PlayPenn Sets Plays, Playwrights for 2016 New Play Development Conference

PlayPenn, Philadelphia's nationally recognized professional new play development organization, will hold its 12th annual New Play Development Conference from July 5 - July 24 in Philadelphia at The Drake, a new home for new plays. The Conference, including three weeks of intensive work on six works-in-progress, will offer staged readings open to the public. The six selected plays and playwrights are:

Heartland by Gabriel Jason Dean
Another Kind of Silence by Lauren Feldman
The Found Dog Ribbon Dance by Dominic Finnochiaro
Heavenly Cosmic by Meghan Kennedy
Flat Sam by Antoinette Nwandu
Poor Edward by Jonathan Payne

Now in its 12th year, PlayPenn's Conference received over 700 applications from playwrights across the country which were narrowed by a cadre of nearly 80 readers from Philadelphia's diverse professional theatre community to a list of 30 semi-finalists. Semi-finalist plays and playwrights were narrowed further through an elaborate evaluation process by a group of artistic leaders, literary managers, and dramaturgs from across the country. In addition to the above plays and playwrights who will participate in the 2016 Conference this summer, the following plays and playwrights were finalists in the selection process: Thoroughbred by Corey Finley, The German Party by ElizaBeth Frankel, A Marginal Loss by Deb Stein, Falling Slanted, Sad & Crazy by Chelsea Sutton, and How to Survive the Death of Your Parents by Sheri Wilner.

"This year, we've adjusted our application and evaluation process, which has not only increased our satisfaction with that process, but brought us a most representative and diverse group of plays." says Paul Meshejian, founder and Artistic Director of PlayPenn. "The six plays we've invited to this year's Conference include two plays by writers of color about the African-American experience, three plays by women, a play about an Afghan immigrant, one play that is bilingual (English and ASL), a play with a dog, and a play with a parrot. It's a diverse group of plays in many ways, and we are excited about each one of them as well as the broad spectrum of human experience that they represent."

The chosen playwrights will bring their works-in-progress to Philadelphia for in-depth work with a professional director of their choice, dramaturgical support, and collaboration with professional actors from the Philadelphia theatre community. Prior to the three-week rehearsal period, PlayPenn hosts a three-day roundtable for conference playwrights, directors, and dramaturgs, which contributes to the preparation, camaraderie and festive atmosphere of what has become Philadelphia's most popular theatrical event each summer. The Conference includes a series of free public staged readings, offering two readings for each play under development, which routinely command an extensive waiting list. The 2016 Annual Conference will also include a Symposium, free and open to the public, and series of education offerings for writers of all experience levels. A complete schedule of readings will be released in May at www.playpenn.org and reservations will open to the general public on July 1.

About the 2016 Conference Playwrights and Plays:
Gabriel Jason Dean returns to PlayPenn, where he developed Terminus in 2013. Selected plays include In Bloom (Kennedy Center Paula Vogel Prize, Runner-Up Princess Grace Award); The Transition of Doodle Pequeño (AATE Distinguished Play Award, NETC Aurand Harris Award); Qualities of Starlight (Essential Theatre New Play Award, B. Iden Payne Award). Notable awards include a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University and a Dramatist's Guild Fellowship. Gabriel is currently a Visiting Writer in Residence at Muhlenberg College, a Core Writer at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis and a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.

About Heartland:
Nazrul, an Afghan refugee, travels to Nebraska to find Dr. Harold Banks, the father of his friend Greta and a renowned professor. These two unlikely roommates go on an emotional journey of love and loss that demands they exam their own culpability. What results is moving meditation on the power of forgiveness.

Lauren Feldman is a freelance playwright, dramaturg, professor of playwriting (Bryn Mawr College), and a creator-performer of theatrical contemporary circus. She loves theater that is brave, honest, loving, and slightly impossible. She has been nominated for the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award, New York Innovative Theatre Award, and the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama and the New England Center for Circus Arts, she is also a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a mentor with The Foundry,

and a Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow.
About Another Kind of Silence:
Two already-partnered women cross paths in Athens and find themselves falling for one another. Through a lush, winding landscape, we track two couples as they wrestle with long-term partnership, the elusiveness of desire, and the mysteries of a changing self. Another Kind of Silence is a bi-lingual play, told simultaneously in English and American Sign Language, with a cast of four characters and a Greek Chorus.

Dominic Finnochiaro is a Brooklyn-based playwright, performer, and freelance dramaturg. His writing has been produced and developed around the country, including with Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Civilians, the Lark Play Development Center, the National New Play Network, Portland Center Stage, the Flea Theater, the Kennedy Center, the UCross Foundation, the Amoralists, and at the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. Dominic is a native of San Francisco and recently completed the MFA Playwriting program at Columbia University.

About The Found Dog Ribbon Dance:
Norma, a professional cuddler in Portland, Oregon, has devoted her life to healing others and ignoring her own needs. When she discovers a lost dog and attempts to return it to its rightful owner, Norma's ordered life takes a turn. A story of loneliness, intimacy, and the healing power of the music of Whitney Houston.

Meghan Kennedy's Napoli, Brooklyn will have its world premiere at the Roundabout Theatre in New York City in 2017 and is the recipient of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Grant. Meghan's play Too Much, Too Much, Too Many (PlayPenn '12) premiered at the Roundabout Underground in 2014 and was published by Dramatists' Play Service. Meghan is currently under commission from The Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theater Festival and The New York State Council of the Arts/New Georges Theater. Her play Light is the winner of the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize. Meghan's plays have been produced around the U.S., Ireland and Sweden. She is an alum of Page 73 and Ars Nova Play Group. She is currently a writer for the upcoming TV show, Falling Water (USA). She lives in Brooklyn.

About Heavenly Cosmic:
Winnie's closest relationship is with her brother. Or is it with her lover? Or her stuffed parrot? As we jump through time in Winnie's life, Heavenly Cosmic explores how the intimacies we keep, with people and otherwise, help us hold onto ourselves. And when faced with our own mortality, how some relationships anchor us while others carry us away.

Antoinette Nwandu is a New York-based playwright via Los Angeles. She is a second-year member of the Ars Nova Play Group, the 2015-16 Naked Angels Issues PlayLab Resident Playwright, and a Dramatists Guild Fellowship alum. Her plays have been produced and developed by Page73, Ars Nova, The Flea, Naked Angels, Fire This Time, The Movement Theater Company, WordBRIDGE and Dreamscape Theatre. Honors include the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Negro Ensemble Company's Douglas Turner Ward Prize and a Literary Fellowship at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference. Upcoming: Pass Over at Steppenwolf in 2017.

About Flat Sam:
Who is Theresa Baker and why does she have a life-sized poster of a soldier in her house? A play about fractured families, death, grieving, and learning to love when it counts the most, Flat Sam asks us to consider what happens when we come home to war and war comes home to us.

Jonathan Payne recently received a 2015 Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship. His work has been produced and developed at the Tristan Bates Theatre (UK), Ars Nova, Fringe Festival NYC, The Bushwick Star, and the Fire This Time Festival. He is a proud fellow at New Dramatists, Playwrights Realm and The Dramatist Guild, as well as a 2014-15 Ars Nova Play Group member. Awards include the Holland New Voices Award (2014), Rosa Parks Award (2011), John Cauble Short Play Award (2002). He received a BA from the GSA Conservatoire (UK) and an MFA in Playwriting from Tisch School of the Arts.

About Poor Edward:
Opal and Eddie are together. Well, she'd call it survival, and he'd call it penance. As night descends, two people grapple for a good enough story to make a new life for each other in this hypnotic, haunted tale of intimacy and survival.

Conference Symposium
Thursday, July 21, 2016, 6pm
Pop Politics: With the DNC on our doorstep in an election year, join us to examine the good, bad and ugly of politics, pop culture and the written word. From blogs to cartoons to social satire on-stage, we are adrift a seemingly endless political gab-fest. What makes great political writing? How do you create a space for a meaningful exchange of ideas in the 24-hour assault of political punditry? How does theatrical writing fit into, or not fit into, the great social discussion? Panelists will include writers in a range of genres - including Philadelphia favorite Jen Childs of 1812's annual political review This is the Week that Is. We'll explore these questions and more at the PlayPenn Conference Symposium on July 21 at 6pm. at the Drake moderated by playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger.

Education Offerings
Saturday, July 9, 9am-2pm: Playwrights Alchemy - Finding Inspiration and Making New Work with 2015 Conference Playwright David Jacobi

Saturday, July 9, 3-7pm: Creating Conflict and Structuring the Compelling Argument with National Theatre Conservatory Playwright-Director Richard Caliban

Sunday, July 10, 10am-6pm: Writing the Short Play with Sundance Institute Playwriting Fellow Pia Wilson

Saturday, July 16, 1-7pm: Inspired by Current Events: A Playwriting Workshop about creating work ripped from the headlines with Playwrights Center Core Writer Ken Urban

More information about the 2016 Conference, including a calendar of events, will be available later this spring on our website, www.playpenn.org.

For high-resolution headshots of writers or to arrange interviews with selected playwrights, artists involved in the 2016 conference, or members of PlayPenn's staff, please contact Leigh Goldenberg, Marketing Consultant at 917-698-0844 or marketing@playpenn.org

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About PlayPenn

PlayPenn is an artist-driven organization dedicated to improving the way in which new plays are developed. Employing an ever-evolving process, PlayPenn creates a relaxed tension within which playwrights can engage in risk-taking, boundary-pushing work free from the pressures of commercial consideration. As a non-profit organization PlayPenn is made possible through the generous support of individuals as well as by substantial support from, among others, the Wyncote Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, the Dramatists Guild Fund, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and the Shubert Foundation.

For further company information and complete development history, visit www.playpenn.org.