Castillo Theatre Presents Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Playwriting Contest Winners, 8/2-23

The Castillo Theatre is presenting the four winning scripts from the 2010 Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Playwriting Contest, selected from over 200 entries. The plays are being directed by distinguished theatre professionals. The playreadings will take place at the Castillo Theatre, 543 West 42nd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenue) on Mondays, August 2, 9, 16, 23 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 adults; $5 students and senior citizens; TDF accepted; group rates available. Click on Castillo Theatre for tickets and more information or call 212-941-1234. The winners of the 2010 Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Playwriting Contest are:

August 2 - The Third Crossing by Debora Threedy, directed by Peter James Cook.

The Third Crossing is a theatrical collage of scenes and monologues on the subject of inter-racial relationships and racial identity in the United States. The play is centered on the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave, lover and the mother of his children, Sally Hemings, and includes a layering of other viewpoints and texts that comment on that "founding story.

August 9 - Put Your Trust In God And Keep Your Powder Dry by Michael Vukadinovich, directed by Valentina Fratti

Put Your Trust in God and Keep Your Powder Dry, is three interwoven monologues based on the lives of three women with extraordinary stories and an unusual connection: one a nameless slave running to save her baby's life, another a young woman serving as a male soldier during the Civil War, and the third, an eccentric widow trying to reverse a curse. Three women with very different lives, in this play, their histories interweave through echoes of violence that effect us all.

August 16 - Tangled by NicOle Anderson-Cobb, directed by Woodie King, Jr.

Clo and her sisters run a family-owned funeral home on Chicago's South Side, busy lately due to a string of neighborhood shootings. Clo is happy for the business, but burying young people week after week takes its toll on the sisters as they struggle to serve the community while battling their mounting fears and despair. Will anyone, including Gram-mama's ghost, inspire Clo to stand up and fight for a safer community? Will she stop tending to the dead, and start tending to the living? Tangled uses humor, warmth and local texture to look at a crisis that is devastating poor communities of color throughout the United States.

August 23 - Another Kind of Hunger by Judith Marie Wallace, directed by Eric Vitale

After a decades-long absence, the well-educated and charismatic Preston returns home to a remote reservation in the desert Southwest. Determined to lift his people out of poverty, he pursues a plan to build a five-star resort on pristine reservation land. But his lifelong mentor, Mary, a highly respected tribal elder, is convinced a resort will lead to the destruction of the land and her people's traditional way of life. Their conflict over what makes for a better life for their community is intensified by their complex personal history and the actions of a corporate executive who has come to the reservation to pursue love, land, and natural resources (not necessarily in that order).

Each reading will be followed by a brief Q&A with the authors.

For more information, please visit http://www.castillo.org/contest.html.