Primary Stages Announces Additional Winter Programming

Primary Stages (Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Shane D. Hudson, Executive Director; Casey Childs, Founder) announced today additional programming and events for the Winter 2018 season.

Primary Stages will present a staged reading of PALMYRA, written by Daria Polatin and directed by Portia Krieger and featuring Amir Arison ("The Blacklist"), Tina Benko (The Crucible, Informed Consent), Nilanjana Bose (Tamburlaine The Great), and Eden Zane (Dark Play or Stories for Boys). The reading will be held at the Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce St) onFriday, February 23 at 3:00pm. The reading is free and open to the public. Tickets can be reserved at eventbrite.com.

When an American photographer gets captured in Syria by ISIS, she and her female warden's ideologies collide in this tense thriller about power, politics and feminism.

On Monday, March 26 at 3pm, Primary Stages will host an open meet-up with the women of the Dorset Theatre Festival's Women Artists Writing Group to share their process and meet their writers. Join in for an afternoon of excerpts from their works in progress followed by a brief talkback about where they've been, what they're working on, and what's next for the Women Artist Writers. Featuring the work of Heidi Armbruster, Mary Bacon, Carolyn Bost, Michelle Beck, Laura Gomez, Mariana Newhard, Elizabeth Kelly, Donna Eis, Sharahn LaRue McClung, Maggie Bofill, Heather Simms, and Mathilde Dratwa, the meet-up will take place at Primary Stages Studios (307 W 38th Street, 15th Floor). This event is free and open to the public. Tickets can be reserved at eventbrite.com.

Primary Stages will also present a staged reading of LINES IN THE DUST, written by Nikkole Salter and directed by Cheryl Katz. The reading will be held at Primary Stages Studios (307 W 38th Street, 15th Floor) on Tuesday, March 27 at 3pm. The reading is free and open to the public. Tickets can be reserved at eventbrite.com.

2010, Essex County, NJ. When Denitra loses the charter school lottery for her daughter, she must find another way to escape from their underperforming neighborhood school. The answer seems like a risk well worth taking but may end up requiring a bigger sacrifice than she ever could have imagined. Set over a half-century after Brown Versus the Board of Education, LINES IN THE DUST questions how far we've come and more importantly, where we go from here. (Luna Stage Commission)

Currently in performances at the Cherry Lane Theatre as part of Primary Stages 2017/18 season is A WALK WITH MR. HEIFETZ, written by James Inverne, directed by Andrew Leynse, and running through March 4, 2018. The season began with THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens AND COUNT Leo Tolstoy: DISCORD, written by Scott Carter and directed by Kimberly Senior; followed by PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, written by Kate Hamill, adapted from the novel by Jane Austen, directed by Amanda Dehnert, and presented in a co-production with Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. The 2017/18 season will conclude with FEEDING THE DRAGON, written and performed by Sharon Washington and directed by Maria Mileaf, and presented in a co-production with Hartford Stage. FEEDING THE DRAGON begins performances on March 21, 2018, with opening night set for Tuesday, April 3, and runs through April 27, 2018.

ABOUT Primary Stages

Primary Stages is an Off-Broadway not-for-profit theater company dedicated to inspiring, supporting, and sharing the art of playwriting. We operate on the strongly held belief that the future of American theater relies on nurturing playwrights and giving them the artistic support needed to create new work. Since our founding in 1984, we have produced more than 130 new plays, including In Transit by James Allen-Ford, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Russ Kaplan, and Sara Wordsworth (which debuted on Broadway last season); Horton Foote's The Roads to Home, TheDay Emily Married, Harrison, TX, and Dividing the Estate (two 2009 Tony Award nominations); David Ives' All in the Timing (original 1993 production and 2013 revival) and Lives of the Saints; Donald Margulies' The Model Apartment (1995 premiere and 2013 revival); Billy Porter's While I Yet Live; Deborah Zoe Laufer's Informed Consent; Charles Busch's The Tribute Artist and Olive and the Bitter Herbs; Ike Holter's Exit Strategy; Tanya Saracho's Fade; Michael McKeever's Daniel's Husband, A.R. Gurney's Black Tie; Daisy Foote's When They Speak of Rita and Him; Theresa Rebeck's Poor Behavior; Tanya Barfield's The Call; Terrence McNally's Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams and The Stendhal Syndrome; Dan O'Brien's The Body of an American; Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter's In the Continuum (which went on to tour the U.S., Africa, and Scotland); and Conor McPherson's St. Nicholas (which marked the playwright's U.S .debut). Our productions and artists have received critical acclaim, including numerous Tony, Obie, Lortel, Off-Broadway Alliance, AUDELCO, Outer Critics' Circle, Drama League, and Drama Desk awards and nominations. Primary Stages supports playwrights and develops new works through commissions, workshops, readings, and our education, access, and training programs: The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, the Marvin and Anne Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA), the Fordham/Primary Stages MFA in Playwriting, Teenwrights, the Free Student Matinee Program, the Internship Program, TixTeen, PS35, and the newly launched Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project. Through these programs, Primary Stages advocates for our artists, helping them make important-and often transformative-connections within the theater community.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT

www.primarystages.org

PALMYRA BIOS

DARIA POLATIN (Playwright) is a playwright, TV writer and author. Daria's plays include Palmyra, In Tandem, Guidance, That First Fall, D.C., and The Luxor Express, inspired by her father's life growing up in Egypt. Her work has been produced at The Kennedy Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Golden Thread Productions, Noor Theatre, Malibu Playhouse, and in London, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. Daria is a resident playwright at The Echo Theater Company, an alumna of Center Theatre Group Writers Workshop, Youngblood, and completed a residency with London's Royal Court Theatre. Daria has directed plays and her short film, "Till It Gets Weird." She is a writer/producer for the upcoming Amazon TV series "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan," starring John Krasinski, and wrote for the Hulu psychic drama "Shut Eye." Daria's debut novel Devil in Ohio is published by Macmillan. Awards: Kennedy Center/A.C.T.F. Best One-Act Play, Middle East America Playwriting Prize Honorable Mention, Wasserstein Prize Nominee, Princess Grace Award Finalist; MFA Columbia University. www.dariapolatin.com

Portia Krieger (Director) has workshopped new plays with the O'Neill/National Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Horizons, 2ST, Roundabout Underground, New York Stage & Film, Rattlestick, Page 73, Ars Nova, the Lark, the Juilliard School, NYMF, and many others. She has been an inaugural O'Neill/NNPN National Director's Fellow, a member of The Civilians R&D group, a New Georges Audrey Resident, a member of the Drama League Directors Project and the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and an Ars Nova Director-in Residence. She was the Associate Director of Fun Home on Broadway. She is a Clubbed Thumb Affiliated Artist and a co-founder of the New Georges Jam. Education: BA in Theater, Smith College.

ABOUT THE DORSET THEATRE FESTIVAL

From June to September, Dorset Theatre Festival mounts 4 main stage productions, in a charming 300-seat proscenium theatre built from 3 restored pre-revolutionary barns. Every summer, Dorset Theatre Festival draws from some of this country's most talented playwrights, actors, and directors to launch new plays that go on to national acclaim, mount regional premieres to bring the best of Off-Broadway to Vermont, and incubate emerging playwrights and artists. Dorset Theatre Festival's mission is to create bold, innovative, and authentic theatre that engages a diverse, multi-generational community, and economically diverse region: enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring our audience through the celebration of great plays. Locally engaged and nationally relevant, we produce theatre that matters.

LINES IN THE DUST BIOS

Nikkole Salter (Playwright) Hailed by Variety as "thoroughly convincing", Los Angeles-born, OBIE Award-winning actress and writer Nikkole Salter arrived onto the professional scene with her co-authorship and co-performance (with Danai Gurira) of the Pulitzer Prize nominated play, In the Continuum (ITC). For its Off-Broadway run at Primary Stages and the Perry Street Theatre and for its US State Department and Bloomberg sponsored inter-national tour, Ms. Salter received an OBIE Award, and the NY Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Award for Best New American Play, the Seldes-Kanin fellowship from the Theatre Hall of Fame, and the Global Tolerance Award from the Friends of the United Nations to name a few. Ms. Salter also received Helen Hayes and Black Theatre Alliance nominations for Best Actress for her performance. ITC, published by Samuel French, was pronounced by The New York Times, Newsday and New York Magazine as one of the best plays of 2005 and was featured in numerous esteemed media outlets including Essence, American Theatre, the Los Angeles Times and NPR's "The Leonard Lopate Show." ITChas received over 20 productions across the world to date.

As an actress, Ms. Salter can be seen in Gavin O'Connors feature film Pride & Glory starring Ed Norton, Colin Farrell and Jon Voight, and heard as the voice of 'LATICIA' in Rockstar Games' video game release, "Midnight Club: Los Angeles." Ms. Salter has received an Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in Tony winner Kenny Leon's production of Stick Fly co-produced by Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.) and the Huntington Theatre (Boston), starred in the role of 'Cookie' in the West Coast Premiere of Oscar winner Tarell McCraney's latest play Head of Passes at Berkeley Repertory Theatre (dir. Tina Landau), was featured in Harold Jackson, III's independent film Last Night, (winner of the Audience Award for Best Film and the Grand Jury Prize for best Screenplay in the 2015 American Black Film Festival), and was most recently seen as Lady Macbeth in Tony-nominee Liesl Tommy's controversial production of Macbeth at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.

As a dramatist, Ms. Salter has written 6 full-length plays, been commissioned for full-length work by 6 institutions, been produced on 3 continents in 5 countries, and been published in 12 international publications. Her work has appeared in over 20 Off-Broadway, regional and international theatres, and the Crossroads Theatre production of her play Repairing a Nation (directed by Marshall Jones, III) was regionally aired during the second season of the WNET program "Theatre Close-Up" on NYC's channel THIRTEEN, WLIC, NJTV. The National Black Theatre production of her play Carnaval was nominated for 7 AUDELCO awards including Best Playwright and Best Production and won for Best Ensemble Performance. Ms. Salter is a 2014 MAP Fund Grant recipient, a Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, USA Fellowship nominee, a two-time Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellowship nominee, is currently working on commissions from Woolly Mammoth, the National New Play Network/Cleveland Public Theatre and was selected to write the television adaptation of Claude Brown'sNew York Times Bestselling novel, Manchild in the Promised Land.

Amid an emerging acting/writing career, Ms. Salter's deep sense of social responsibility led her to co-found (with NSangou Njikam) and serve as Executive Artistic Director of THE CONTINUUM PROJECT, INC., a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that creates innovative artistic programming for community empowerment and enrichment. Their first bi-annual endeavor, The Legacy Program: Residency - an arts education, youth development initiative - launched in 2009 at the William Alexander Middle School in Brooklyn, NY. The Continuum Project, Inc. received the 2010 and 2011 Brooklyn Arts Council Regrant Award (Local Arts), a grant funded by the New York Council on the Arts' Decentralization Program, in support of the LP: Residency. Ms. Salter as the Exec. Art. Dir. of the CP and conceiver of the Legacy Program was featured on WBAI 99.5 FM's "Talkback with Hugh Hamilton" in NYC and was featured on the nationally broadcast PBS series, "Finding Your Roots," hosted by Harvard Professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Legacy Program was most recently in residence at the Harlem School for the Arts.

Ms. Salter is an active member of the Actors Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Actors Center; and sits on the board of the Theatre Communications Group and on the Council of the Dramatists Guild. She received her BFA in theatre from Howard University under the instruction of Al Freeman, Jr. and Sybil Roberts; and her MFA from New York University's Graduate Acting Program under the tutelage of Zelda Fichandler and Ron Van Lieu.

CHERYL KATZ (Director) is the Artistic Director of Luna Stage in West Orange, NJ. During her time at Luna, she has contributed to the development of over fifty new works for the stage including three world premieres by Nikkole Salter. Prior to her position at Luna, Cheryl developed and directed new plays in the New York area and worked as a producer, administrator and special projects manager for LaMama E.T.C., Under One Roof, Electronic Arts Intermix, Arts International and The School of Hard Knocks. She has worked in script development for The Young Playwrights Festival, The O'Neill Theatre Conference and The Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey and is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

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