The Drama League Announces Complete Details for DirectorFest 2011

The Drama League has announced complete details for DirectorFest 2011, the 28th annual presentation of one-act plays staged by the Fall Fellows of The Drama League Directors Project (Roger Danforth, Artistic Director; Gabriel Shanks, Executive Director).

DirectorFest 2011 offers an exciting glimpse into the future of American theatre by presenting four one-ACT Productions helmed by four of the nation’s most talented young directors.

The lineup for DirectorFest 2011 includes Anton Chekhov's short play The Bear, directed by Desdemona Chiang; Naomi Wallace’s No Such Cold Thing, directed by Amanda Friou; S?awomir Mro?ek’s comic Striptease, directed by Lily Whitsitt; and Lisa D’Amour’s My California, directed by Dawn Monique Williams.

DirectorFest 2011 runs from Saturday, December 10 through Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at HERE, located at 145 6th Avenue (Enter on Dominick St, 1 block south of Spring).

Performances are Saturday, December 10 at 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, December 11 at 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.; Monday, December 12 at 8:30 p.m.; and Tuesday, December 13 at 8:30 p.m. Tickets for DirectorFest 2011 are $18 each and are available online at www.here.org <http://www.here.org> or by calling 212-352-3101.

The box office is open after 5 p.m. on performance days or 2 hours before any performance. Each performance consists of all four one-acts presented in succession.

DirectorFest 2011 is a part of HEREstay, HERE's curated rental program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical support. In addition to the DirectorFest 2011 lineup,

The Drama League will also present a special ON STAGE: THE DIRECTORS Roundtable Discussion on Sunday, December 11 at 6:15 p.m. Admission is free.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTIONS

The Bear
Directed by Desdemona Chiang
One of Chekhov's great comic short plays, The Bear is a story of a mourning young widow who is one day visited by a landowner demanding the repayment of a debt incurred by her late husband. The two stubbornly bicker over the debt, and end up falling madly in love. This hilarious, bizarre, and triumphant one-act expresses the close relationship between anger and passion, and the strangeness and wonder of the human condition.

No Such Cold Thing
Directed by Amanda Friou
Naomi Wallace’s play No Such Cold Thing takes us to the phantasmagorical precipice where reality ends and memory begins in this poetic and haunting coming of age story. It is late 2001. Two teenage sisters remember reuniting in Afghanistan. An American soldier remembers returning home and going out with the guys in Gary, Indiana. But what have they forgotten, as if there were No Such Cold Thing?

Striptease
Directed by Lily Whitsitt
In S?awomir Mro?ek’s comic and grotesque Striptease, two businessmen find themselves inexplicably trapped in a room, unable to escape. One resists confinement, the other submits. A mysterious force appears, compelling the men to do ridiculous acts. Their futile attempts to break free only ensnare them further. Mro?ek’s biting one-act parable play dissects the absurd mechanisms of power.

My California
Directed by Dawn Monique Williams
My California weaves together three stories, spanning seven generations of the strident and determined Seaton women. In a tapestry of interlocking monologues, a creation myth unfurls as the family legacy of hope and dreams among these pioneering California women (a boarding house cook during the San Francisco Gold Rush, a flapper in the 1920’s, and a recent runaway trying to make it in Hollywood) comes together in time and space.

ABOUT THE DRAMA LEAGUE DIRECTORS PROJECT

Since its inception in 1984, The Drama League Directors Project has gained an international reputation for nurturing a new generation of exceptional directors.

Noted directors among The Directors Project’s 260 alumni include Tony winners Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening) and John Rando (Urinetown), Diane mPaulus (The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess), Christopher Ashley (Memphis), Mark Brokaw (Cry-Baby), Jonathan Silverstein (The Temperamentals), R.J. Cutler (Award winning director of the film “The September Issue”) and James Bundy (Dean, Yale School of Drama).

DirectorFest 2011 is the culmination of the Fall Directing Program of The Directors Project, the only career-development program for directors in the nation that guarantees an opportunity to direct a professional production.

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