Skylight Theatre Co Launches 2nd Weekend of LAb Works Play Festival

The professional resident playwrights of Skylight Theatre Company present eleven new plays in the sixth LAb Works Festival. Since 2011 when Skylight created PlayLAb, a laboratory for LA based professional playwrights, its LA Based members have created more than 60 original new works. The LAb Works Festival is the culmination of the most recent year's work shared as concert-style staged readings and workshop presentations.

The laboratory is led by Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Tony Award nominated playwright, Lee Blessing who joined Skylight Theatre Company in 2018. Over the course of eighteen months the dozen writers work with Mr. Blessing privately and in a group setting to develop their original concept into fully realized new play. The LAb Works Festival not only introduces the next generation of playwrights to the public, it helps the writer discover what the next steps are to bring their vision to the stage.

A 15 - 20 minute moderated discussion with the playwright follows each festival reading.

"The intent of PlayLab is to encourage and support the creation of new plays. Skylight is dedicated to the development of new work by writers of proven talent," says Lee Blessing; PlayLAb Director.

Lee Blessing's PlayLAb Director: Lee Blessing's Broadway play A WALK IN THE WOODS received Tony and Olivier Award nominations and was a Pulitzer finalist. His new work, A BODY OF WATER was read last season at the Durango PlayFest and will world-premiere in its new revised version at Actors' Co-op Theatre in Los Angeles next spring. Blessing's nearly forty plays have won numerous awards and have been performed worldwide. He lives in Los Angeles with his TV writer-producer wife, Melanie Marnich.

Skylight Theatre Company presented their multi-award winning production of Rotterdam this spring at Center Theatre Group's Block Party at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The production won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award in 2018 for Best Production. Additional LADCC awards for Rotterdam include Writing and Lead Actress. It also received top honors at the 2018 Stage Raw Awards, winning Production of the Year and Leading Actress awards. Recognized as a "powerhouse of new play development" by Dramatist Magazine, many of Skylight's World Premieres have gone on to be performed nationally and internationally; Church & State opened Off Broadway in 2017, has had 33 productions with 14 more scheduled in 2019; Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea (a co-production with Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble) received the prestigious Steinberg American Theatre Critics Association Citation. Skylight's resident writers PlayLAb, helmed by Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Tony Award nominee Lee Blessing, includes alumni that have enjoyed productions nationwide, the prestigious USA Ford Fellowship in Theater and Performance (Sigrid Gilmer, 2014), and a winner in the Humanitas/CTG Playwriting Prize winner (Louisa Hill, 2015 - Lord of the Underworld's Home for Unwed Mothers).

Gary Grossman (Producing Artistic Director) discussed the importance of this program, "It's all about the play. Skylight's focus is on bringing the writer's vision to the stage and our programs are built to achieve that. We believe in the power of the artist to transform lives, and in the theatre it all starts with the writer's words."

August 2-4 will feature Capital by David Myers, No Burn Day by Jonathan Ceniceroz, Two Out Of Three by Meredith Besser, The Unseen by Penelope Lowder, Lavender Men by Roger Q. Mason.

Previously featured Mr. Charlie Sent Me by Shem Bitterman, Caretakers by Tom Lavagnino, Kill Me, Please! by Rhea MacCallum, Emmylu by Boni Alvarez, Hard Stand by Tim Furlong, Giraffe" by Fielding Edlow.

"LAb Works Play Festival" continues August 2-4, 2019. Skylight Theatre is located at 1816 1/2 N. Vermont Ave, LA, 90027. Tickets are $10 each or $40 for a Festival Pass to all events. For ticketing and more information: (213) 761-7061, (866) 811-4111: http://SkylightTix.org