Primary Stages to Present Reading of Connor Sampson's PARADING THE NOOSE

Primary Stages has announced a reading of PARADING THE NOOSE, a new play by Connor Sampson, the recipient of the inaugural Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award, established by Jeffry Melnick and administrated by Primary Stages.

The reading will be held at the Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce St) on Monday, April 24 at 7pm. The reading is free and open to the public. Tickets can be reserved at paradingthenoose.eventbrite.com.

It's May 2nd, 2011. Ethan Neworth has decided he's going to kill himself before the sun rises, but has some unfinished business to take care of before then. However, when news of Osama Bin Laden's death hits Worcester, MA, the city's celebration causes some unforeseen consequences that throws his, and everyone else's, plans off course. PARADING THE NOOSE will be directed by Hondo Weiss-Richmond (7 Lies of an Unbeliever).

The cast of PARADING THE NOOSE will feature Sean Mellot (A Prayer for Owen Meany) as Ethan, Catherine Curtin ("Orange is the New Black"), as Patricia, Jon Norman Schneider (Awake and Sing!) as Daniel, and Craig Mungavin (Redwood) as Horse/EMT/Passenger. Gabrielle Aryana Beans (/VANITAS/) will provide stage directions.

The Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award is given to worthy playwrights who have yet to receive a major production of their work. The other finalists for this year's award included S.P. Monahan and Fielding Edlow. Those involved in the selection process included Lee Blessing, Charles Busch, Katrin Hilbe, Daryl Roth, and Janet Reed.

Currently in performances as part of Primary Stages' 2016/17 season is DANIEL'S HUSBAND, written by Michael McKeever (Moscow) and directed by Joe Brancato (Miracle on South Division Street), running through April 28 at the Cherry Lane Theatre. The season began with THE ROADS TO HOME, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote (Harrison, TX) and directed by Michael Wilson (The Trip to Bountiful); followed by Tanya Saracho's FADE, directed by Jerry Ruiz.

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 125 new plays, including Donald Margulies' The Model Apartment (1995 premiere and 2013 revival); David Ives' Lives of the Saints and All in the Timing (original 1993 production and 2013 revival); Billy Porter's While I Yet Live; Kate Fodor's Rx; Charles Busch's The Tribute Artist and Olive and the Bitter Herbs; A.R. Gurney's Black Tie; Horton Foote's Harrison, TX and Dividing the Estate (Two 2009 Tony Award nominations); Theresa Rebeck's Poor Behavior; Deborah Zoe Laufer's Informed Consent; Terrence McNally's Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams and The Stendhal Syndrome; 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 Tony, Obie, Lortel, 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 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, 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.

Connor Sampson (Playwright) is a twenty-five-year-old writer-performer living in Brooklyn and hailing from Worcester, MA. An ensemble member with the NY Neo-Futurists, he can be seen regularly performing in their hit show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 plays in 60 minutes) and, less-regularly, in international tours of their Drama Desk-nominated The Complete and Condensed Stage Direction of Eugene O'Neill Vol. 1&2. Connor is currently writing and creating the NY Neo?Futurists' MainStage production, The Great American Drama, premiering at A.R.T./NY in January of 2017. He is a two-time national champion of performance poetry with Slam! @ NYU and has headlined shows at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Bowery Poetry Club, Wesleyan University, Columbia University, and more. As a playwright, his work has been featured in many cities including Boston, New York, San Francisco and Worcester, MA. Connor is currently writing and creating a show, The Great American Drama, for the NY Neo-Futurists MainStage production for the fall of 2016. His most recent play Parading the Noose (an almost summer's beginning brings a party) was selected as a Goldberg Play Prize Finalist. Other plays include: Capture My Heart (Cherry Lane Theatre), Boy Meets Girl (Suffolk University), and The Art of Cannibalism (NYU), among others. Connor holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing with Honors from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

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