Playpen Holds 5th New Play Development Conference 7/10-7/26 In Philadelphia

PlayPenn, Philadelphia's professional new play development organization, will hold its fifth annual New Play Development Conference from July 10-July 26 at both the Adrienne Theater and the Playground (2030 Sansom Street) in Philadelphia. The Conference will feature two weeks of intensive work on six works-in-progress by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (410 [Gone]); Mary Hamilton (We Three); Michael Hollinger (Ghost-Writer); Arden Kass (Appetite); John Orlock (The Specificity of Paradise); and J.T. Rogers (Blood and Gifts).

"We are very grateful to the 90 readers, all professionals in every part of the Philadelphia professional theater community, who were part of the evaluation process in selecting these plays. They, along with a nationally seated group of final panelists, share our fundamental belief that the development of new plays is essential to our community - in Philadelphia, the region, and the nation," said Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director of PlayPenn.

The chosen playwrights will bring their works-in-progress to Philadelphia for more than two weeks of intensive work with a professional director of their choice, dramaturgical assistance and professional actors from the Philadelphia theatre community. For the second consecutive year the rehearsal period will be preceded by a three day retreat during which conference playwrights, directors and dramaturges will become acclimated to one another, their plays and to the city. Playwrights will rehearse for 29 hours with a team of artists devoted to the progress of their work, culminating in public staged readings between July 23 and July 26.

FRANCIS YA-CHU COWHIG is a graduate of the Dell'Arte School of Physical Theater, Brown University, and the International School of Beijing. In May she will receive her MFA in creative writing from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin. Her play Lidless was recently selected by David Hare as the winner of the 2009 Yale Drama Series Award, and will be published by Yale University Press in 2010. Her work has been developed at the Playwrights' Center, and is soon to be developed at the Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, the Kennedy Center, InterAct Theatre and Yale Rep.

Mary Hamilton is currently a recipient of the Iowa Arts Fellowship, completing her final year in the University of Iowa's Playwright's Workshop. She has had productions in Edinburgh and Iowa City, and staged readings in New Brunswick, New Jersey; New York City; Townesville, Australia; and Iowa City, Iowa. The recipient of two New Jersey Governor's Award in Art's Education, she participated in the 2008 Wordbridge Playwriting Conference and 2002 Young Playwright's Incorporated.

Michael Hollinger is the author of Opus, Tooth and Claw, Red Herring, Incorruptible, An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf, and Tiny Island, all of which premiered at Arden Theatre Company, and which have together enjoyed productions around the country, off-Broadway, and abroad. Awards include a Steinberg/ATCA New Play Citation, a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award, the Frederick Loewe Award for Musical Theatre, the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist, two Barrymore Awards, and fellowships from the Independence Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Michael is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University and an alumnus of New Dramatists.

ARDEN KASS is an award-winning playwright and independent producer of her own interdisciplinary theatre pieces. Her plays have been produced by Multi-Stages, InterAct, Brat and Tapestry Theatres, Theatre Exile and others. The creator of three documentaries on rock stars for A&E TV, Kass has written feature film scripts and poetry, published essays and features and taken pot-shots at life on WXPN Radio's Morning Show.

JOHN ORLOCK's works have been produced at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Cleveland Play House; Alley Theatre, Houston; Arizona Repertory Theatre and North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Sewanee Writers Conference, he has recently received the Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. Indulgences in the Louisville Harem was co-winner (along with The Gin Game) of the Actors Theater of Louisville's Great American Play Contest, and in 2000 had its Eastern European premiere at the Hungarian National Theater. . Orlock is currently on the faculty of Case Western Reserve University, where he teaches a popular course on the Literature of Fly Fishing.

J.T. Rogers returns to PlayPenn where his play The Overwhelming was developed at PlayPenn's inaugural conference in 2005 and subsequently was given a professional production in London. Other plays include Madagascar, Murmuring in a Dead Tongue, and White People, which received its world premiere at Philadelphia Theatre Company. His works have been seen on the main stages of The National Theatre and the Tricycle in London; the Roundabout and Atlantic theaters in New York; and in theaters throughout the US. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a member of both PEN and the Dramatists Guild.

Conference writers were chosen from a field of over 350 playwright applicants. The six conference playwrights were culled from a group of sixteen semi-finalists, also including Christina Anderson (Blacktop Sky), James Christy (A Great War), Vincent Delaney (T or C), Lisa Dillman (Ground), Carson Kreitzer (Behind the Eye), Dominic Orlando (The Measures), Jacquelyn Reingold (A Story About A Girl), Lia Romeo (Green Whales), Matt Smart (A Bed The Size of Portugal), and Christopher Wall (Dreams of the Washer King).

PlayPenn is committed to the development of new plays, the advancement of new voices in the theatre both locally and nationally, and the cross-fertilization of writers, directors, dramaturgs, and actors. PlayPenn is made possible through the generous support of the Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trusts A and B and new major grants from, among others, the Dramatists Guild Fund, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and The Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts and the Philadelphia Cultural Fund.

For further information, please call 215.242.2813.