Out of the Box Theatrics and Weathervane Theatre Announce Playwrights for Inaugural Residency

New Hampshire's award-winning Weathervane Theatre and acclaimed Off-Broadway theatre company Out of the Box Theatrics (OOTB) have announced Kevin Renn and Mehrnaz Tiv have been selected as Playwrights in Residence for the inaugural OOTB Residency at Weathervane Theatre.

Sponsored by Aunt Sadie's Candles and The Lancaster Motel, the OOTB Residency at Weathervane Theatre is a week-long residency program where the two organizations will collaborate on supporting works in development. These emerging plays will receive rehearsals and a fully-staged reading at the Weathervane. Renn's Mulatto Boy and Tiv's Threads were selected from a nationwide search.

Kevin Renn is a NYC playwright whose works (BLACKS + PHATS, The Best Worst Holiday Window at Burgdof Goofmans, and Quarantine Kills) have received various workshops, readings, and productions with Classical Theatre of Harlem, and The Artist Co-op in NYC. This is Renn's second collaboration with OOTB and Weathervane after being one of the playwrights featured in last December's original virtual production A New York Holiday Minute.

"I'm over the moon to be collaborating with OOTB & Weathervane again," said Renn. "With this residency, not only am I getting the privilege to share Mulatto Boy with audiences, but I'm getting the chance to go back to the heart of the story as well as reshape and rework changes I have wanted to implement for some time. Presenting Mulatto Boy means I get to share a story and a perspective that a majority of the audience probably has not been challenged to experience."

Mulatto Boy is about Noah Goodmore, a student running for student body president, and rumor in the teachers lounge is he might win. High school has its challenges, but for Noah, the school's only student of color; paying for a private education is the least of his problems. Mulatto Boy plays in person and virtually June 10th and June 12th at 7pm.

Pittsburgh native Mehrnaz Tiv recently graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing program with a minor in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. An award-winning playwright, her work has been seen and developed by City Theatre (Signed, Sealed, Never Delivered; Threads), the Women's Theater Festival (Threads), Permafrost Theater Collective (Dried Fruit), and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (Italian Stallion).

Tiv's Threads plays in person and virtually June 11th at 7PM June 12th at 4pm. Three Iranian women of different generations remember their distant relationship with Iran in their eyebrow threading shop in Southern California. Maryam wants to return to the only place she belongs, Gelareh loves indulging in her 90's punky femininity in the US, and young Delara, Maryam's American-born teenage daughter, just wants to go to her school's homecoming dance.

"These women's lives are so entwined with their love for each other and the safe, nurturing space and time they share in their shop, said Tiv. "I want their joy and feelings to be as honest as they can be, so this opportunity to introduce real life to my words and work with a director to interrogate every page with actors is quite necessary for my work to create the impact that I want."

In person and livestream tickets are currently on sale at https://www.weathervanenh.org/ootbresidency. Casting to be announced soon. Tickets and residency passes range $12-$25. Tickets can also be ordered via phone at 603-837-9322. For pay what you can options please contact ethan@weathervanenh.org.