Working Theatre Announces New Season and Leadership

Working Theater - the Off-Broadway theatre dedicated to plays for and about working people, notably industrial, transportation and service trades -- has announced that Mark Plesent, the company's Producing Director since 1995, will take on the artistic leadership of the Company with the new title of Producing Artistic Director, effective immediately. Laura Smith, the Company's Director of Special Events and Marketing since 2006, will assume the role of Managing Director. Playwright and actress Lisa Ramirez will be brought on as Artistic Associate.

About his appointment, Mr. Plesent states, "While I have always been involved in the artistic decision making at Working Theater, I am very excited to take on the full-time role of Producing Artistic Director. Over the years I have developed a deep relationship with our constituency and I am now eager to share with them an expanded vision for the Company as we move forward. We had a really exciting 25th Anniversary Season last year, working on over 25 projects with some really talented writers, directors and actors. I want to keep that momentum going."

Working Theater's 2011 Season will kick off in January with a production of Stefanie Zadravec's 2009 Helen Hayes Award winner for best new play, Honey Brown Eyes. Set in Bosnia in 1992, the play is a theatrical powerhouse taking an unflinching look at the lengths ordinary people will go to survive a brutal war. Mr. Plesant notes, "When I first read Stefanie's play set in two different kitchens in Bosnia, I was struck with the sensation that, god forbid, the events of the play were taking place in New York City, it would be taking place in the kitchens of Working Theater's constituency. These are people who didn't ask for this war, but now that it is happening find themselves challenged in the most extraordinary ways."

Erica Schmidt will direct Honey Brown EYES.

Throughout the season, Working Theater will also continue to develop two commissioned projects, The Poultry Play (Working Title) by Lisa Ramirez and directed by Lisa Peterson, and Song to a Child Like Me by Manuel Borras, directed by Arin Arbus. Both titles will be presented as works-in- progress in the spring of 2011. The company will also commission Ed Cardona Jr. -- whose American Jornalero was one of the hits of the 25th Anniversary Season -- to write a new play, La Ruta, about Mexicans being smuggled over the border by "coyotes."

As well, Working Theater will present a developmental reading of long-time Working Theater collaborator Rob Ackerman's Call Me Waldo directed by Tamilla Woodard, about an electrician inspired (perhaps divinely) by Ralph Waldo Emerson. A reading of Chay Yew's Visible Cities -- a play about the globalization of commerce and culture - is scheduled for this season, also.

The 2010-11 season will find Working Theater at work on a new project with the legendary performer Andre De Shields. Programming will also include a week-long Directors Salon for young directors, as well as two final performances of TheaterWorks!, a program which puts the theatrical creative process directly in the hands of working people by teaching how to write and perform (under the guidance of professional actors and directors), their own short plays over a 4-month period. Finally, Working Theatre will bring back its open mike night, an opportunity for working people to share their talent in a professional theater setting.

Working Theater's season will run from January to June 2011, and all events will take place at Theater Row (410 W. 42 St.) in Manhattan.

Please check out our website www.theworkingtheater.org for updates on all of our season activities.

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