Aurora Theater Company Announces Call for GAP Submissions, Deadline Aug 1

Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company is proud to announce a call for submissions for its sixth season of the Global Age Project (GAP) festival of new works. The company will choose four new plays to be presented as staged readings with professional directors and actors during the GAP festival in February of 2011; the festival will coincide with the company's fully-staged World Premiere of 2010 GAP finalist Allison Moore's new comedy, COLLAPSE, the second main stage production to develop from the GAP. The competition is open to playwrights from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Each of the four finalists will receive a $1,000 award and their work will be considered for further development and production during Aurora Theatre Company's regular season; out of town artists will receive travel and accommodation expenses. Deadline for play submission is August 1, 2010; finalists will be announced in early December 2010.

Aurora Theatre Company is excited to offer online script submission for the GAP. Playwrights may upload their submissions directly to Aurora Theatre Company's website at www.auroratheatre.org; there is a $20 submission fee per play manuscript.

The Global Age Project is a discovery and developmental vehicle established to encourage playwrights to address important issues affecting our present and future at the dawn of this global age. Seeking forward-thinking work from both established and emerging playwrights, Aurora Theatre Company requests submissions that passionately challenge audiences to examine issues and concerns of the 21st century. Writers are encouraged to submit works that explore the current and future state of the global community and/or examine the changing state of human relationships in this new century. The company also encourages submissions that transcend traditional forms of theater presentation.

Aurora Theatre Company's Artistic Director Tom Ross states, "This year, I'm pleased to welcome back Matthew Graham Smith as our GAP Producer, and Deborah Taylor as his Associate Producer. Their enthusiasm and passion for producing new work undoubtedly raised the bar for the GAP. We are also equally excited to produce our second GAP World Premiere, Allison Moore's COLLAPSE, which originated as one of the GAP finalists this past season; director Jessica Heidt, as well as the original GAP cast, Aldo Billingslea, Gabriel Marin, Carrie Paff, and Amy Resnick, will all reprise their roles for Aurora's main stage production. The GAP reading was such a huge hit with audiences, and I'm thrilled that the play will also be seen by a national audience as part of a National New Play Network World Premiere, a collaboration between Aurora Theatre Company, Curious Theatre in Denver, and Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas."

Over the past five years, the GAP has established an astounding track record for nurturing new playwrights. During the first year, Dan Hoyle's early draft of Tings Dey Happen was a GAP prize-recipient and received its first public showing at Aurora Theatre Company; since then, the show has gone on to become a huge success in New York and San Francisco, where it won the Glickman Award. Laura Jacqmin, whose play Happyslap was a GAP prize-recipient during the festival's second year, recently won the Wasserstein Award for an outstanding script by a young woman who has not yet received national attention. Additionally, playwright Zayd Dohrn, whose play Sick was a 2008 GAP prize-recipient, garnered the first Sky Cooper New American Play Prize at Marin Theatre Company. Our Dad is in Atlantis by Javier Malpica, translated by Jorge Ingacio Cortiñas, was published in its entirety in American Theatre Magazine following its GAP reading in 2008.

GAP Producer Mathew Graham Smith is the founder and Artistic Director of Precarious Theatre. He has directed at the Walnut Theater in Philadelphia and the HERE American Living Room series in New York City. In addition to Aurora Theatre Company's GAP new works festival, in the Bay Area, Smith has directed productions at the Yerba Buena Garden's Festival, Bay Area Playwright's Festival, EXIT Theatre, Playground, Asian American Theatre Company, Brava, Berkeley Playhouse, and New Conservatory Theatre, where his Kiss of the Spiderwoman was nominated for Best Overall Drama by the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. He Assistant Directed Peter DuBois' Curse of the Starving Class at American Conservatory Theater, and is the recipient of the SFAC individual artist grant for his writing/directing project I'm Yours! (or Deranged by Love) for Precarious Theatre. An accomplished educator, Smith currently teaches in American Conservatory Theater's MFA program, and the Barcelona Meisner Program in Barcelona, Spain. He will direct Jerry Springer: The Opera this fall for Ray of Light Theatre in San Francisco.

GAP Associate Producer Deborah Taylor has worked in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York as a producer and actor for the last 12 years. Most recent producing credits include the Broadway productions of American Idiot and La Cage Aux Folles staring Kelsey Grammer. Additional producing credits include Killer Joe at Magic Theatre, NuWerks at Marin Theatre Company (Producing Director), and The Zephyr Theatre in Los Angeles, where she started the Zephyr Reading Series and produced the West Coast Premieres of Allison Moore's Slashed and The Last Schwartz by Deb Zoe Laufer. Taylor started FireMused Productions, a theater and film producing company with a primary focus on developing and producing new works. FireMused has participated in several New York (On and Off-Broadway) productions, including Eve Ensler's The Good Body, Cultural Industry's Shockheaded Peter, and STOMP/Las Vegas. As an actress, she continues to play the role of Elmire in Del'Arte Theatre Company's touring production of Tartuffe.

Aurora Theatre Company rounds out its 18th season in June with Stephen Karam's fiercely funny SPEECH & DEBATE, directed by Robin Stanton. The company opens its 19th season in August with Alice Childress' stunning TROUBLE IN MIND, starring Bay Area favorite Margo Hall and directed by Robin Stanton. Acclaimed solo performer David Cale returns to the Bay Area in October with the Bay Area Premiere of his new one-man play PALOMINO. In January, Aurora Theatre Company presents the second main stage production to develop from its Global Age Project, the World Premiere of Allison Moore's COLLAPSE, directed by Jessica Heidt. In honor of Tennessee Williams' 100th birthday, Aurora Theatre Company Artistic Director Tom Ross helms Williams' rarely-produced stage gem THE ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE in April. Closing the season is the first American professional production of British director David Farr and Icelandic actor-director Gísli Örn Gardarsson's thrilling avant garde adaptation of Franz Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS, directed by Bay Area auteur Mark Jackson in June. For tickets or more information, the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

Nominated for 27 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for 2009, Aurora Theatre Company continues to offer challenging, literate, intelligent stage works to the Bay Area, each year increasing its reputation for top-notch theater. Located in the heart of the Downtown Berkeley Arts District, Aurora Theatre Company has been called "one of the most important regional theaters in the area" and "a must-see midsize company" by the San Francisco Chronicle, while The Wall Street Journal has "nothing but praise for the Aurora." The Contra Costa Times stated "perfection is probably an unattainable ideal in a medium as fluid as live performance, but the Aurora Theatre comes luminously close," while the San Jose Mercury News affirmed "[Aurora Theatre Company] lives up to its reputation as a theater that feeds the mind," and the Oakland Tribune declared "it's all about choices, and if you value good theater, choose the Aurora."

Aurora Theatre Company gratefully acknowledges the following foundations and government agencies for their support: Actors' Equity Foundation, Alameda County Arts Commission, Berkeley Civic Arts Program & Civic Arts Commission, Dramatists Guild Fund, The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Koret Foundation, Norway House Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, The Tournesol Project, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, The Wood Foundation, and The Zellerbach Family Foundation.

To post a comment, you must register and login.