at the 2008 Pacific Playwrights Festival, and was subsequently the recipient of the 2009 Skye Cooper New American Play Prize as well as a National New Play Network rolling world premiere, with productions at Marin Theatre Company (premiere), Seattle's ArtsWest, Phoenix Theatre, and New Jersey Repertory Company. White's Six Years was produced at the 30th Anniversary Humana Festival of New American Plays and was the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. Annapurna is White's second commission from South Coast Repertory.

14TH ANNUAL PACIFIC PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL LINEUP

Fully-Produced World Premieres

SILENT SKY
by Lauren Gunderson
directed by Anne Justine D'Zmura
(Previews April 1 - 7; Runs April 8 - May 1 on the Segerstrom Stage)

PPF Schedule:
Friday, April 29, at 8 p.m. ; Saturday, April 30, at 2:30 & 8 p.m.; Sunday, May 1, at 2:30 p.m.

In the early 1900s, women astronomers weren't taken seriously. But when Henrietta Leavitt studied the stars, what she found there altered her life-and changed our universe forever.

COMPLETENESS
by Itamar Moses
directed by Pam MacKinnon
(Previews April 17 - 21; Runs April 22 - May 8 on the Julianne Argyros Stage)

PPF Schedule:
Friday, April 29, at 7:45 p.m.; Saturday, April 30, at 2 & 7:45 p.m.; Sunday, May 1, at 2 & 7:45 p.m.

Megabytes and microbes collide in a 21st century romantic comedy about the timeless confusions of love.

Staged Readings

(schedule subject to change)

THE PRINCE OF ATLANTIS
by Steven Drukman

Friday, April 29, at 1 p.m. on the Segerstom Stage

Joey is a successful businessman. His brother Kevin has never amounted to anything. But the tables begin to turn when Joey goes to jail just as his long-lost son turns up.

HOW THE WORLD BEGAN
by Catherine Trieschmann

Friday, April 29, at 3:30 p.m. on the Julianne Argyros Stage

Folks in Plainview, Kansas, get up in arms when a new teacher, a transplant from New York City, makes an offhand comment in her biology class-about the origins of life.

THE DROLL
{Or, a Stage-Play about the END of Theatre}
by Meg Miroshnik

Friday, April 29, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, April 30, at 2:30 & 8 p.m. in the Nicholas Studio

In a world where theatre has been banned by government edict-where zealots rule with an iron fist-young Nim Dullyn sets out to reclaim the art of the stage for himself-and the world.

ANNAPURNA
by Sharr White

Saturday, April 30, at 10:30 a.m. on the Julianne Argyros Stage

Out of friends, out of luck, and out of time, Ulysses is resigned to spending the remaining weeks of his life in solitude until Emma walks in...much as she walked out 20 years ago.

CLOUDLANDS
Book by Octavio Solis
Music by Adam Gwon
Lyrics by Octavio Solis and Adam Gwon

Sunday, May 1, at 10:30 a.m. on the Segerstrom Stage

The mystery of her mother's secret life leads a young woman to become lost in the labyrinth of her own heart in this stunning new musical drama about desire and its transgressions.