Colt Coeur Commissions Original Play from Amelia Roper for 2015-16 Season

Thanks to the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Brooklyn-based theatre company Colt Coeur (Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel, Everything is Ours, by Nikole Beckwith) has commissioned playwright Amelia Roper to create an original play over the next year, with an eye towards production in the company's 2015-2016 season. Artistic Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt will direct the play and the piece will be created in collaboration with Colt Coeur artists including Teddy Bergman, Katya Campbell, Ato Essadoh, Adam Harrington, Kate Cullen Roberts, Matt Stadelmann, Joe Tippett and Genesis Oliver.

Amelia Roper is currently writing for Yale Repertory Theater, Marin Theatre Company, Colt Coeur, NYC, Berkeley Repertory Theater and The Rose Theatre in Omaha. She was the 2014 recipient of the National Theatre Conference's Paul Green Award for Most Promising Young Artist. Her work has been produced by the Humana Festival of New American Plays, Crowded Fire in San Francisco, the Arts Centre Melbourne including an Australian regional tour, and NYC's Prelude Festival, 2014. Developments include the Old Vic in London, the in Moscow in Russian translation, SOHO Rep.'s Writer/ Director Lab 13/14, Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, Melbourne Theatre Company, Australia, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the MacDowell Colony. Published plays include BIG SKY TOWN, 2009, CAMBERWELL HOUSE produced nine times, soon be to published by Dramatists Play Service, 2015, and adapted for film. And two shorts in the Humana Festival Collection, 2013.

Amelia trained as a Lighting Designer and Film Editor and has a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, 2013, where she won the The Cheryl Crawford Scholarship and The Howard Stein Scholarship. She is a recipient of the Dame Joan Sutherland Cultural Grant from the American Australian Association, two Australia Council for the Arts grants and two Ian Potter Cultural Awards. She is represented by AO International, is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Australians in Film and is Creative Director at Tiny Disco. An Australian citizen, Amelia now lives in Brooklyn.

Colt Coeur, an artists' ensemble, collaboratively creates theater from the ground up. Founded in 2010, Colt Coeur has created and produced five world-premieres: Seven Minutes in Heaven, together as a company with playwright Steven Levenson; Fish Eye, with playwright Lucas Kavner; Recall, by Eliza Clark; Everything is Ours, by Nikole Beckwith, and Dry Land, by Ruby Rae Spiegel. All five of Colt Coeur's productions have been New York Times and/or Time Out New York critic's picks and played to sold-out houses. Dry Land was recently selected as a finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Award.