Ojai Playwrights Conference Presents Summer New Works Festival 8/10-15
By: Gabrielle Sierra Jul. 13, 2010
THE OJAI PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE (OPC) is thrilled to announce its 13th Annual program of playwrights, readings and special performances featuring some of the most talented, established and up-and-coming playwrights writing today. This year's Summer New Works Festival, slated for August 10-15, 2010, includes new works by Jon Robin Baitz, Kate Fodor, Mona Mansour, Len Jenkin, Trieu Tran, Bess Wohl, Thomas Higgins, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, and Ben Rosenthal. There are two special performance events called "Intersections"-- the first will feature a brand new work by "Brothers & Sisters" creator Jon Robin Baitz called Other Desert Cities; the second will feature some of the best solo performers ever assembled for a one-of-a-kind evening in Ojai. OPC is also planning its second annual "Family Theatre Day," a full day of activities devoted to families and younger audiences with two special events designed especially for them. Tickets range from $10 to $25 per event; an All Access Pass, that includes admission to all performances in the Summer New Works Festival, is $190. Tickets are available online at www.ojaiplays.org or by calling 805-640-0400.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Tuesday, August 10
Intersections #1: Special Performance Event
OTHER DESERT CITIES by Jon Robin Baitz
7:30 PM, Matilija Auditorium, 703 El Paseo Rd., Ojai
Ticket Price: $20
Intersections #2: Special Performance Event
AN ALL-STAR EVENING OF SOLO PERFORMANCES
7:30 PM, Matilija Auditorium, 703 El Paseo Rd., Ojai
Tickets: $20Friday, August 13
New Play Workshop #1
PSALM 151: HEAVEN HAVE MERCY by Len Jenkin
7:00 PM, Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill, 8585 Ojai Santa Paula Rd., Ojai
Tickets: $25New Play Workshop #2
UNCLE HO To Uncle Sam by Trieu Tran
9:00 PM, Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill, 8585 Ojai Santa Paula Rd., Ojai
Tickets: $25Saturday, August 14
Family Theatre Day Event
WAKE UP YOUR WEIRD by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph
10:00 AM, Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill, 8585 Ojai Santa Paula Rd., Ojai
Tickets: $20 Adults; $10 YouthOPC YOUTH WORKSHOP PERFORMANCE
1:00 PM, Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill, 8585 Ojai Santa Paula Rd., Ojai
Tickets: $20 Adults; $10 Youth
Not appropriate for children 12 and underNew Play Workshop #3
BARCELONA by Bess Wohl
4:00 PM, Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill, 8585 Ojai Santa Paula Rd., Ojai
Ticket Price: $25
URGE FOR GOING by Mona Mansour
8:00 PM, Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill, 8585 Ojai Santa Paula Rd., Ojai
Ticket Price: $25
Reception immediately following the evening performance.Sunday, August 15New Play Workshop #5
Rx by Kate Fodor
1:00 PM, Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill, 8585 Ojai Santa Paula Rd., Ojai
Ticket Price: $25New Play Workshop #6
WILD ANIMALS YOU SHOULD KNOW by Thomas Higgins
4:00 PM, Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill, 8585 Ojai Santa Paula Rd., Ojai
Ticket Price: $25
ABOUT THE PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTSRx by Kate Fodor
Once a promising poet, Meena now edits American Cattle & Swine Magazine. She weeps every day and wants to stop feeling so awful. Once an idealistic physician hoping to help the needy, Dr. Phil now runs clinical trials for Schmidt Pharma and wants to help Meena. And Schmidt Pharma really wants a long-term revenue stream. They all pin their hopes on Thriveon®, an experimental drug for the "new disease;" Workplace Depression. It should be a win-win-win, right? A sharp comedy about big dreams, big love and Big Pharma.
by Thomas Higgins"I mean, don't you ever want to do something just because you can?" Great grades in school, a letter in soccer, a popular Boy Scout -- everything is so easy for Matthew. Handsome, clever, charming -- he's bored and restless. His father has lost his job and he suspects his scoutmaster is gay. Matthew wants to destroy someone. Sexual tensions churn in this wickedly funny coming of age story about the very young and the very middle aged -- who discover the little beast in us all. Thomas Higgins is the author of many plays, including The Blasphemy Tree (Naked Angels Lab), The Family Dungeon (Columbia Arts Initiative), The Home Front (Columbia Arts Initiative), The Wild Life (Source Theatre) and The Dying Breed (Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Winner). His full-length plays, This Modern House, The Elephant Party and The Homemaker have been nominated for the L. Arnold Weissberger Award at the Williamstown and the Cherry Lane Mentor project. He graduated from Northwestern University and received his MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University on the Dean's Fellowship.
PSALM 151: HEAVEN HAVE MERCY
by Len JenkinA new American psalm in nine scenes. A couple is stressed to the breaking point by their autistic son, money troubles, and suburban life. The recession has hit them hard. An old woman at the end of her life tries to make sense of the world and her place in it as wife, mother and lover. Ordinary human beings are shadowed by fate and circumstance -- yet they somehow do their best to give some kind of love, have some kind of life in the spirit, and act with some nobility in the midst of a country's meltdown. Len Jenkin is one of America's most distinguished playwrights having received three OBIE awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Award, an Emmy nomination, and four National Endowment Fellowships. Plays include Port Twilight: A History of Science, Margo Veil, Dark Ride, Pilgrims of the Night, Careless Love, My Uncle Sam, Limbo Tales, and Like I Say. Adaptations include Voltaire's Candide (Guthrie Theater), Aristophanes' The Birds (Yale Rep), and Kafka's A Country Doctor (CSC, NY). His plays have been seen in the United States, England, France, Denmark, Germany and Japan.URGE FOR GOING
by Mona MansourSeventeen-year-old Jamila studies for the exam that could get her to college, away from Lebanon, and out of the Palestinian refugee camp that is home. Her father, Adham, has nurtured his daughter's dreams. After all, he made it to London in 1967 to lecture on Wordsworth. Does he now have the courage to support his daughter's fight for a future he has abandoned? An intimate family portrait fused with fierce global politics.
Mona Mansour's The Hour of Feeling was in the Public's EWG Spotlight Series, and its sequel, Urge for Going, in the Public's New Work Now Series. A Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, she trained as an actor at UCSD and SMU. She began writing with L.A.'s Groundlings Theater. Girl Scouts of America (written with Andrea Berloff) read at NYTW and produced in NYC Fringe. Television writing includes "Dead Like Me" (Showtime) and "Queens Supreme" (CBS). Monsour curated Nuff Said (with Lisa Kron) -- a play for gay, lesbian, and transgender youth at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC. UNCLE HO to Uncle Sam
by Trieu Tran
A Vietnamese boy journeys with his mother -- from the fall of Saigon, to a Viet Cong re-education camp in the jungle, to a refugee camp in Thailand, and, finally, to America. But the New World offers its own challenges as the boy faces a turbulent passage to manhood shaped by his estranged father and by his own estrangement in the land of snow, hip-hop, urban gangs and clashing cultures. This riveting immigrant drama of becoming American while haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam is a one-man show by one of the OPC's most compelling new playwrights.Trieu Tran appeared as an actor for OPC in T.D. Mitchell's Beyond The 17th Parallel. He has appeared in numerous theatrical productions through the years. Favorite roles include Alan Strang in Equus and Richard the Third. He won the Dean Goodman Award for his acting in The Legacy Code. On TV he has been seen in Malcolm in the Middle, I'm in the Band, and Men, Women, and Dogs. Films: Tropic Thunder, Hancock, Barry Munday, Last Call, How High, The Chaos Factor. BARCELONA
by Bess WohlLate night in Barcelona. A drunken, carefree, careless American woman leaves her own bachelorette party with a tall, dark stranger -- an older Spanish man. She goes with him to his daughter's apartment. An intense, abandoned one-night stand? Perhaps. But each has hidden reasons for being here. He must teach an American a lesson in consequences. She must learn to tell the truth. And both must let go of someone they love. A surprising and sexy "pas de deux" -- as the personal and political passionately intertwine.Bess Wohl has been at OPC as an actress working with Bill Cain, Lee Blessing and Stephen Belber. Her plays have been developed or produced at the NYC Fringe Festival (Best Overall Production), the Vineyard Theater, the Pittsburgh Public, the Northlight Theater, TheaterWorks Festival, Geffen Playhouse, and the Pioneer Theater. Upcoming productions include the world premiere of her play IN at the Pioneer Theater. Recent commissions include the book for a new musical about the adult entertainment industry by CTG in Los Angeles and The Civilians. Wohl is a MacDowell fellow. WAKE UP YOUR WEIRD
by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph - FAMILY EVENT Wake Up your Weird is an interactive performance style workshop that uses puppets, storytelling, live music, improvisation, art, and movement to help the young and young-at-heart discover their own unique creative gifts. Sesame Street puppeteer Leslie Carrara-Rudolph highlights the power of the voice, the body and the imagination as the three main resources for "spreading joy" and "waking up your weird."A multifaceted performer and puppeteer Leslie Carrara-Rudolph currently performs the fairy puppet "Abby Cadabby" on Sesame Street for which she was nominated for an Emmy. A graduate of San Francisco State University, Carrara-Rudolph designed her major in Child Development Through the Arts to combine her love for theater with her desire to help challenged kids discover and celebrate their unique gifts. She started puppeteering with the Jim Henson Company on Muppets Tonight and toured with their improv group, Puppet Up. For the Disney Company, she created a live show featuring her and her original characters that played at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. Leslie is a proud cast member of "The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd". Her newest play, Entertaining A Thought, was developed in 2009 at the OPC. OPC 2010: WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
Jon Robin Baitz is one of the most celebrated playwrights in contemporary American theater. His first play, Mizlansky/Zilinsky, originated at LA Theatre Works and was ultimately produced by the Manhattan Theater Club. His second play, Film Society, premiered in Los Angeles and went on to London and New York. In 1990 he wrote and directed his first television script, Three Hotels, for American Playhouse (Humanitas Prize). He later reworked it for stage and it was produced throughout the world. Baitz has created many critically acclaimed plays focusing on family dynamics, including The Substance of Fire, adapted into a 1996 film, and A Fair Country that made him a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Baitz's television credits include The West Wing and Alias. He created the current TV series, Brothers & Sisters. At OPC he developed both Chinese Friends and The Paris Letter. Both went on to major productions in New York. He is on the faculty of the Graduate Division of the New School in New York. Baitz will be working on his newest play, "OTHER DESERT CITIES" which will have a special presentation in the 2010 Ojai Playwrights Conference. Ben Rosenthal is one of the most promising young theatrical voices in the country. He has developed two plays at the Ojai Playwrights Conference: The Monkey Puzzle Tree directed by Hal Brooks, and The Bog Lacuna directed by Michael Garces. Rosenthal's play Safe debuted in the 2010 marathon of One-Act plays at New York's Ensemble Studio Theatre, of which Ben is a lifetime member. It was also produced on EST's Main Stage. He is the recipient of a New Voices Fellowship in playwriting, was nominated for a PONY fellowship in 2008, and his play Welcome Back, Buddy Combs was published by Dramatists Play Service. Rosenthal did his undergraduate work at SUNY Purchase and received an MFA in Dramatic Writing at the New School for Social Research in 2000. At the 2010 Ojai Playwrights Conference Mr. Rosenthal will be working on his new play, Neptune Kelly.
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