Abingdon Theatre Company Reveals Upcoming Work in 31st Season Around The Table Reading Series

Abingdon Theatre Company has announced two of the upcoming pieces they are developing through their Around the Table Reading Series. The Around the Table Reading Series is a critical program in serving Abingdon Theatre Company's mission to develop brave new work by emerging and established playwrights, where readings typically focus on challenging and thought-provoking subject matter.

Upcoming in this series will be ATC's 30th season Artist-in-Residence Reynaldo Piniella's Son of an Unknown Father and current Artist-in-Residence Cris Eli Blak's Anonymous Skin.

Piniella said, “Abingdon Theatre Company has been an artistic home for me, first as an actor, then as an artist-in-residence, and now as a playwright in their Around the Table series and I couldn't be more excited to develop my play Son of an Unknown Father under the artistic leadership of Chad Austin and his team. My play digs into some tough issues affecting our world today and having a safe space at Abingdon to play, explore, and develop as an artist is invaluable to me and integral to the growth of my play.” Blak added in, “When you finish writing a new show, the future is always unknown. It may become something, it may stay on your laptop until the end of time. You never know. And that is why it's such an honor to have Anonymous Skin receive this opportunity. To be part of the Abingdon family in the first place as an artist-in-residence was an honor but to have work actively developed with the company as part of their 31st season feels like the next level. I'm continually grateful for the support of Chad and the whole team. The trust, belief and support of the work is unmatchable and I don't take it for granted. This show is so important to me and maybe the project I am most proud of as a writer. I am so glad it won't just be on my laptop until the end of time and that the beginning stages of this story being brought to the world are being executed.”

Reynaldo Piniella is an actor, writer, activist and educator from East New York, Brooklyn. In 2021, he was in The Acting Company of two Broadway shows at the same time – Thoughts of a Colored Man and Trouble in Mind. As a playwright, his work includes Black Doves (Thomas Barbour award for Playwriting), Real Life RPG (commissioned by Baltimore Center Stage, produced by San Diego Rep, Shakesqueer Theater Company and Pioneer Theater Guild), No Shade (produced by the Lee Strasberg Institute at NYU Tisch), I'm Old School (produced by Single Carrot Theater) and Black and Blue (Ars Nova's ANT Fest.) He received the Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship from Theatre Communications Group to develop a bilingual English-Spanish Hamlet with the Classical Theatre of Harlem. He is an alum of New Victory Theater's LabWorks, All for One Theater's Solo Collective, The Civilians' R&D Group and a former artist-in-residence at Abingdon Theatre Company and Culture Lab LIC. He is the inaugural recipient of the All Stars Project's Fellowship for Young Artists of Color, a FREEdom Fellow at the Weeksville Heritage Center and has received residencies from The Public Theater's Shakespeare Initiative and HB Studio. His Off-Broadway acting credits include The Death of the Last Black Man..., Venus (Signature), The Skin of Our Teeth (TFANA), Lockdown (Rattlestick), The Space Between the Letters (The Public/UTR), Lockdown (Rattlestick) and The Best of Theatreworks (Working Theater). Regional acting credits include work at Baltimore Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, O'Neill, Sundance Theatre Lab and Cleveland Play House.

Cris Eli Blak is an emerging proud Black playwright. His work has been produced Off-Broadway and around the country; on university stages (Columbia University, Northwestern University, New York University); as well as in London, Australia, Ireland, and Canada. He is the winner of the inaugural Black Broadway Men Playwriting Initiative and the Atlanta Shakespeare Company's inaugural winner of the Muse of Fire BIPOC Playwriting Festival. He has been the artist in residence at the State University of New York - Oswego, and the recipient of the inaugural Emerging Playwrights Fellowship from The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre. He was a resident playwright with Fosters Theatrical Artists Residency, Paterson Performing Arts Development Council and La Lengua Teatro en Español/AlterTheater Ensemble; the recipient of the Michael Bradford Residency from Quick Silver Theatre Company; and was in the inaugural class of fellows for the Black Theatre Coalition. His work has been published by Smith & Kraus, Inc., YOUTHPlays, Applause Books, New World Theatre, Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, and in the Black Theatre Review.

Established over 30 years ago, Abingdon Theatre Company (ATC) develops and produces critically acclaimed brave, new American work by emerging and established artists. Mainstage Productions include the Off-Broadway premiere of Robin & Me: My Little Spark of Madness written and performed by Dave Droxler, the New York premiere of Queens Girl in the World, which was nominated for Outstanding Solo Performance for the Vivian Robinson Audelco Recognition Awards for Excellence in Black Theatre, and the NYT Critics' Pick Get on Your Knees written and performed by Jaqueline Novak, nominated for aDrama Desk Award. The DMW Greer One Night Only Series has showcased work such as Alex Edelman's Just for Us which went on to receive Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations and has just completed its run on Broadway; Back by Matt Webster starring Emmy Award nominee Madeline Brewer and Tony Award nominee James Cusati-Moyer; The Prompter starring Oscar-winning actress Estelle Parsons; Date of a Lifetime, a new musical with book and lyrics by Carl Kissin and music by Robert Baumgartner Jr. ATC's Around the Table Series has produced staged readings of new plays such as The Inferno by Chris Sherman and Arancini by Joey Merlo. In 2020, ATC established Abingdon Virtual led by Executive Producer Chad Austin, and has since produced three award-winning films, including As Apple Pie written and directed by Artist-in-Residence Pierre Marais, which was an official selection of the Cannes World Film Festival for Best Young Filmmaker and won multiple awards at festivals including Best Cinematography, Best Director, and Best Drama USA; Abingdon Virtual's premiere film, It Cries Too Loudly, was an official selection of the Prague International Short Film Awards and won Best Cinematography and Best Short Film at the Eastern European Film Festival.

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