The Civilians Announces Its Inaugural R&D Group Play Reading Series

The Civilians (Steve Cosson, Artistic Director), the award-winning New York-based theatre company known for projects investigating real-life topics, announces the programming and schedule for its inaugural R&D Group Reading Series featuring works-in-progress by the members of their newly-formed Research and Development group. Writers Quincy Long, Samuel D. Hunter, Jason Grote, Don Nguyen, Mia Chung, Alix Lambert, and Jackie Sibblies Drury will have their plays read, helmed by directors Kathleen Dimmick, David F. Chapman, Jesse Jou, Donya K. Washington, Mia Rovegno, Birgitta Victorson, and Lila Neugebauer.

The Civilians' R&D Group is comprised of emerging and established theater artists interested in creating investigative theater. During their nine months in the group, each artist has developed a new work through a creative investigation of a subject via interviewing, community engagement, research, or other experimental methods of inquiry. The artists have met biweekly for the past nine months to share and discuss their methodologies and the resulting work with the group, Steve Cosson, Literary Associate Annah Feinberg, and The Civilians' multidisciplinary group of Associate Artists.

The following readings are open to the public. They will all take place at 7pm, 520 Eighth Avenue, 3rd Floor and are free. To RSVP to the following readings, please email Annah at annah@thecivilians.org.

Public readings will include:

May 19th
SAFE IN HEAVEN DEAD by Jason Grote
directed by Jesse Jou
A play about the Beat writers in 21st-century America.

May 23rd
SOUND
by Don Nguyen
directed by Donya K. Washington
George and Barbara are getting married soon. They are both deaf. Barbara wants to get a cochlear implant in order to hear. George, being a proud member of the Deaf community, will have none of that. Meanwhile, a hundred thirty years earlier, Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, is observing the deaf population on Martha's Vineyard, in hopes of finding a cure for deafness. SOUND culls information from interviews and existing research materials in order to build a theatrical exploration into the worlds of both hearing and deaf cultures and the ongoing struggle for one's identity in both worlds.

May 24th
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by Mia Chung
directed by Mia Rovegno
Three of "the best and the brightest" prepare to take their places in life after school.

May 26th
CRIME, USA
by Alix Lambert
directed by Birgitta Victorson
Crime, USA is an investigation into the world of crime in the United States, which began one year ago in residency at The Studios of Key West, in Key West, Florida - Mile Zero, and will continue in cities throughout America. Through a series of interviews with criminals, cops, crime writers, pawnshop owners, the FBI, the DOJ, experts on serial killers, former gang members, and one man named Monkey Tom, a portrait of America and its crime comes into focus. The differences and similarities between the cities create an intricate topography of American crime.

Other readings in the series will include:
CHURCH LAUGH
by Quincy Long
directed by Kathleen Dimmick
Church Laugh is about a priest, his wife, his bishop and his racehorse.

THE FEW
by Samuel D. Hunter
directed by David F. Chapman
Inside a double-wide off some random interstate exit, a man named Bryan founded a newspaper for truckers, striving to bring meaningful news and insight to people "who have homes but are homeless, who are citizens of a place but who never stop moving." Vanishing shortly after he started it, Bryan returns years later and finds a very different paper than the one he started, and begins to wonder if true meaning and insight even exist anymore. The Few is an examination of how the isolated residents of rural America relate to the rest of the country and to one another.

UNTITLED PHOTO PROJECT
by Jackie Sibblies Drury
directed by Lila Neugebauer
Untitled Photo Project is a fast-moving absurdist revue centering on the connections between the rise of photography in 20th century America with mortality, violence, the creation of popular culture.

Founded in 2001 by Steven Cosson, The Civilians has created twelve original works that have been produced Off Broadway and in over 40 cities nationally and internationally, at theaters such as The Public Theater, Center Theatre Group, La Jolla Playhouse, A.R.T., HBO's US Comedy Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival, London's Soho Theatre, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Fringe First Award, 2006). The company's recent work, In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards, played in Brooklyn and Boston, and was included in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Time Out New York's "Best of 2010" lists. The Civilians received an Obie in 2004 in recognition of its accomplishments in its first two seasons of work.

The Civilians is celebrating its tenth anniversary season and supporting the development of several new works including The Great Immensity, Pretty Filthy and Tales from My Parents Divorce, the latter of which will have its premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival this summer.

For more information about the R&D group, visit http://thecivilians.org/about/rdgroup.html
For more information about The Civilians, visit http://thecivilians.org/