The Playwrights Realm Presents INK'D Festival of New Plays

The Playwrights Realm, led by Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Roberta Pereira, is pleased to present the lineup for their annual INK'D Festival of New Plays. Running April 16-19 at 3pm & 7pm each day. The Realm will present staged readings of new work by 2016-17 Writing Fellows Isabella D'Esposito, Sarah B. Mantell, Christina Quintana, and Celine Song. INK'D exemplifies The Realm's ever-expanding commitment to providing holistic support to playwrights as they strive to make a life in the arts.

INK'D is the culminating event for The Realm's Writing Fellowship, a program born out of a desire to create more ongoing support systems for early career playwrights. Each season, from hundreds of applications, four exceptional Fellows are selected to receive a $3,000 stipend and nine months of script meetings, professional development sessions with industry leaders, a director and design collaborators to work with throughout the year, and both in-house and public workshop opportunities. Former Fellows include Amy Herzog, Ethan Lipton, christopher oscar peña, Mfoniso Udofia, and Donja R. Love, whose Sugar in Our Wounds was developed during his 2016-17 Writing Fellowship, read as part of INK'D 2017, and will be premiered by Manhattan Theatre Club this coming June.

About the 2017 INK'D Festival Artistic Director Katherine Kovner says, "These four plays show an exciting range of style and theme-from a cast of three to a cast of nine, with stories of identity, community and hope lost and found, in locales from Cuba to Korea to Washington Heights. But what they all share is breathtaking ambition, astonishing intelligence, and tremendous heart."

INK'D will run April 16-19, with two readings of each script per day, at 3:00pm and 7:00pm. Readings will take place at The Loft at Theatre 511 (511 W. 54th Street, between 10th and 11th), and each reading will be followed by a reception. Readings are free and open to the public, and reservations are recommended. To reserve seats please visit www.playwrightsrealm.org/INKD.

INK'D 2017 Schedule

Azul
By Christina Quintana
Directed by Logan Vaughn
Monday, April 16th - 3:00 & 7:00

At age nine, Yadra left Castro's Cuba. Now, as Alzheimer's sets in, her mind returns to that time and place, and family secrets are unearthed for her American-born daughter, Zelia. With her wife, Zelia embarks on a journey to try to understand the love that led her mother's beloved tia-abuela to stay behind-and to better understand herself. Spanning two countries and three generations, Azul fuses music and memory to ask: what is the true language of love? Featuring Liza Colón-Zayas and Sandra Delgado. Further casting TBD.

Christina Quintana is a New York-based writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots. Azul was featured on the 2017 Kilroys List and selected as an Honorable Mention for the 2017 Arch Bruce Brown Playwriting Competition. Other plays include: Evensong (Astoria Performing Arts Center), Enter Your Sleep (Yale Cabaret), Citizen Scientist (Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Project Commission), The Great Lonely Roamer & The Night That Changed Everything (NYU Voices Festival), and Scissoring (Finalist Alliance/ Kendeda; 2014 Kilroys List Honorable Mention). The recipient of fellowships from Playwrights Realm, Van Lier New Voices at The Lark, Queer/Art, CubaOne, and Lambda Literary, she holds an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University and is a current member of Youngblood, Ensemble Studio Theatre's Obie-winning cohort of playwrights. For more, visit cquintana.com

Endlings
By Celine Song
Directed by Sammi Cannold
Tuesday, April 17th - 3:00 & 7:00

On the Korean island of Man-Jae, the world's last three haenyeos ("sea-women") spend their dying days carrying out the tradition of diving for seafood with nothing but regret and rusty knives. Meanwhile, in New York City, Ha Young is suffering, too, trying to write a play about the haenyeos that White Theatres will actually produce! Wildly theatrical, this play within a play in a world all its own offers a warning: don't give your life to an island... unless it's the island of Manhattan. Featuring Ako, Wai Ching Ho, Matt W. Cody, Matt DaSilva, Jack Moore, Jihae Park, Keith Michael Pinault, Andy Talen, Lori Tan Chinn.

Celine Song is a Playwrights Realm 2017-2018 Writing Fellow, was a member of The Public Theater's 2016-2017 Emerging Writers Group, and a member of Ars Nova's 2014-2015 Play Group. Her play Endlings was a part of the 2017 Kilroys list, and Tom & Eliza was a semifinalist for the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 Relentless Award. Celine has been awarded residencies, fellowships, and commissions from: MTC/Sloan, Sundance, the Millay Colony for the arts, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. Celine was an IATI Theater 2015 Cimientos Playwright and a 2014 & 2016 Great Plains Theatre Conference Playlab Playwright. Her plays include The Feast (MAP Theater in Seattle, New Court Theatre in LA, Shelterbelt Theatre in Omaha, Red Theater Chicago), Family (Signature Theater, Potomac Theater), Tom & Eliza (Ars Nova, JACK, Theatre503), and Endlings (The Public, Echo Theater, OSF BLACK SWAN Lab). She holds an M.F.A. from Columbia.

Everything That Never Happened
By Sarah B. Mantell
Directed by Desdemona Chiang
Wednesday, April 18th - 3:00 & 7:00

Jessica wants to be with Lorenzo, and Lorenzo wants to be with Jessica. The only thing standing in their way is her father, Shylock, a complicated relationship with her servant Gobbo, and thousands of years of Jewish culture and history... With as many twists and surprises as the narrow streets of Venice, Everything That Never Happened turns Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice inside out, and reminds us that stories are as much about what we leave out as what gets left in. Featuring Mike Braun, Edmund Donovan, Andrew Gombas, and Simone Recasner.

Sarah B. Mantell's plays include Everything That Never Happened, Tiny, Fight Call, and Mrs. Galveston. Her work has been performed and developed at The Theatre @ Boston Court, Yaddo, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Seattle Rep, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Yale School of Drama, Philadelphia Theater Company, Geva Theatre, Play By Play, Wildacres, SPACE on Ryder Farm, and Yale Cabaret. Sarah has been a finalist for the Leah Ryan FEWW award and the Heideman Award. She has taught at Occidental College, Wesleyan, and the O'Neill Playwriting Program at New Haven's Cooperative Arts High School. She is a recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama and holds a BFA in illustration from Rhode Island School of Design.

Albert County Public Library System; Lakeside Branch
By Isabella D'Esposito
Directed by Jessi D. Hill
Thursday, April 19th - 3:00 & 7:00

The spectres of death and disaster loom over the Lakeside Branch-and not just in its popular vampire romance novels. Octogenarian volunteer coordinator Agatha wants things to run like they always have, but her elderly team is quickly shrinking, her fractious relationship with grief-stricken teen Madison is testing library loyalties, and to top it all off, someone is drawing men's you know whats in all the books! You're never too old (or young) to learn that in libraries, as in grieving, sometimes things have to fall apart for better things to come together. Featuring Alix Elias, Ronald Guttman, Lilli Hokama, Judith Roberts and Jade Wu. Further casting TBD.

Isabella D'Esposito is a New York based playwright and songwriter. As a playwright, her works have been produced or developed at Boise Contemporary Theatre, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, ANT Fest at Ars Nova, Arts Tristate, Carnegie Mellon University, Horizon Theater, and Red Theater Purchase. She has been an apprentice with New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater, a resident at the Stony Brook International Theater Festival, and a 2016 TEDxBroadway Young Professional. She is currently a Writing Fellow at The Playwrights Realm, and she received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at Carnegie Mellon University where she was the recipient of the Jean and Samuel Elgart Legacy Fellowship.

About The Playwrights Realm

Hailed as "invaluable" by The New York Times' Ben Brantley, The Playwrights Realm (Katherine Kovner, Founding Artistic Director; Roberta Pereira, Producing Director) is devoted to supporting early-career playwrights along the journey of playwriting, helping them to hone their craft, fully realize their vision and build meaningful artistic careers. To serve this mission, The Playwrights Realm provides comprehensive support to playwrights through its Page One Residency, Alumni Playwrights Program, Writing Fellowship, Scratchpad Series and, of course, productions.

This fall, 2017-18 Page One playwright Michael Yates Crowley's The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B. Matthias, completed a successful run at The Duke on 42nd Street, and Page One playwright Don Nguyen's Hello, from the Children of Planet Earth just finished its run on Saturday, March 24th, also at The Duke. Other Playwrights Realm productions include Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves (Pulitzer finalist in Drama 2017, Lortel, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle nominations, Obie award and Drama Desk special award for outstanding ensemble), Jen Silverman's The Moors, Mfoniso Udofia's Sojourners, Anna Ziegler's A Delicate Ship, Anton Dudley's City Of, Elizabeth Irwin's My Mañana Comes, Lauren Yee's The Hatmaker's Wife, Ethan Lipton's Red-Handed Otter, Jen Silverman's Crane Story, Gonzalo Rodríguez Risco's Dramatis Personae, Christopher Wall's Dreams of the Washer King, Anna Ziegler's Dov and Ali, and Anton Dudley's Substitution.

www.PlaywrightsRealm.org