New York, World Premieres & More Set for Playwrights Realm's 10th Anniversary Season

Led by Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Roberta Pereira, The Playwrights Realm is pleased to announce its 2016-17 10th anniversary season. Over the past decade, The Realm has continually produced work by brave new voices and worked to introduce new initiatives to expand its commitment to providing holistic support to playwrights as they strive to make a life in the arts.

The Realm's 10th anniversary season, announced today, is the company's most ambitious to date and is comprised of two more bold new plays-both characterized by irreverent humor, inventive language and a nuanced focus on female experience. In addition, in the spring of 2017, The Realm will be joining forces with New York Theatre Workshop to present the work of 2015-2016 Page One Playwright Mfoniso Udofia.

The Wolves, the award-winning debut play from Sarah DeLappe, will be presented at The Realm's new home for the season The Duke on 42nd Street, August 29-September 24, 2016. The Wolves -- Directed by Lila Neugebauer and featuring a company of ten female actors -- explores the highs and lows of an all-girls high school soccer team as they train their way to victory.

Jen Silverman'sThe Moors, a darkly comic examination of the ways in which women fight for visibility, will have its New York Premiere February 27-March 25, 2017. Directed by Mike Donahue and set in what might be 19th century England, the play takes place on the mist-shrouded slopes of the Yorkshire moors.

Mfoniso Udofia's Sojourners & Her Portmanteau, performed in repertory and directed by Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, probes into the ties that bind mothers and daughters and how we define home. Presented by New York Theatre Workshop in association with The Playwrights Realm in the spring of 2017.

Artistic Director Katherine Kovner remarked, "This season will be our most ambitious season yet with two brave and adventurous plays and a total of 16 roles-we'll be supporting the greatest number of artists in our history. The perspectives on gender and the female experience that these plays offer is revelatory and piercing and I'm excited that in our 10th anniversary we can provide a platform not just for two brilliant women playwrights but also for so many compelling female characters. Bringing Mfoniso back to New York for not one but two productions is the icing on the cake. It's going to be a season worth celebrating!"

THE PLAYWRIGHTS REALM. 2016-2017 PROGRAMMING

The Wolves (World Premiere)
By Sarah Delappe
Directed by Lila Neugebauer
August 29-September 24, 2016
The Duke on 42nd Street (229 W 42nd St, New York, NY)

The Playwrights Realm presents the World Premiere of Sarah Delappe's The Wolves. A vibrant new play about an all girls soccer team. The Wolves was the first recipient of The Relentless Award, a new play-writing award honoring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and marks DeLappe's Off-Broadway debut and first professional production.

Left quad. Right quad. Lunge. A girls indoor soccer team warms up. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, The Wolves is a portrait of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for nine American girls who just want to score some goals. Performance schedule, full cast and creative team will be announced at a later date.

Sarah DeLappe's play The Wolves (Clubbed Thumb/Playwrights Horizons Theater School, Great Plains Theater Conference) was a recipient of the American Playwriting Foundation's inaugural Relentless Award and a finalist for the 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Sarah has been a resident artist at Sitka Fellows Program and SPACE on Ryder Farm. An alum of Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group, she is currently a member of Ars Nova Play Group and the New Georges Audrey Residency. Sarah has received an EST/Sloan commission and a spot on The Kilroys' The List 2015. MFA in progress at Brooklyn College.

Lila Neugebauer. Upcoming: Albee's The Sandbox, Fornes' Drowning, and Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro (as an evening), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Everybody and Annie Baker's The Antipodes (all at Signature Theatre). Recent directing: Kill Floor (Lincoln Center Theater), The Wayside Motor Inn (Drama Desk Nomination, Signature Theatre), Mike Bartlett's An Intervention (Williamstown), Amy Herzog's After The Revolution and 4000 Miles (Baltimore Center Stage), Zoe Kazan's Trudy and Max in Love and Eliza Clark's Future Thinking (South Coast Rep), Lucas Hnath's Red Speedo (Studio Theatre), Dan LeFranc's Troublemaker (Berkeley Rep), Partners and O Guru Guru Guru (2014, 2013 Humana Festivals), Annie Baker's The Aliens (San Francisco Playhouse, Studio Theatre), The Valley of Fear (Williamstown), and Associate Directing Karen O's Stop The Virgens (St. Ann's Warehouse, Sydney Opera House). As co-artistic director of The Mad Ones, Neugebauer conceives and directs ensemble-devised work, including Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War (Ars Nova, New Ohio Theatre) and The Essential Straight and Narrow (New Ohio Theatre). She is an alumna of the Drama League, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Ensemble Studio Theatre member, New Georges Affiliated Artist and a Princess Grace Award recipient.

The Moors (New York Premiere)
Written by Jen Silverman
Directed by Mike Donahue
February 27 - March 25, 2017
The Duke on 42nd Street (229 W 42nd St, New York, NY)

The Playwrights Realm presents the New York premiere of Jen Silverman's The Moors. Directed by Mike Donahue and riffing on the lives and works of certain 19th-century novel-writing sisters, The Moors is a dark, contemporary comedy about love, power, and our longing to be seen.

Agatha sits and crochets. Sternly. With an iron will. Her sister Huldey writes in her diary, desperately waiting for someone to ask what she is writing about. The dog, a giant mastiff, stares despondently into the fireplace and thinks about how meaningless everything always seems to be. Performance schedule, full cast and creative team will be announced at a later date.

Jen Silverman's work has been produced off-Broadway by the Playwrights Realm (Crane Story), by Clubbed Thumb (Phoebe in Winter), at Actor's Theatre of Louisville (The Roommate, Humana 2015; Wondrous Strange, Humana 2016), Yale Rep (The Moors), and at InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia (The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane, Barrymore Award, Steinberg Award Citation). She is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and has developed work at the O'Neill, Playpenn, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Williamstown, New York Theatre Workshop, Portland Center Stage, PPF at South Coast Rep, Boston Court Theatre in LA, The Cherry Lane Mentor Project, The New Harmony Project, Fusion Theatre Co in New Mexico, Youngblood @ Ensemble Studio Theatre, and the Royal Court in London among other places. She's a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of the Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, a Leah Ryan Fellowship/ Lilly Award, the 2015 Helen Merrill Fund Award for emerging playwrights, and the Yale Drama Series Award for Still. Some upcoming productions: Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Boops at Woolly Mammoth; All The Roads Home at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; The Moors off-Broadway with The Playwrights Realm. Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard. More info: www.jensilverman.com

Mike Donahue is a New York-based director. Credits include: the world premieres of Matthew Lopez's The Legend of Georgia McBride (MCC and Denver Center); Jen Silverman's Phoebe in Winter (Clubbed Thumb) and The Hunters (Cherry Lane Mentor Project); Ethan Lipton's Red-Handed Otter (Playwrights Realm). Regionally: world premiere of Jen Silverman's The Roommate (Humana); world premieres of Rachel Bonds' The Wolfe Twins (Studio Theatre D.C.) and Swimmers (Marin); world premiere of Lauren Feldman's Grace, or The Art of Climbing (Denver Center); Annie Baker's adaptation of Uncle Vanya (Weston); Shostakovich's Moscow, Cheryomushki with new libretto by Meg Miroshnik (Chicago Opera Theatre); Amy Herzog's 4000 Miles (Actors Theatre); Antony & Cleopatra (Shakespeare Festival St. Louis); and Assassins, Henry IV & V (co-director) and A Number (Playmakers Rep, 2011/12 Distinguished Guest Artist). Readings/workshops: MCC, Roundabout Underground, NYTW, Soho Rep (Writer/Director Lab), Williamstown, McCarter, The O'Neill, Clubbed Thumb, Labyrinth, Denver Center, South Coast Rep, Berkley Rep, The Lark, Ars Nova, Dramatists Guild, The York, Chautauqua, Cape Cod Theatre Project and Studio 42. Mike is recipient of a Fulbright to Berlin, the Dramaleague Fall Fellowship, The Boris Sagal Fellowship at Williamstown, an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, winner of the Inaugural Opera America Director-Designer Showcase Award, winner of the Joe A. Callaway Award from the SDC Foundation for Georgia McBride, and was the artistic director of the Yale Summer Cabaret for two seasons. Mike is a graduate of Harvard University and the Yale School of Drama. Upcoming: world premiere of Jen Silverman's Collective Rage (Woolly Mammoth) and The Legend of Georgia McBride (Geffen).

New York Theatre Workshop in Association with The Playwrights Realm presents
Mfoniso Udofia's Sojourners & Her Portmanteau
Directed by Ed Sylvanus Iskandar
New York Theatre Workshop (79 E 4th St, New York, NY)
Spring, 2017

In a two-part theatrical event, NYTW Usual Suspect Ed Sylvanus Iskandar brings to life the singularly poetic world of playwright Mfoniso Udofia's Sojournersand Her Portmanteau. Performed in repertory, these two chapters of Udofia's sweeping, nine-part saga, The Ufot Cycle, chronicle the triumphs and losses of the tenacious matriarch of a Nigerian family. The two plays will be presented in rep at NYTW in Spring 2017, with dates to be announced.

In Sojourners a young, pregnant Abasiama struggles with the responsibilities of her arranged marriage as her husband becomes seduced by 1970s American culture. Intent on finishing her university studies so that she can return to Nigeria, Abasiama weighs her dreams and obligations as she attempts to move forward. Decades later, the full impact of her decision erupts when Abasiama's family is reunited in Her Portmanteau. As Nigerian traditions clash with the realities of American life, Abasiama and her daughters must confront complex familial legacies that span time, geography, language and culture.

Mfoniso Udofia is a 1st Generation Nigerian-American storyteller, actress and educator, attended Wellesley College for Political Science and obtained her MFA in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater. During her stay in the Bay, she co-pioneered a youth initiative, The Nia Project, which provided artistic outlets for youth residing in Bayview/Huntspoint. This Spring The Magic Theater in San Francisco is producing Sojourners and the third play in the Ufot Family Cycle, runboyun. Mfoniso is currently working on a commission from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival translating Shakespeare's, Othello. Mfoniso's plays have been developed at and/or presented/produced by Playwrights Realm, The Magic Theatre, Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre, Hedgebrook, Sundance Theatre Lab, NNPN, Space on Ryder Farm, NNPN New Play Showcase, Makehouse, Soul Productions, terraNOVA, I73, The New Black Fest, Rising Circle's INKTank, At Hand Theatre Company, The Standard Collective, American Slavery Project, Liberation Theatre Company and JJCEO Youth Programs in Birmingham, Alabama. Mfoniso was a finalist for the 2015 PoNY Prize, the Eugene O'Neill NPC, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Many Voices Fellowship, Page 73 Development Programs, Jerome Fellowship, NYTW's 20/50 Fellowship, The Source Festival & Lark Playwrights' Week. Follow her at @mfudofia or visit www.mfonisoudofia.com for the latest news.

Ed Sylvanus Iskandar recently directed Sojourners by Mfoniso Udofia (The Playwrights Realm), and Charles Francis Chan, Jr.'s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery by Lloyd Suh (NAATCO, NYT Critics' Pick). Winner of a Drama Desk Special Award for the "visionary directorial excellence" of The Mysteries (The Flea, NYT Critics' Pick) and The Golden Dragon (PlayCo, TONY Critics' Pick), Ed is also a two-time Drama Desk nominee for Outstanding Direction of Amy Freed's Restoration Comedy and Sean Graney's These Seven Sicknesses (The Flea, NYT Critics' Picks). As Artistic Director of Exit, Pursued By a Bear, Ed has served over 12,000 home-cooked meals over 150 priceless evenings. This Spring, he unveils an immersive all-male Taming of the Shrew at the Shakespeare Theatre, D.C. (Artistic Director, Michael Kahn). Drama League alumnus, NTC Emerging Professional Award and NYTW Usual Suspect. www.ediskandar.com | ed@epbb.org

Photo by Chris Barlow