MCC Opens PlayLab Series to the Public; Complete Lineup Announced

MCC THEATER (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, Artistic Directors; William Cantler, Associate Artistic Director; Blake West, Executive Director) today announced that their heretofore private PlayLab new play readings by members of the company’s Playwrights’ Coalition are going public.  The four-week Monday night series will offer a rare opportunity to see works in development by some of New York’s most exciting playwrights.  As an added bonus, audience members will be invited to mingle with the artists at post-performance receptions to be held each night.

Now in its eighth year, MCC Theater’s Playwrights’ Coalition is a development and support organization for emerging and mid-career playwrights.  Through intensive work and roundtable readings, member playwrights develop dynamic and challenging new plays – many of which have gone on to production at MCC and other notable theaters in the U.S. and abroad – which are first brought to audiences through the PlayLab readings.

All readings will take place at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (151 East 25th Street) at 7:00 p.m.  The series is offered free of charge, but reservations are recommended.  Reservations can be made by phoning 212-727-7722 ext. 244 or emailing literary@mcctheater.org.

The reading schedule is as follows: 

October 27 at 7:00 p.m.

Second Life

by Ashlin Halfnight

Tim’s having trouble holding onto reality.  Video games bleed into pornography, and both bleed into real life.  Then things get even more dangerous – he falls in love.

 
November 3 at 7:00 p.m.

Zero

by Julian Sheppard

Strangers caught in the gravitational pull of New York City are drawn together in love, desire and the pursuit of freedom.  Their paths cross, overlap and finally converge in an explosive confrontation.

November 10 at 7:00 p.m.

 The Jesus Year

by Brooke Berman

When you turn 33 (the same age Jesus was when he, as Max puts it, "Did all his stuff"), you find your mission, you get nailed to a cross, you die, and then you get reborn.  And that's exactly what Max is looking to do in L.A.

 
November 17 at 7:00 p.m.

A Lifetime Burning

by Cusi Cram

In a perfectly decorated mid-century modern apartment on Mulberry Street, one sister has written a memoir.  Another sister claims that not one word of it is true.  Both may be right.  Is memory ever what really happened or, in these reality obsessed times, is it possible to rewrite one's life?

MCC’s current hit production of Michael Weller’s Fifty Words, under the direction of Austin Pendleton, is now running Off Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, NYC) through November 8.  The production stars Norbert Leo Butz and Elilzabeth Marvel.  Tickets are available by visiting www.ticketcentral.com or calling 212-279-4200.

MCC Theater is one of New York City's leading Off Broadway theater companies, committed to presenting New York and world premieres each season.  When MCC Theater was founded in 1986, its mission was simple: to bring new theatrical voices to theater-going audiences.  MCC Theater continues to accomplish this yearly through presentation of its mainstage works; its Literary Program, which actively seeks and develops new and emerging writers and its Education & Outreach Program, allowing more than 1,200 students yearly to experience theater, increase literacy and discover their own voices in the arts.  Notable MCC Theater highlights include: their 2008 Broadway-bound production of Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty (to open at a theatre to be announced in February, 2009), the 2004 Tony-winning production of Bryony Lavery’s Frozen; Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig; Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living; Marsha Norman’s Trudy Blue; Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit; Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone and Alan Bowne’s Beirut.  Over the years, the dedication to the work of new and emerging artists has earned MCC Theater a variety of awards.  For a complete production history, visit www.mcctheater.org.

 Brooke Berman is the author of the plays: Smashing (The O'Neill, The Play Company), Hunting & Gathering (Primary Stages), A Perfect Couple (Wet), Until We Find Each Other, (The O'Neill, Steppenwolf),  Sam and Lucy (SPF), The Triple Happiness (Soho Rep, The Hourglass Group, The Playwrights Center, The Second Stage), and numerous others.  Her short plays include Defusion and Dancing with a Devil (Humana Festival "Life Under 30"). Her work has appeared Off Broadway as well as regionally (Steppenwolf Theatre Co, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Denver Center, Cleveland Playhouse) and in London; been developed at places like Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, SPF,  The Royal Court and the National Theatre, both in London.  Screenplays include the adaption of Smashing (for Natalie Portman), All Saints Day (the short, directed by Will Frears is currently on the festival circuit where it won Best Narrative Short at Savannah; the feature is in development) and Major Minor Details.  Five of Brooke's plays will be published by Broadway Play Publishing in 2009; other plays are available through Heinemann Press, Sam French, Playscripts.  Brooke attended the Julliard School where she studied with Marsha Norman, Christopher Durang and Jon Robin Baitz and privately, with Maria Irene Fornes.  She is a resident playwright at New Dramatists (where she serves on the Board of Directors) and a member of the Dramatists Guild, PEN, Rising Phoenix Rep, MCC Playwrights Coalition and ND West.  Brooke splits her time between NY and LA and teaches playwriting and creative writing process workshops in both cities.  She was the Director of the Playwrights Lab for the MCC Youth Company for four glorious years and has been a member of the MCC Playwrights’ Coalition since late 2000.

Cusi Cram’s plays have been produced and developed at The O'Neill Playwrights Conference, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Public Theater, South Coast Repertory, Manhattan Class Company, The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, The Humana Festival, New Georges, The Miranda Theater, PS122 and the Dag Hammarskjold Theater at the United Nations.  She is a recipient of a fellowship from the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and two Le Comte du Nuoy Awards from the Lincoln Center Theater Foundation.  Her play Dusty and the Big Bad World will receive its world premiere at the Denver Center Theatre Company in January of 2009.  Her play Fuente was the recipient of the 2004 Herrick Theater Foundation New Play Prize and was produced at Barrington Stage Company.  All the Bad Things was part of LAByrinth Theater Company’s 2005-6 Season at the Public Theater.  Lucy and the Conquest was produced on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theater Festival last summer.  Most recently Cusi performed in LAByrinth’s production of Pretty Chin Up, also at the Public.  Cusi has also received two Emmy award nominations for her work on the animated children’s program “Arthur” and currently writes for the show in addition to several other animated programs produced by PBS.  She is a graduate of Brown University and the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard and is a member of LAByrinth Theater Company, the MCC Playwrights Coalition, The Laura Strelsin New American Writers Groups at Primary Stages and sits on New Georges’ Artist Council.  She lives between Woodstock and Greenwich Village with her husband Peter Hirsch.

Julian Sheppard's plays include Buicks (Underwood Theater, 2 Drama Desk nominations; Outstanding Play and Outstanding Lead Actor) and Los Angeles (Flea Theatre).  Last fall, his one-act Skin & Bones, was part of “Vengeance”, produced by StageFarm at the Cherry Lane Theatre.  Other plays have been produced in New York at Soho Rep, Miranda Theatre, Blue Heron Arts Center, Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, MCC Performance Lab, amongst others, and his work has been developed at numerous theaters, including New York Theatre Workshop, New York Stage & Film, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, MTC, Primary Stages, MCC, WPA and Rattlestick.  Regionally, his plays have been produced throughout the U.S., England and South Africa.  Other plays include From Now On, Love and Happiness and Whatever.  Julian has been a resident at the MacDowell Colony twice, the Millay Colony, Blue Mountain Center and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.  He has twice received the Le Comte de Nouy Award and has been a finalist five glorious times for the Actor Theatre of Louisville’s Heidemann Award.  His work is published by DPS and Playscripts.  Julian is a member of MCC Theater's Playwrights’ Coalition and is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights program at the Juilliard School.

Ashlin Halfnight was a 2006 Fulbright Award winner and an artist in residence at the National Theatre of Hungary.  His plays include God’s Waiting Room (Best Play, 2005 NYFringe Festival), Diving Normal (Plays and Playwrights 2007), Good Pictures, Mud Blossom, Baby Face, The Stars Above Balaton and Cronotopia.  He was named one of newyorktheater.com’s “People of the Year” in 2007 for outstanding contributions to New York theater; he is the recipient of a TCG Travel Grant, a Ludwig Volgelstein Artist Grant, and the Howard Stein Playwriting Fellowship.  His work has been seen on stages in Canada, the U.S. and Hungary, and has been developed at Second Stage, New York Theater Workshop, MCC, The Cherry Lane Theater, The 24Seven Lab, The Lark and Electric Pear’s The Outlet.  He was a member of The Royal Court’s New York Residency in 2006, earned his BA from Harvard, and an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia.  He is the co-founder of Electric Pear Productions and is a member of MCC’s Playwrights’ Coalition.  Upcoming: Artifacts of Consequence a PL115, EPP co-production.

Photo Credit Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

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