Anna Moench News

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company will present a benefit reading in honor of the Tenth Season of Keen Teens on Monday March 21st at The Clurman Theatre, Theatre Row.   Casts will feature current Keen Teens, KT alumni, and professional actors including Heidi Armbruster, Laura Esterman, Peter Jay Fernandez, Autumn Hurlbert, Ted Koch, KK Moggie, Lauren Molina, Chris Perfetti, Jay Russell, Conor Ryan, and Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein as 'Principal Forsman.' All proceeds from the 10th Anniversary Readings will help support the continued growth of the Keen Teens program.

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company (Jonathan Silverstein - Artistic Director, Mark Armstrong - Keen Teens Producer) will present the Tenth Season of Keen Teens.  This season's offerings will be Thirty Million, a new musical with music and lyrics by Max Vernon; book by Jason Kim, directed by Mark Armstrong, with choreography by Brad Landers and musical direction by Lena Gabrielle; Landlines by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, directed by Liz Carlson; and How The Moon Would Talk by Nick Gandiello, directed by Sash Bischoff. Auditions will be February 3rd through 5th. To more information about auditions, please visit http://www.keencompany.org/ktaudition/.

LucyDevito (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia /Love, Loss, and What I Wore) has joined the cast of Dutch Kills Theater's New York premiere of IN QUIETNESS by Anna Moench. Directed by Danya Taymor, previews begin January 8 at Walkerspace. Opening is slated for January 14.

The Drama Book Shop will host Eric Lane and Nina Shengold, editors of the new collection, Plays For Three. The evening will feature readings, discussions and signings. 

Kills Theater will present the New York premiere of IN QUIETNESS by Anna Moench. Directed by Danya Taymor, previews begin January 8 at Walkerspace. Opening is slated for January 14.

Ensemble Studio Theatre and EST's Youngblood are proud to present UNFILTERED 2015-2016, the annual festival series of brand new, full-length plays from emerging playwrights under the age of thirty. This year's Youngblood graduates are also the first beneficiaries of the new exit commission grant, donated this year by Tony-nominated playwright Robert Askins.

East West Players (EWP), the nation's longest running professional theatre of color and the largest creator of Asian Pacific artistic work, announces the winners of the "2042: See Change" playwriting competition, funded with generous support from the James Irvine Foundation.  The 2042: See Change initiative is a visionary goal for equity, diversity and inclusion for the American Theater. According to the US Census, by 2042, minorities are projected to become the majority. The "2042: See Change" Playwriting Competition received a record-breaking number of submissions that were professionally unproduced and explored the changing face of America.

To cap off their Inaugural Season, Cohesion Theatre Company is tackling the need for parity in the arts and organizing Baltimore area theatre companies to participate in a city -wide festival aimed at exposing audiences to new and under-produced work by female playwrights. ParityFest Baltimore 2015 will run Wednesdays through Sundays for six weeks fromtoday,  July 1 to August 9, 2015 at multiple venues throughout Baltimore.

The Pillow Book takes off from the current vogue of non-consecutive story-telling; everyone wants to emulate the mystification of Pulp Fiction, with its sudden reveals of not only what will happen, but of what did happen. And recently there has been an additional vogue, which I call Cubistic story-telling, in which the characters and their lives turn out multiple ways, without an authoritative single story line. The approaches can also be combined. Such works always make the viewer struggle to follow the conflicting and shuffled storylines, but seldom leave the viewer in the dust. The dust, however, is where Anna Moench's The Pillow Book will leave you. The more is the pity. Anna Moench writes beautifully, and the acting and directing in this collaboration of two interesting fringe companies is uniformly good. But the conflicting storylines shred each other.

To cap off their Inaugural Season, Cohesion Theatre Company is tackling the need for parity in the arts and organizing Baltimore area theatre companies to participate in a city -wide festival aimed at exposing audiences to new and under-produced work by female playwrights. ParityFest Baltimore 2015 will run Wednesdays through Sundays for six weeks from July 1 to August 9, 2015 at multiple venues throughout Baltimore.

Cohesion Theatre Company and The Strand Theater Company are proud to announce their partnership on the Baltimore premiere production of The Pillow Book. Written by native Baltimore playwright Anna Moench, The Pillow Book is a journey through the real, the imagined, the absurd, and the parallel. Deb and John are married. Deb and John are strangers. Deb saves John's life on a mountain. John blinds Deb on the Serengeti. Told with a cast of three, The Pillow Book examines the life in and around one couple's past, present, and the possibilities that could have been.

To cap off their Inaugural Season, Cohesion Theatre Company is tackling the need for parity in the arts and organizing Baltimore area theatre companies to participate in a city -wide festival aimed at exposing audiences to new and under-produced work by female playwrights. ParityFest Baltimore 2015 will run Wednesdays through Sundays for six weeks from July 1 to August 9, 2015 at multiple venues throughout Baltimore.

 |the claque| (Nick Leavens, Founder/Artistic Director), New York's favorite arts and performance conglomerate, is proud to announce casting for its fifth annual The Quick and Dirties (The QuaDs) playing at The Sheen Center May 6-16, 2015.

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company will present the Ninth Season of Keen Teens. This season's offerings will be OLD FOLKS by Max Posner, directed by Mark Armstrong, featuring: Steve Alvarez, Romy Bavli, Maria Broom, Ella Campos, Francesca Iannacone, Jessy Jogodnik, Hillel Rosenshine, Yordy Rosso, Craig Steeley, and Devante Rowe; THE LOST GIRL, OR FIRST CHAIR by Lauren Yee, directed by Liz Carlson, featuring: Chelsea Allison, Kaisheem Bryant, Nicholas Johnson, Bahsil Moody, Elsie Razo, Liv Reis, Hillel Rosenshine, Cory Sierra, Lucille Vasquez, and Karla Ynfante; THE ASTONISHING AND DANGEROUS HISTORY OF MAZEFIELD THE FROG by Jen Silverman, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, featuring: Steve Alvarez, Roza Chervinsy, SaCha Coleman, Olivia Hockenberry, Francesca Iannacone, Jarek Liang, Bahsil Moody, Maya Pagan, Yordy Rosso, and Juwan Wyatt.

|the claque|, New York's favorite arts and performance conglomerate, has announced its fifth annual The Quick and Dirties (The QuaDs) playing at The Sheen Center in May of 2015.

Labyrinth Theater Company has announced the line-up for the second half of their 16th Annual Barn Series, the award-winning company's free play reading series. Running March 23-30, the Barn Series lets audiences encounter new plays written by or starring Labyrinth Company Members.

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company today announced the writers for this year's Keen Playwrights Lab and Keen Teens programs.

Lark Play Development Center has announced that seven plays have been chosen for its 21st Annual Playwrights' Week, which will take place September 22nd - 27th. This year's plays and playwrights are Parachute Men by Mando Alvarado, Lucky Ladies by Dominic Finocchiaro, INC. by Diana Grisanti, No More Sad Things by Hansol Jung, Girl of Glass by Jennifer A. Kokai, Chalk by Walt McGough, and The Tiger Among Us by Lauren Yee.

Second Generation Productions, a pioneering incubator and producer of Asian American theater, announced today (June 2) that 2g will launch the Second Stage Residency Series at Second Stage Uptown (Christopher Burney, Curator). This residency will feature readings of 2g's commissions by Anna Moench and Sung Rno & Aaron Jones on June 9 & 16 at 7:00pm, Second Stage Uptown - McGinn Cazale Theater - 2162 Broadway at 76th Street.

New Georges will present World Premiere productions by Kate Benson (2014 Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission winner), Krista Knight (Salamander Leviathan at Joe's Pub; Clementine and the Cyber Ducks at Incubator Arts Project), and Caroline V. McGraw (2013 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow) as part of The New Georges Jam On Toast, a brand-new festival featuring work by The New Georges Jam, a 'performance gym' for early-career female playwrights and directors founded in 2010 by Lucy Alibar, Jess Chayes, and Portia Krieger.