Ars Nova to Present FREE Reading of 'OOHRAH!' 9/22

Ars Nova presents, as part of the Out Loud series, a FREE reading of OOHRAH! by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Leigh Silverman. OOHRAH! will be read by Aya Cash, Mary Catherine Garrison, Jesse Hooker, Molly Ranson, Armando Riesco, and Will Rogers.

In Fayetteville, North Carolina, home of one of the south’s largest military bases, practically everybody's somebody is Over There. Abby, a flight attendant, has finally agreed to settle down with her thoroughly unmilitary fiancé, while her sister Sara is thrilled to have her own husband back home once and for all. But when a hot, mysterious Marine shows up on Abby's red eye flight, all bets on stability are off.
 
Bekah Brunstetter received her BA (Theater/Fiction Writing) from UNC Chapel Hill in 2004 and a proud recipient of an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama. Her plays include: To Nineveh (NY Innovative Theater Award for Best new full length play, 2006) SICK (winner, Samuel French short play festival 2006), Green (finalist, Alliance Theater’s Kendeda Competition; national finalist, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival; Semi-finalist, O’Neill 2007), Space (semi-finalist, Princess Grace Award 2007) I Used To Write On Walls (published and licensed by Samuel French), Fat Kids On Fire (licensed by Playscripts, Inc), You May Go Now: A Marriage Play (nominee, Cherry Lane Mentorship, 2008l semi-finalist, O’Neill 2008), Arms (Finalist, Heidemann Award, 2007; published by Smith and Krauss), Le Fou (The Atlantic Acting school), Happy Birthday/ I’m Dead (Samuel French Short Play festival Finalist, 2007), Miss Lilly Gets Boned (nominee, 2008 L. Arnold Weissberger Award), Celebrity, and Torch Number 2 (SOHO Think Tank), and f-ing Art (winner, Samuel French Short play Festival 2008). Her plays have been read and produced by the Babel Theatre Project, The Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, the Ohio Theater (Think Tank), NYU, Centenary Stage, NC New Voices, The New School for Drama, Working Man’s Clothes, Flux Theatre Ensemble, Phare Play Productions, Old Vic/New Voices, Boston Theatre Works, Manhattan Theatre Source, SPF, The Alliance Theater, and The Atlantic (Acting School.) Her plays are published by Samuel French, Playscripts, Original Works, and Smith and Krauss. In New York, she serves as the director of New Play Development for Working Man’s Clothes Productions. She is a member of the Ars Nova Play Group, the Playwright’s Center, At Play Productions, and the Dramatist’s Guild. She is also a proud new member of the Women’s Project writer’s Lab.

Leigh Silverman Broadway: Lisa Kron’s Well. Off-Broadway credits include Liz Flahive’s From Up Here (Manhattan Theatre Club; Drama Desk nomination); David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face (co-production Center Theatre Group/The Public Theater); Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Hourglass Group and 37 Arts); Well (The Public Theater, The Huntington Theatre and ACT); Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Second Stage Theatre); Tanya Barfield’s Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons and Seattle Repertory Theatre); The Five Lesbian Brothers’ Oedipus At Palm Springs (New York Theatre Workshop); Eve Ensler’s The Treatment (The Culture Project); and Neena Beber’s Jump/Cut (Woolly Mammoth Theatre/ Theater J and Women’s Project). West End: Wit (Vaudeville Theatre). Other recent regional productions: Bad Dates (Cleveland Playhouse) and How I Learned to Drive (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Upcoming projects include the off-Broadway musical Coraline.
 
OOHRAH! will be read on Monday, September 22 at 7:00 PM only.  The OUT LOUD Series is FREE and open to the public.  Reservations are required.  Please call 212-977-1700 or email rsvp@arsnovanyc.com. Ars Nova is located at 511 West 54th Street.  For more information, go to www.arsnovanyc.com

Coming up next in the OUT LOUD Series will be Almost Stuck by Steven Levenson directed by Evan Cabnet on Monday, October 6 at 7PM.
 
As New York’s premiere hub for emerging artists and new work, Ars Nova is committed to developing and producing eclectic theatre, comedy and music to feed today’s popular culture.  To that end, Ars Nova strives to create daring collaborations, meld disciplines and give voice to a new generation of artists.  This season Ars Nova developed and produced critically acclaimed productions of Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Boom, Liz Flahive’s From Up Here (in a co-production with Manhattan Theatre Club), and Nick Jones and Raja Azar’s Jollyship the Whiz-Bang. Past productions include Dixie’s Tupperware Party, At Least It’s Pink, 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, Holy Cross Sucks!, Freestyle Love Supreme and The Wau Wau Sisters.  In addition to its featured productions, Ars Nova supports and develops new work from the most promising emerging artists through its alternative comedy series (Tragedy Tomorrow), music series (Uncharted), public play-reading series (Out Loud), writer's group (Play Group) and artist-in-residence program.  Ars Nova was founded in memory of Gabe Wiener. 

For more information, visit www.arsnovanyc.com.

Photo Credit Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.