Playwrights Foundation's 'Rough Readings' Series to Present Mike Lew's TEENAGE DICK, 2/9-10

Playwrights Foundation and the National Center for New Plays at Stanford present the Winter/Spring Rough Readings Series, the 10th annual monthly developmental showcase of brand new work in its early draft form. Bringing playwrights and theatergoers together in an intimate setting each month to showcase work that is still at a very early stage of development.

Playwrights Foundation Artistic Director Amy Mueller remarks, "The Rough Readings Series has been an important springboard for so many powerful projects. Katori Hall's The Mountaintop got one of its very early readings on the series, for example. It's a place where the writers can work out something difficult, but crucially important."

February features a reading of Teenage Dick, by Mike Lew on Monday, February 9, 7:30pm at ROBLE HALL, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, and Tuesday, February 10, 7pm at TIDES THEATRE, SAN FRANCISCO, 533 Sutter Street, San Francisco.

Mike Lew 's Teenage Dick is a re-imagination of Richard III set in high school. The play uses the most famous disabled character of all time as a means for re-examining more contemporary tropes about the differently-abled, via the tale of Richard and his quest to become senior class president. A commission from The Apothetae, a new NYC theater company dedicated to illuminating "the disabled experience,". The play uses the most famous disabled character of all time as a means for re-examining more contemporary tropes about the differently-abled, via the tale of Richard (junior class secretary) and his quest to become senior class president of Roseland High.

Mike Lew is a member of the Dramatists Guild Council and the Ensemble Studio Theater Members' Council. He is a recipient of the Lanford Wilson Award, the Helen Merrill Award, an NYFA fellowship in playwriting, Kendeda and AracaWorks Grad Playwriting Awards, the Heideman Award, and the Pacific/Rim Prize, and he has been a Sam French Festival Winner. He has been a staff writer for Blue Man Group, Bon Appetit, and PBS Kids' PEG+CAT and is currently co-director of Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the largest collective of Asian-American playwrights in the country.

Playwrights Foundation supports and champions contemporary playwrights in the creation of new works to sustain theater as a vital, dynamic art form. As one of the leading play development centers in the U.S., PF actively fosters the creative process of playmaking and the dissemination of new works to national theater producers, while sustaining a commitment to the playwright, whom we regard as the creative wellspring of the theater.