Playwrights Foundation Announces Fall 2012 Rough Readings Series, Now thru 11/13

The Playwrights Foundation announces the 2012 Fall Rough Readings Series October 1- November 13, 2012 at Stanford University and in San Francisco. The fall readings series features: Mike Lew's Bike America October 1 & 2; Dominic Orlando's Reparations October 22 & 23; and Dominique Morisseau Sunset Baby November 12 & 13. The 2012 Rough Readings Series (10/1-12/13, 2012) are presented on Mondays in CERAS Hall and Roble Hall at Stanford University and Tuesdays at The Thick House and A.C.T.'s Costume Shop in San Francisco.

“With the the fate of women hanging in balance this election, the focus on young female protagonists grappling with identity, family and failed political movements captures the zeitgeist of this moment in our collective history...” states artistic director Amy Mueller. “The plays range from deeply knock-down funny to deadly, heartache serious, and each of these works highlights a young woman trying her damnedest to make the best of a crap situation -- whether escaping a life-time of mediocrity on a bike trip across the country, seeking vengeance from negligence, or defying the hopes and dreams of radical parents by scamming the innocent-- these strong, determined women prove that their damages can be equal part asset and liability.”

Mike Lew's Bike America is a highly comic riff on the benefits and liabilities of your average cross-country benefit bike tour. Dominic Orlando's Reparations is a heroic tragedy of a young woman damaged by family betrayal, Reparations asks if we can ever be repaid for
undergoing violent abuse. In Sunset Baby by Dominique Morisseau a daughter of the Bay Area's historic Black Revolutionary Movement runs a shrewd street operation, with a towering grudge toward her father. Then, out of nowhere, he shows up.

The Playwrights Foundation’s 2012 Fall Rough Readings Series October 1- November 13, 2012 at Stanford University on Mondays and in San Francisco on Tuesdays. (*see schedule for times and locations). Readings are 100 percent FREE of charge. A $20 donation in advance comes with a reserved seat & a drink! To RSVP email rsvp@playwrightsfoundation.org or call 415.626.2176.

VENUES

Stanford University - 100B CERAS Hall and Roble Hall
Thick House Theater - 1695 18th Street, SF
A.C.T.'s Costume Shop - 1119 Market Street San Francisco

Fall 2012 Series

Mike Lew's Bike America October 1 & 2, 2012
Dominic Orlando's Reparations October 22 & 23, 2012
Dominique Morisseau Sunset Baby November 12 & 13, 2012 Winter 2013 Series
Chiori Miyagawa This Lingering Life Jan 14 & 15, 2013
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's The World of Extreme Happiness March 11 & 12, 2013

*THE PLAYS, PLAYWRIGHTS, DATES & TIMES:

Mike Lew's Bike America
Directed by Jill MacLean

Monday, October 1, 7:00 pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, October 2, 7pm. The Thick House, 1695 18th Street, San Francisco

Bike America is a highly comic riff on the benefits and liabilities of your average cross-country benefit bike tour. Penny is damaged. And, she's facing a crap, mediocre future. But then she discovers a remarkable escape route and takes off, without any preparation or premeditation, on a life-altering bike trip across America, where her destiny awaits. A funny and quite poignant play about the ennui of Millenials.

Mike Lew’s plays include Bike America (Alliance, Atlanta; Juilliard and Lark workshops, NYC; Kennedy Center workshop, DC), microcrisis (Ma-Yi, NYC; InterAct, Philly; Next Act, Milwaukee); Stockton (Ensemble Studio Theatre workshop, NYC); People’s Park (Victory Gardens Ignition Festival, Chicago); Yit, Ngay (published in Plays and Playwrights 2006); Neanderthal Love (Sloan commission); Bury the Iron Horse; and Paper Gods. His shorts include Tenure (24 Hour Plays on Broadway); Roanoke (Humana Festival, Louisville); In Paris You Will Find Many Baguettes but Only One True Love (Humana Festival, Louisville; InspiraTO Festival Winner, Toronto); Moustache Guys (Second Generation, NYC); Virtual Congress (Keen Company commission); The Roosevelt Cousins, Thoroughly Sauced (Sam French Festival winner); and Magician Ben Vs. The Wizard Merlin (published by Smith & Kraus). Several of his short plays are published by Playscripts.

Mike Lew is the winner of the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, the Heideman Award, and the Battle of the Bards. He is a resident writer for Blue Man Group and a staff writer for PBS Kids’ PEG + CAT. Along with his wife Rehana Lew Mirza, he is co-director of the Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab, the largest collective of Asian-American Playwrights in the country. Other residencies include Ensemble Studio Theatre, Old Vic New Voices, At Play Productions, Youngblood (alum), and TCG Young Leaders of Color.

Dominic Orlando's Reparations
Directed by Jon Tracy

Monday, October 22, 7:30pm at CERAS Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, October 23, 7pm. A.C.T.'s Costume Shop. 1119 Market Street, San Francisco

Haunted by hallucinations of her dead brother returning to abuse her again, Amy Fairfield often cannot discern what’s real and what’s not. But she’s clear about one thing: she deserves reparations from her negligent parents. She prepares to wage her battle for justice with the associate of a civil rights law firm, but soon they both become entangled in the deceptive web of family betrayals so deep and dark it threatens to destroy the fabric of her life. Are truth and justice worth all that? An heroic tradjedy that asks if we can ever be repaid for violence inflicted upon us.

Most recently, Dominic Orlando was part of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Ground Floor Development Program, working on the book & lyrics to The Barbary Coast a musi- cal about the criminal underworld during The Gold Rush (commissioned by BRT). Plays: Danny Casolaro Died For You (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, 2010, New York Theatre Workshop, Bay Area Playwrights Festival2008, NNPN Festival of New American Plays, Kitchen Dog New Works, McKnight Fellowship to The Playwrights’ Center/Min- neapolis); Juan Gelion Dances For The Sun (Crowded Fire Theatre, 2006, Bay Area Playwrights Festival2004, Jerome Fellowship to The Playwrights’ Center2003); A Short Play About 9/11 (HERE, 2001, Jerome Fellowship 2009). He is a co-creator of Fissures (LOST & FOUND), commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville, which premiered at the 2010 Humana Festival and is published by Dramatic Publishing. Other commissions: The Guthrie Theater and Nautilus Music-Theater08 (opera). He is a founding producer at The Workhaus Playwrights Collective, company-in-residence at The Playwrights’ Center, which has produced 15 New Works since 2007, including Dominic’s A Short Play About 9/11(2011), The Sense Of What Should Be (2009) and A Short Play About Globalization (2007). He was a Core Writer at The Play-wrights’ Center from 2004-2012. He was recently awarded an Artists’ Initiative Grant from The Minnesota State Arts Board to develop his new play, Reparations and commissioned by The History Theatre in St Paul for the book & lyrics to the full-length musical, The Working Boys Band.

Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby

Monday, November 12, 7:30pm at CERAS Hall, Stanford University
Tuesday, November 13, 7pm. A.C.T.'s Costume Shop. 1119 Market Street, San Francisco

Sunset Baby When former Black Revolutionary and political prisoner Kenyatta Shakur reaches out to his estranged daughter Nina shortly after her mother’s passing, he has high hopes of reuniting and burying the wounds of the past. What he finds instead is a vengeful daughter who embodies everything contrary to the movement he fought in. If Kenyatta truly wants to reconcile the past, he must first conquer his most challenging revolution of all--- fatherhood.

About the Playwright Dominique Morisseau, Writer and Actress, is recent alumni of the 2011 Public Theater Emerging Writer’s Group, the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab, and a 2011-2012 Lark Playwrights Workshop fellow. Her play, Detroit ’67, will receive a world premiere in the 2012-2013 season of The Public Theater, which will be presented in association with the Classical Theatre of Harlem. In September 2012, her play, Sunset Baby, will have its world premiere at the Gate Theater in London, UK. Dominique’s inaugural play, Follow Me To Nellie’s, was developed at the 2010 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and produced at Premiere Stages in July 2011. Dominique is currently developing a 3-play cycle on her hometown of Detroit, entitled “The Detroit Projects”. The first play in the series, Detroit ’67, was developed at The Public Theater and was a finalist for the 2011 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. The second play in the series, Paradise Blue, was developed June 2011 at the Voice and Vision Retreat, the Hansberry Project at ACT in Seattle, and at Dartmouth with New York Theatre Workshop. Her work has also been published in NY Times bestseller- “Chicken Soup for the African American Soul” and in the Harlem-based literary journal “Signifyin’ Harlem”. Dominique is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award Honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, a runner-up for the 2011 Princess Grace Award, a recipient of the Elizabeth George commission from South Coast Rep, a commendation from the Primus Prize by the American Theatre Critics Association, the winner of the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Award, and the 2012 PoNY (Playwrights of New York) Fellow.