Fifth Annual Colorado New Play Summit Opens This Week

Preparations are being finalized and excitement is building as the Denver Center Theatre Company prepares to welcome nearly 300 theatre professionals and press representatives from across the nation to Denver and the 2010 Colorado New Play Summit this weekend.

In just four seasons, the nation's youngest major new play festival has premiered nine full productions, read 20 new plays, and presented panel discussions on the subjects of new voices for women, crossing cultures, writing for the stage and television, and what's next in new play development. New plays commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company for the Summit have been produced Off-Broadway and at major regional theatres from Yale Repertory Theatre to the Center Theatre Group's Mark Taper Forum, and have been among the finalists for some of the nation's most prestigious new play awards.

Centerpiece of the fifth annual Summit are the commissioned world premieres of When Tang Met Laika by Rogelio Martinez - the love story imaginatively set on the International Space Station and Eventide by Eric Schmiedl based on the novel by Kent Haruf - the company's signature poignant story of Holt, Colorado and the companion piece to the critically-acclaimed play Plainsong (commissioned and premiered by the Denver Center Theatre Company in 2008). In addition, four playwrights will hear two readings of their new works in development: Caridad Svich based her new play on Isabel Allende's novel The House of the Spirits, looking at four generations of political and social upheavals through the powerful lens of memory. Michele Lowe (Inana) introduces Map of Heaven, a contemporary drama with tragic undertones, exploring the devastating consequences of a single lapse in judgment. In Ken Weitzman's The Catch, America's national pastime meets America's financial meltdown when a failed dot-commer plots to regain his fortune by catching a star slugger's record-breaking home run ball. And Jason Grote (1001) interweaves a giant pig on the rampage, mass choreography, Washington and Jefferson selling snacks to the inner city and the search for love and meaning in Civilization (All You Can Eat).

A highlight of the fifth annual Summit is the mid-winter meeting of the American Theatre Critics Association with theatre reporters from Chicago Public Radio, Salt Lake Tribune,
Miami Herald, Albuquerque Journal, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Chicago Tribune, Pittsfield Gazette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and many of the nation's top theatre websites. National Theatre philanthropist Jim Steinberg of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust will moderate a discussion of "New Works and the Critics" with four ATCA members - Christine Dolen from The Miami Herald, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins editor of Best Plays Theatrical Yearbook, Chris Jones from The Chicago Tribune and Christopher Rawson from The Pittsburgh Post - Gazette.

Theatre professionals scheduled to participate in the Summit February 11 -13 include artistic directors, literary managers, agents, actors, dramaturgs and directors. They represent: Utah Shakespearean Festival; New York's Lark Play Development Center, Primary Stages, Chautaqua Theatre Company and Clubbed Thumb; California's Cornerstone Theatre, TheatreWorks, Center Theatre Group and Native Voices at the Autry; Philadelphia's Arden Theatre Company; Chicago Dramatists; and Denver's Paragon Theatre and Buntport Theatre.

For more information visit www.denvercenter.org/summit.

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