Dramatists Guild News

ELR Productions is proud to present the world premiere of BOYS OF CERTAIN AGE from the acclaimed team of playwright Dan Fingerman and director Dan Dinero.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley opens its 47th season with the world premiere of the high stakes political drama Confederates. This fresh, fascinating, and headline-hot show explores the voracious nature of contemporary media during a national campaign.

Playwright Chisa Hutchinson (Dead and Breathing, Dirt Rich, She Like Girls, This Is Not the Play, Sex on Sunday) leads writing workshops and a public Q&A as part of the Dramatists Guild Fund's Traveling Masters Program on July 27 at 4:00 PM at the Frank Center (260 University Drive Shepherdstown, WV 25443).

The Midtown International Theater Festival (MITF) presents Insomnia with music and lyrics by Charles Bloom and book by Theo Wolf. Ovi Vargas directs a cast of seven, including Philip Skinner, Jesse Manocherian*, Anette Michelle Sanders*, Lauren Lukacek*, Chris Brick*, Tyler Milliron*, and Dennis Holland* (Bway: The Music Man, Peter Pan). Insomnia is being staged at the Main Stage, 312 West 36th Street in New York City from August 2-7, 2016.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley opens its 47th season with the world premiere of the high stakes political drama Confederates. This fresh, fascinating, and headline-hot show explores the voracious nature of contemporary media during a national campaign.

It's been years since he disappeared, but Emily Diamond is still haunted by dreams of her twin brother, Becket. Kiff Scholl directs the world premiere of Please Don't Ask About Becket, an enthralling family drama by Wendy Graf (All American Girl, No Word In Guyanese for Me) opening August 20 in an Electric Footlights production at the Sacred Fools Theater Black Box.

Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Christopher Burney, Uptown Curator and Associate Artistic Director) will present the world premiere of Chisa Hutchinson's SOMEBODY'S DAUGHTER, , as part of the company's fifteenth annual SECOND STAGE THEATRE UPTOWN SERIES next summer. SOMEBODY'S DAUGHTER recently made the 2016 Kilroy List, designated as one of 32 distinguished new plays by female and trans playwrights.

National Alliance for Musical Theatre (Betsy King Militello, Executive Director) has announced the line-up of new musicals for their 28th Annual FESTIVAL OF NEW MUSICALS, which takes place on Thursday, October 27 and Friday, October 28, 2016 at New World Stages (340 West 50th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues).

In Episode 414 of 'Something New' -- a musical theatre podcast that interviews diverse artists and premieres original songs -- award-winning songwriter Joel B. New sat down with Michael Cassara. Michael Cassara is a Casting Director and Educator based in New York City, dedicated to developing and fostering the growth of new musicals, plays, and film projects. He has worked with many of the nation's top theatres including Gulfshore Playhouse, the Denver Center, the Old Globe, Great Lakes Theater, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, The Hangar Theatre, and more.

From July 15 to the 24 Oz Productions will present The Other Two Men by Lisa Shapter at The Players' Ring, 105 Marcy Street, Portsmouth NH. Showtimes are 10 pm Fridays and Saturdays and 9 pm on Sundays. Tickets cost $12 with discounts for sPlayers' Ring members, students, and seniors. To reserve, visit or call 603­ 436­ 8123.

Jon Spano's Joey Variations: A Play With Dance makes its World Premiere at the 20th annual New York International Fringe Festival.

Award-winning playwright Phil Paradis, of Fort Thomas, KY, has scored in the Big Apple yet again. Paradis has two more new plays going up on the boards in July in Manhattan.

Bad Apples is the new rock musical inspired by the real-life prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Bad Apples seeks to answer the simple question: How in God's name did this happen? Two soldiers ended up pregnant by fellow soldier Charles Graner; both women wanted to marry him, competed with each other to win his love, and enthusiastically tortured prisoners together, documenting most of it in pictures that later leaked and shocked the world.

Award-winning playwright Phil Paradis, of Fort Thomas, KY, has scored in the Big Apple yet again. Paradis has two more new plays going up on the boards in July in Manhattan.

The Huntington Theatre Company's annual Summer Workshop will start rehearsals on July 12 and conclude in public readings of three new plays on July 23 and 24, 2016. The workshop allows selected members of the Huntington Playwriting Fellows program two weeks to focus on developing new plays. The workshop and public readings will take place in the South End at the Huntington's Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston.

Theater for the New City's award-winning Street Theater Company will open its 40th annual tour August 6 with 'Election Selection, or You Bet!,' a rip-roaring musical in which three everyday New Yorkers are galvanized into community activists. Free performances will tour City streets, parks and playgrounds throughout the five boroughs through September 18. Book, lyrics and direction are by Crystal Field; the musical score is composed and arranged by Joseph Vernon Banks. (Schedule follows at bottom of this document.)

This summer, NYMF will be on quest to save Paradise one Scrabble tile at a time. The new musical, The Last Word will be presented at the Duke on 42nd Street, a NEW 42ND STREET project (229 W 42nd St) . The Last Word is written by Brett Sullivan (Billy Elliot Live Film Director) and will be directed by Michael Bello (Doctor Zhivago), choreography by Nick Kenkel (Gotta Dance, Legally Blonde) and Musical Supervisor is Conrad Helfrich (Dirty Dancing).  It will begin performances on July 22 and will run through July 29, 2016. Tickets are $27.50 and can be purchased by visiting NYMF.org.

Victory Gardens Theater announces the lineup for the 2016 IGNITION Festival of New Plays, including The Wayward Bunny by Greg Kotis; BREACH: a manifesto on race in America through the eyes of a black girl recovering from self-hate by Antoinette Nwandu; EOM (end of message) by Laura Jacqmin; Kill Move Paradise by James Ijames; Gaza Rehearsal by Karen Hartman; and Girls In Cars Underwater by Tegan McLeod. The 2016 Festival runs August 5-7, 2016 at Victory Gardens Theater, located at 2433 N Lincoln Avenue.

What would you sacrifice for your American dream? Must the American dream come at the cost of human dignity? These are the questions at the center of The New York Musical Festival's Developmental Reading of BREAD AND ROSES, a new musical with book and lyrics by Jill Abramovitz music by Brad Alexander, and direction by Melissa Crespo,inspired by true events and based on the film by Paul Laverty and Ken Loach.