Marin Theatre Co Announces 9 Circles, Splinters As New Play Awards Finalists

Marin Theatre Company is proud to announce that 9 Circles by Bill Cain and Splinters by Emily Schwend are finalists for the 2011 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. In its 35th year, the annual award is the largest of its kind, honoring only new American plays produced at regional theaters outside New York City. A ceremony honoring all six finalists and announcing this year's winner will take place in Louisville, Kentucky, during the 2011 Humana Festival of New American Plays on April 2.

9 Circles received its world premiere at MTC in October 2010, after winning the company's 2010 Sky Cooper New American Play Prize. Nominated for four San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, including Best Script and Entire Production, the play tells the riveting story of a young American soldier on trial for his life. After being honorably discharged, Daniel Reeves is arrested and prosecuted for acts that he may have committed during the war. Thrown into a labyrinth of military bureaucracy, the confused and troubled teenager tries to navigate through layers of commanding officers, public defenders, lawyers, preachers and army psychiatrists. MTC received a 2010 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award to produce the dramatic, visceral thriller that "stands as one of the best and boldest new plays of the year" (North Bay Bohemian).

Schwend won MTC's 2009 David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize for her play Carthage, which received two staged readings in May 2010 as a part of the company's New Works Series, a program that presents plays in development by new and emerging playwrights.

Cain won the 2010 Steinberg/ATCA Award for his play Equivocation, which premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Seattle Repertory Theatre in 2009 and later received its Bay Area premiere at MTC in March 2010. He is the author of the widely produced Stand-Up Tragedy, which earned six L.A. Critics Awards (including Best Production and Distinguished Writing) for its premiere at the Mark Taper Forum, four Helen Hayes Awards (including Outstanding Production) for its production at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and the Joe A. Callaway Playwriting Award for its 1990 Broadway engagement. His new play, How to Write a New Book for the Bible: a Play for an Older Actress has been developed at Ojai, South Coast Rep and TheatreWorks. Cain's work for television has won the Writers' Guild, Humanitas, and Christopher awards. He was the co-creator/writer/producer of Nothing Sacred, a dramatic television series for ABC that was awarded a George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Achievement in Television. He is the founder of the Boston Shakespeare Company, where he was Artistic Director for seven seasons, directing most of the Shakespeare canon.

Schwend is an alumni of Juilliard and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Her plays include Carthage, Splinters and Route One Off. In New York, her work has been developed or produced by Page 73, the Juilliard School, Partial Comfort Productions, Ars Nova, the Stella Adler Studio Acting School, and Christine Jones' Theatre for One booth. Regionally, her plays have been developed at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Source Festival in Washington, D.C., and ALLIANCE THEATRE in Atlanta. Schwend is a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner, 2009 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition finalist and a 2009-2010 Interstate 73 member.

ABOUT MTC
Marin Theatre Company is the Bay Area's premier mid-sized theater and the leading professional theater in the North Bay. We produce a six-show season of provocative plays by passionate playwrights from the 20th century and today in an intimate 231-seat proscenium theater. We are committed to the development and production of new plays by American Playwrights, with a comprehensive New Play Program that includes at least one world premiere each season, two nationally-recognized annual playwriting awards, numerous new play readings and workshops by the nation's best emerging playwrights and a leadership position in the National New Play Network. Our numerous educational programs serve more than 6,000 students each year. Founded in 1966, we celebrate our 45th Anniversary in 2011-12.