The Public Theater Welcomes Back NEW WORK NOW! 5/7

The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) will welcome back NEW WORK NOW!, the popular reading series that allows audiences an opportunity to experience new work by a diverse selection of established and emerging theater artists for FREE, beginning Friday, May 7. Last presented at The Public in 2006, NEW WORK NOW! went on hiatus as The Public launched other programs focused on new work, like the Emerging Writers Group and Public LAB, but this popular program will return this May as a vital part of the theater's commitment to new play development.

NEW WORK NOW! will run May 7 to May 23 with 11 readings of new plays in The Public's Martinson Hall. Tickets to NEW WORK NOW! are free and may be reserved by contacting the box office at (212) 967-7555.

Previous NEW WORK NOW! series have included the world premieres of In the Red and Brown Water by Tarell Alvin McCraney; The Good Negro by Tracey Scott Wilson; Paris Commune by Steven Cosson and Michael Friedman; The Poor Itch by John Belluso; In Darfur by Winter Miller; Durango by Julia Cho; Measure for Pleasure by David Grimm; Satellites by Diana Son; Well by Lisa Kron; Caroline, or Change by Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori; and the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz and Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks.

2010 NEW WORK NOW! Schedule

Friday, May 7 at 7 PM
WINGS OF NIGHT SKY, WINGS OF MORNING LIGHT
Written and Performed By Joy Harjo
Directed by Randy Reinholz
At Joe's Pub
In collaboration with The Public Theater's Native Theater Initiative

Internationally known poet, performer, writer, and musician Joy Harjo writes and performs her first piece for the theater. This one-woman, allegorical play re-imagines the creation myth through a precociously sensitive heroine-the child of a Cherokee waitress and an alcoholic Creek father. The piece received its first reading in 2007 at The Public's Native Theater Festival before going on to a run at Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles.

Saturday, May 8 at 7 PM
ADY
By Rhiana Yazzie
Directed by Hayley Finn
In collaboration with The Public Theater's Native Theater Initiative
Cast includes De'Adre Aziza and Thirza Defoe

Adrienne, a young Navajo woman, relates the mostly unknown story of Ady, a dancer from the West Indies who was the muse to surrealist artist Man Ray. Poetic, evocative and full of mystery, the play weaves together a contemporary coming of age story with an exploration of Native identity against the backdrop of the great surrealist art movement. Yazzie takes a fresh look at love, race, history and art.

Sunday, May 9 at 7 PM
EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM
By A. Rey Pamatmat
Directed by Lisa Peterson
Cast includes Christopher Larkin, Teresa Avia Lim, Will Rogers, and Jon Norman Schneider

Three kids - Kenny, his sister Edith, and their friend Benji - are all but abandoned on a farm in remotest Middle America. With little adult supervision, they feed and care for each other, making up the rules as they go. But when Kenny's and Benji's relationship becomes more than friendship, and Edith shoots something she really shouldn't shoot, the formerly indifferent outside world comes barging in. An endearing coming of age story about young love.

Monday, May 10 at 7 PM
URGE FOR GOING
By Mona Mansour
Directed by Johanna Gruenhut
Cast includes Tala Ashe, Ramsey Faragallah, Sevan, Greene, Omar Koury, Mozhan Marno, Laith Nakli, and Babak Tafti

Written by 2009 Emerging Writers Group member Mona Mansour, Urge for Going tells the story of 17-year-old Jamila, a Palestinian girl growing up in a Lebanese refugee camp, who is desperate to escape the small and impoverished world she calls home. Mansour fuses global politics with the intimacy of family life in this smart and inventive drama.

Wednesday, May 12 at 7 PM
The Civilians' THE GREAT IMMENSITY
By Steven Cosson
Music and Lyrics by Michael Friedman
Directed by Steven Cosson
Cast includes Blair Baker, Damian Baldet, Hannah Cabell, and Christina Kirk

Polly, a photojournalist, disappears while working in the virgin rainforests of Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal. Phyllis, Polly's twin, embarks on an international search for her lost sister that spans the North American continent, from the tropics to arctic Churchill, Canada. With great wit, intelligence and theatricality, The Civilians weave the sisters' story as they survive polar bears, tundra buggies, snakes, and a Chinese pimp - all while grappling with the harsh and seemingly hopeless realities of climate change.

Thursday, May 13 at 7 PM
MARY
By Thomas Bradshaw
Directed by May Adrales

Thomas Bradshaw pulls no punches in this comic absurdist drama. At the height of what Time magazine dubbed "AIDS hysteria" in 1983, college student David invites his boyfriend home to his parents' house in Virginia where nothing has changed since the 1800s-including the slave quarters. This darkly comic new play tackles race, sexuality, religion and the absurd but devastating nature of hate.

Sunday, May 16 at 7 PM
OUR LADY OF KIBEHO
By Katori Hall
Directed by Liesl Tommy

Rwanda, 1981. A girl sees the Virgin Mary, who shows her a vision of a glorious future for her country if only the people will pray. But will anyone believe her? A brand new piece by Katori Hall, recipient of London's 2010 Olivier Award for Best New Play.

Monday, May 17 at 7 PM
WELCOME HOME, DEAN CHARBONNEAU
Written and Directed by Adam Rapp

Dean has just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq to his home in Wisconsin, where his extended family plans a welcome home party. But as the night wears on, no one is prepared for the destruction that awaits. Beautifully observed, the play seethes with humor and danger while cracking open the wounds of family and war.

Tuesday, May 18 at 7 PM
AMERIVILLE
Written and Performed by Universes
(Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz, Gamal Abdel Chasten, William Ruiz aka "Ninja")
Directed and Developed by Chay Yew

Ameriville takes on what it means to be an American - with heart, impassioned dance and incandescent harmonies. Universes uses Hurricane Katrina as a lens to scrutinize the state of the union and its attitudes about race, poverty, politics, history and government in their latest project. Following a Humana Festival debut and national tour, we are delighted to share this extraordinary piece with New York audiences.

Friday, May 21 at 7 PM
FORGOTTEN WORLD
By Deborah Asiimwe
Directed by Liesl Tommy
In association with The Sundance Institute Theatre Program

This multi-media play investigates the lives of child soldiers in Uganda and other international areas of war. The play follows six dead children through the eyes of a photographer who captures the children's memories through images, while considering her conflicting role as artist and activist. Inspired by Asiimwe's experience interacting with former child soldiers in Uganda and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army's notorious reputation for child abduction, Forgotten World explores the boundary between art and exploitation.

Sunday, May 23 at 7 PM
JANE SAYS
By Diana Son
Directed by Jonathan Rosenberg

The Public has long been home to Diana Son where her plays SATELLITES and STOP KISS world premiered. Now, join us in welcoming Diana back with a first look at her brand new work in which a reporter becomes obsessed with a woman who doesn't know who she is or where she came from.

PLAYWRIGHT BIOS

Deborah Asiimwe is a playwright and performer from Uganda. Her recent plays include Forgotten World, Cooking Oil, Appointment with God and Untitled. Lagoma is Searching, You are that Man, and My Secret all received productions at the Uganda National Cultural Centre/National Theatre. Asiimwe is a 2006 recipient of a scholarship of merit in Writing For Performance from California Institute of the Arts, where she recently graduated with a Master in Fine Arts (MFA) degree.

Thomas Bradshaw's Mary will premiere at The Goodman Theater in Chicago next season. His play The Bereaved, currently running at The State Theater of Bielefeld in Germany, was named one of the best plays of 2009 in TimeOut New York. His plays Southern Promises and Dawn were listed among the Best Performances of Stage and Screen for 2008 in The New Yorker. Thomas is the recipient of a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Steven Cosson is the Artistic Director of The Civilians: This Beautiful City; Brooklyn at Eye Level; Paris Commune; Gone Missing (NY Times Top 10); (I Am) Nobody's Lunch, and Canard, Canard, Goose? at Barrow Street, Vineyard, Center Theatre Group, The Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Actors Theatre Of Louisville, Studio Theatre, A.R.T., Gate Theatre, Soho Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe (Fringe First), HBO Comedy Festival and others. New plays and classics at Hartford Stage, Williamstown, Kansas City Rep, Soho Rep, San Diego Rep, O'Neill, New Harmony and more.

Michael Friedman is the Founding Associate Artist of The Civilians. Composer/lyricist for the company's The Great Immensity, This Beautiful City, (I Am) Nobody's Lunch, Gone Missing, and Canard, Canard, Goose? Music and lyrics for Saved, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, In the Bubble, The Brand New Kid, God's Ear, and The Blue Demon. Film/TV work: On Common Ground, Beloved, Emile Norman: By His Own Design, Floaters and Affair Game. Recipient of a MacDowell fellowship, a Princeton University Hodder Fellowship and a 2007 Obie award for sustained excellence.

Katori Hall is a playwright-performer hailing from Memphis, Tennessee. Her plays include Hoodoo Love, Remembrance, Hurt Village, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, The Mountaintop (2010 Olivier Winner for Best New Play), and Pussy Valley. Other awards include 2009-10 Lark Play Development Center PONY Fellowship, Kate NeAl Kinley Fellowship, two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, Van Lier Fellowship, NYFA Fellowship, and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award.
Joy Harjo is a member of the Myskoke Nation. Her poetry collections have garnered many awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is a founding member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and writes a column for her tribal newspaper, the Muscogee Nation News. As a musician, she has recorded four CDs and won a NAMMY award for Female Artist of the Year.
Mona Mansour was part of L.A.'s Groundlings Theater, where she performed her own material. Her first play, Me and the S.L.A., ran at the Groundlings and Seattle Fringe Festival. Girl Scouts of America (co-written with Andrea Berloff) had readings at NYTW, in The Public Theater's New Work Now!, and a production in NYC Fringe 2006. Television: "Dead Like Me" (Showtime) and "Queens Supreme" (CBS). The Hour of Feeling recently was read in The Public's Emerging Writers Group Spotlight Series. Mona was named "One of 50 to Watch" by the Dramatists Guild.

A. Rey Pamatmat's plays have been produced by Second Generation (Thunder Above, Deeps Below), the Vortex (Deviant), Actors Theatre Of Louisville (Ain't Meat, 1260 Minute Life), Vampire Cowboys (Red Rover), and HERE (High/Limbo/High), and developed at the O'Neill, The Public, Playwrights Horizons, Ars Nova, Ma-Yi, Rattlestick, and The Lark. He was a NYFA Playwriting Fellow, received an EST/Sloan Commission, and is a member of the Ma-Yi Writer's Lab. BFA: NYU, MFA: Yale School of Drama.

Adam Rapp is an Obie-award-winning playwright and director. His plays include Nocturne, Faster, Animals & Plants, Finer Noble Gases, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Blackbird, Essential Self-Defense, American Sligo, Bingo With the Indians, Kindness, and Red Light Winter, which was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of several novels, most notably The Year of Endless Sorrows (FSG). The world premiere of his new play, The Metal Children, is currently running at The Vineyard.

Diana Son is the author of Stop Kiss and Satellites, both Public Theater premieres, as well as Boy, R.A.W. (‘Cause I'm a Woman) and other plays. Stop Kiss won the GLAAD Media Award for Best New York Production and Diana won the Berilla Kerr Award for playwriting. She has written for the television shows "Southland," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," and "The West Wing." She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three sons.

Universes is a National/International ensemble company of multi-disciplined writers and performers who fuse poetry, theater, jazz, hip-hop, politics, down home blues and Spanish boleros to create moving challenging and entertaining theatrical works. The group breaks the bounds of traditional theater to create their own brand, inviting old and new generations of theater crafters, as well as theatergoers and newcomers, to reshape the face of American theater.
Rhiana Yazzie is a Navajo playwright based in Minnesota. Since 2008, she has seen the production of four new plays. She is also an acclaimed writer of audio plays and theatre for young audiences. Most recently her play Chile Pod was produced by La Jolla Playhouse toured to 14,000 students in Southern California. She is a Playwrights' Center Core Member and is jointly commissioned by the Ashland Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the NY Public Theater to write a play for American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle.
TICKET INFORMATION

NEW WORK NOW! will begin on Friday, May 7 and run through Sunday, May 23. Check www.publictheater.org for up-to-date casting and schedule information.

The Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette Street. Tickets are free and can be reserved by calling (212) 967-7555 or visiting The Public Theater box office, beginning Thursday, April 22. There is a limit of 2 tickets per reading per person.