20-Year-Old ZK Lowenfels Becomes Youngest Female Playwright in U.S. with SEWER RATS AT SEA Debut
Twenty year-old prodigy, ZK Lowenfels (known as 'Z') became the youngest female playwright in the country this week with her debut Sewer Rats at Sea- which premiered at the fourth annual Hollywood Fringe Festival on June 16th.
The daring genre-bending production is a playfully crooked cross between clever bar banter and a JD Salinger novel, exploring what happens when a stowaway sneaks aboard a yacht and falls for a stunning woman whose wit matches his own. The drama plays out at sea as characters, trapped, find their secrets slipping out. The tension mounts as one final, all-important secret looms ahead, a truth that will shipwreck the status quo and cast preconceptions into freezing water.
Stylistically inspired by her great-grandfather, avant-garde poet Walter Lowenfels, and some of his friends and fellow troublemakers (Beckett and Henry Miller, among others), Z debuts as the youngest female American playwright.
Produced by Gia Vangieri, and directed by veteran and award winning Fringe director Aaron Lyons (Pulp Shakespeare, Rise), Sewer Rats at Sea opened to a packed theater on Sunday based on amazing word-of-mouth from the show's preview the week before.
The festival features emerging artists in a variety of venues. Performances are self-produced by local, national and international arts companies and independent performers.
"The Fringe Festival is a great way to give voice to ZK's brilliant work," stated Lyons. "I'm thrilled to be the first to direct a ZK Lownefels play. She's going to be huge."
The show will run at the Asylum Lab Theater in Los Angeles. Tickets are on sale now. Performances continue on Thursday, June 20th, 11:30 PM, Monday, June 24th, 7:00 PM and Saturday, June 29th, 8:30 PM. For more about the show, visit http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1287?tab=details.
Z has written poetry from age 5. Under the instruction of her best friend, her grandmother, she wrote a poem a week and was first published at age seven.
At eleven, Z became infatuated with Shakespearean sonnets and wrote long scripts entirely in iambic pentameter. At 13-years-old (high school sophomore), she was tasked with translating Rostaud's Cyrano de Bergerac from French to English-and her poetry was performed in the high school's production.
During her first college years, Z became inspired by the works of her great-grandfather, avant-garde poet Walter Lowenfels and explored the more experimental, getting published in established literary magazines (Emprise Review, Out of Ours, Penny Ante Feud).
In London on the Gilman Scholarship, Z experienced the vivacity of professional theater and became determined to fight her way into a profession where only up to 17% of female playwrights claim a slice of the pie. Beyond broke but even more inspired, she wrote Sewer Rats at Sea from her mattress on the floor, living on rice cakes and oatmeal, and using Costco boxes as makeshift furniture.
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