Burning Coal Theatre Company Presents Two New Play Readings This Spring

Burning Coal Theatre Company's New Works Program will present two staged readings this spring, I Am The Raven by Jonathan Fitts of Boone, NC, directed by Durham's Jay O'Berski on Tuesday, May 18th, at 7 pm and Dirt by Raleigh playwright Kelly Doyle, directed by Emily Ranii, on Tuesday, June 22, 2010.  Both plays will be read at the Murphey School, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh.  Admission is free with a suggested donation of $5.  For further information, please contact Burning Coal's managing director, Simmie Kastner, at (919) 834-4001.
 
The public is invited to witness these exciting new plays and participate in an informal discussion following each performance.
 
ABOUT THE ARTISTS

KELLY DOYLE.  Originally from Boston, Kelly is a writer, performer and director who has worked in theatre, film and television.  Her new play, Blue, will be produced by Burning Coal in January, 2011.  Blue was developed in the 2009 New Works Series.  Other plays read in this series include, The Hole, and Teeny Weeny Teena and the Undeath of Major Biff.  Play productions include An Opening and Seven Moments About Bending Over, and As If for Exiles Theatre Company in Cork, Ireland, The Accident, and Van Gogh's Ear for Brown University New Works Festival.  Collaborative playwriting projects include Naked Plays with the Split Britches Company, Fire From Heaven, with Lisa Kron and Peg Healey of The Five Lesbian Brothers.  She was a recent finalist in the Actor's Theatre Of Louisville Ten Minute Play Festival.  She is an alumna of the Brown University Playwriting Program, and has an MFA in Acting from California Institute of the Arts.
 
JONATHAN FITTS is a rising senior theatre major at Appalachian State University. He was recently the recipient of the Kennedy Center's David Shelton Full-Length Play Award for his play The Pursuit of Mr. Rockefeller. His second original musical, Darfur:The Greatest Show on Earth! will be performed by the College of Southern Maryland at the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington DC this summer.

JAY O'BERSKI is artistic director of The Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, an associate artistic director at Manbites Dog and teaches acting at Duke. His most recent directing effort was BOSTON MARRIAGE for Ghost & Spice and is currently on stage in ANARCHIST! for Little Green Pig.
 
EMILY RANII.  For Burning Coal: The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Much Ado About Nothing, Company Member 2001-Present.  Emily is the Artistic Director of ArtsCenter Stage where she has directed Eurydice, A Child's Christmas in Wales, and for the annual 10 By 10 Festival (2007-2009).  She directed for Playmakers PRC2 Series (9 Parts of Desire), Cornell (The Body Project), and Temple Theatre (Proof) and assistant directed at Actors' Gang in LA.  Emily is a graduate of Cornell University. 
 
Burning Coal Theatre Company is a small, professional theatre located in Raleigh, NC.  Burning Coal is an incorporated, non-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization. Burning Coal's mission is to produce literate, visceral, affecting theatre that is experienced, not simply seen.  Burning Coal produces explosive reexaminations of overlooked classic and modern plays, as well as new plays, whose themes and issues are of immediate concern to our audience, using the best local, national and International Artists available. We work toward a Theatre Of high-energy performances and minimalist production values. The emphasis is on literate works that are felt and experienced viscerally, unlike more traditional linear plays, at which audiences are most often asked to observe without participating. Race and gender non-specific casting is an integral component of our perspective, as well as an international viewpoint.

For more information, visit www.burningcoal.org.

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