The Drama League Unveils Details for 2019 Fall Series

The Drama League has announced its 2019 Fall Series, including new play readings, open rehearsals, master workshops and conversations with America's leading stage directors, to be held at The Drama League Theater Center (32 Avenue of the Americas) in Tribeca; as well as dates for its 37th city-wide festival, Directorfest 2020.

To reserve seats for any of the events in the 2019 Fall Series, please visit: dramaleague.org/events.

2019 DRAMA LEAGUE FALL SERIES
All events held at
The Drama League Theater Center,
32 Avenue of the Americas

MASTER WORKSHOP:
FINANCIAL WELLNESS FOR ARTISTS
AND ARTS PROFESSIONALS

General Admission: $5
Drama League Alumni, SDC/Equity/Directors Gathering Members: Free
Featuring Darren Sussan, Founder, Institute for Financial Wellness in the Arts
and Co-Founder of TheaterMania and Ovation Tix

Let's face it: theater artists sometimes find the resources, skills, and knowledge to master their own financial well-being hard to come by. In this informative talk by some of the field's leading financial experts -- led by Darren Sussan, the Co-Founder of TheaterMania and OvationTix who now leads the nonprofit Institute for Financial Wellness in the Arts (IFWA) -- participants can discover common mistakes and get the facts about long-term financial success as an artist or arts professional, learn valuable tips on smart financial planning, practice smart saving & protection strategies, pension facts, and take action for a successful financial future.

NOSEJOB

Created and Directed by
2019 Drama League Resident Director Nell Bang-Jensen

Friday, October 4, 2019 at 3:00 p.m.
General Admission: Free

Nell Bang-Jensen, the recently-announced artistic director of Philadelphia's Horizon Theatre, leads a work-in-progress showing of this arresting new play. Charting 12 centuries of consent, power, and penance, Nosejob looks at the future of seduction by revisiting heroines from a barbarous past. Three worlds fold into one another as we land in 9th Century Scotland, where a pack of rapacious Vikings threatens the nuns of a small abbey; in 2019 America, where a football team and a sorority house grapple with a new game; and the future, where a new kind of sexuality is finally possible. Nosejob asks fresh questions about why we glorify women who compensate for violent male behavior. Then it dares us to ask for more. Recipient of both the 2019 Drama League Next Stage Residency and the SPACE on Ryder Farm Creative Residency.

MASTER WORKSHOP:
INTIMACY DIRECTION WORKSHOP

with Claire Warden, Intimacy Directors International

Saturday, October 12, 2019 - Noon-4pm
OR
Sunday, October 13, 2019 - Noon-4pm

General Admission: $129.99
Drama League Members: $109.99
Drama League Alumni/SDC/Equity/DG Members: $99.99
Students: $84.99

The staging of intimacy is one of the most vital concerns in today's theatre. Claire Warden, the groundbreaking intimacy director whose work includes the first use of these principles and techniques on Broadway (in the recent revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and the current production of Slave Play), leads this informative workshop to show how theatre can build a consensual-based artistic workspace with the discipline of Intimacy Direction. Through a mix of exercises and discussions, participants will learn to understand, communicate, and advocate for respect, safety, and consent, and to create authentic and specific stories of intimacy. Guided by the base of IDI's Five Pillars, participants will learn tools and language to approach basic intimacy in communication and choreography. Ms. Warden is an intimacy director, fight director, teacher, and actress with twenty years of experience in theatre, TV, and film across America and the UK. Claire is an Intimacy Director and is the Intimacy Director Liaison with Intimacy Directors International and a founding member of Theatrical Intimacy (UK), where she is co-leading the introduction of intimacy direction to Great Britain. She has delivered workshops, presentations, and panels at Julliard, Yale, NYU, Cambridge University, HB Studios, Sonoma State and for conferences and theatre communities on both sides of the Atlantic, including the TBA and TCG annual conferences.

MASTER WORKSHOP:
UNIVERSES: TECHNOLOGY IN STORYTELLING

Thursday, October 24, 2019, Noon-6pm
Featuring UNIVERSES Co-Artistic Directors Mildren Ruiz-Sapp and Steven Sapp

Premium Seating: $45
General Admission: $139.99
Drama League/SDC/Equity/DG Members: $99.99
Drama League Alumni/Students: $79.99

The legendary OBIE, Bessie, Doris Duke and Kennedy Prize-nominated ensemble UNIVERSES is comprised of writers and performers of color who fuse theater, poetry, dance, jazz, hip hop, politics, down-home blues and Spanish boleros into moving and entertaining works for the stage that tour across the U.S. and internationally. In this rare workshop, artistic directors Mildred Ruiz-Sapp and Steven Sapp will share their creative practice with participants -- which is usable for directors, actors, writers, and designers -- to explore the ways cutting-edge technology can amplify the creative moment. Participants will make new work as part of the process, learning skills they can incorporate in their own practice.

-IKE: A Reading of the 2019 Beatrice Terry Residency Project_

Written and Directed by Molly Beach Murphy

Monday, November 4, 2019 at 3:00 p.m.
General Admission: Free

The powerful new play IKE, written and directed by 2019 Drama League Beatrice Terry Resident Director Molly Beach Murphy (Cowboy Bob), follows a father and daughter who wake up one morning and walk outside...to find their house is the only one left standing. IKE takes place just after a storm that devastated the Texas Gulf Coast in 2008, and follows survivors as they try to make sense of a town reduced to rubble, a collapsing US economy and the heartbreaking, surreal, funny, devastating nature of what happens when life gets washed away in an instant. The Beatrice Terry Residency funds the development of a new work by a female or female-identified writer-director, culminating in a residency and staged reading at The Drama League Theater Center.

MASTER WORKSHOP:
THE DIRECTORS PROJECT: AN APPLICATION WORKSHOP

Monday, December 16, 2019 at 5:30pm
General Admission: Free
Featuring Artistic Director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks

The Drama League Directors Project is a lifelong home for stage directors, where they can advance their careers, hone their artistry, and develop networks for success. Its award-winning Directing Fellowships and Directing Residencies offer financial support, professional guidance, assistantships, and opportunities to develop and direct artistic work. In this informative, insightful workshop, Artistic Director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks will offer a rare glimpse into the new selection criteria used to choose recipients, and offers personal advice for crafting a strong, competitive application.

DIRECTORFEST 2019

January 10 - February 4, 2020
Across New York City at the New Ohio Theatre, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, and The Drama League Theater Center
Featuring new productions directed by
NJ Agwuna, Chika Ike, Rebecca Marzalak-Kelly, Lindsey Hope Pearlman, and Ben Randle
The North American Premiere of Pure, conceived and directed by Christian Bakalov
and a new work-in-progress musical in concert, directed by Hannah Ryan

Now in its 37th year, Directorfest is the only festival in the United States exploring the art of Contemporary Stage directing. The fellows featured in DirectorFest join the ranks of the illustrious 350+ alumni of The Drama League Directors Project, including Tony® Award winners Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown), Christopher Ashley (Come From Away), Rebecca Taichman (Indecent), Sam Gold (Fun Home), Diane Paulus (Jagged Little Pill, Waitress), Michael Mayer (Little Shop of Horrors), Pam MacKinnon (The Parisian Woman), John Rando (On The Town), Tony Award nominees Moritz von Steulpnagel (Bernhardt/Hamlet), Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge!, Beetlejuice), and Mark Brokaw (Heisenberg), to name only a few.

The Drama League of New York advances the American theater by providing a life-long artistic home for directors and a platform for dialogue with, and between, audiences. Since 1916, The Drama League has been at the forefront of the American theater community, with initiatives to promote artistic development and audience engagement. It is one of the nation's oldest continuously-operating, not-for-profit arts advocacy and education organizations. Through its programming, The Drama League serves over 3,000 artists and 15,000 audience members each season with over 150 events and programs.

The Drama League programming is made possible thanks to the generosity of our current supporters: Howard Gilman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Leo Shull Foundation for the Arts. Special thanks to the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting The Drama League. Drama League programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the *New York State Legislature.

More information can be found at www.dramaleague.org.