SECOND DATE Opens at Annex Theatre Tonight

Most playwrights want two things: money to allow them to just sit in their rooms and write, and connections with directors and others who can help them get their plays out of their rooms and onto a stage.

To assist with the latter desire Rain City Projects---a theater service organization that's been supporting playwrights in the Pacific Northwest since 1991---organized a speed dating event for playwrights and directors. Much like romantic speed dating, playwrights and directors got a few minutes with everyone else in the room to talk about their work and see if they might be interested in pursuing a relationship.

Now Rain City Projects partners with Annex Theatre to bring you Second Date! This anthology evening is an opportunity for writers and directors who met during speed dating to bring their relationships to the next level with full productions of short plays.

The evening will consist of three plays, each pairing writers and directors who have never worked together before, and each rehearsed with the writers in the room, working with their director and actors finalize the plays. Unlike the comedy favored by many short play festivals, this trio of beautiful dramatic plays deals with serious subjects.

Black Like Me written by Rachel Atkins and directed by Tyrone Brown, explores how one woman's decision to pass for white in the late 1950's creates a ripple effect through the generations. The Sibyl at Commotion Street written by Jaime Cruz, directed by L. Nicol Cabe is a family story of mental illness. Sketch written by Tracy Vicory-Rosenquest directed by Katherine Karaus, explores the nature of art, fame and philanthropy.

Second Date is the first off night production of Annex Theatre's 26th Season, cast from a pool of Annex company members, and rehearsed in a pressurized two week hot house format. The results are an exciting triple world premiere production that testifies to the vibrancy and potential of Seattle's theater community.

Rachel Atkins is the Scriptwriter for Living Voices, the educational theatre company with whom she has eleven different multi-media shows in ongoing national tours. She's also a regular adapter for Book-It Repertory Theatre, with numerous mainstage, education and touring productions. Her plays have been seen locally at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Children's Theatre, The Empty Space, Annex Theatre, Live Girls! and 14/48: The World's Quickest Theatre Festival, and regionally at American Repertory Theater in Massachusetts and the Virginia Theatre in Illinois. Rachel was honored to be a 2010 Theatre Puget Sound Gregory Awards nominee for Outstanding Playwright.

Tyrone Brown is a Seattle-based theatre director and producer. Directing credits include POOF!, Hot Grits: A (Punk) Play On Music, Black To My Roots: African American Tales from the Head and Heart ( Fringe First Award winner at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland), Wreck The Airline Barrier, and Hamlet X: The Tragedy of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. Brown holds a MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University, Bachelors of Arts in Theatre from Western Washington University, and is an alumni of the Drama League Directing Program in New York. He is currently the artistic director oF Brownbox Theatre, a company dedicated to the creation, development, and production of re-imagined Black theatre.

Jaime Cruz's plays have been produced at the University of Wyoming, Evergreen College and the Las Vegas Little Theater, as well as developed at the Seattle Rep Poncho Forum, the Last Frontier Theater Conference and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. He has worked on educational commissions for the University of Wyoming, and also contributed a segment for Balagan Theater's Summer Show, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Jaime was recently the national winner of the NAPAT Playwriting award, a Seven Devils Conference Finalist and has been a KCACTF national finalist for the John Cauble Award for his short play, Dead in the Kitchen. He studied acting at Casper College, and earned his BFA in playwriting/directing at the University of Wyoming.

L. Nicol Cabe is a director, dramaturg, science fiction nerd, ghost writer, and armchair evolutionary biologist. She has had the honor, lately, of working with Ear to the Ground, Taproot Theatre, and Annex Theatre. She loves a healthy debate. She spends her limited free time either knitting, reading, or playing video games

Tracy Vicory-Rosenquest has written and produced her plays in Seattle and Minneapolis including A Brewed Awakening, All I Ever Wanted, Conception, First Born and Trip Open. Her plays have been seen with Live Girls! Theater, Macha Monkey Productions, Minnesota & Seattle Fringe Festivals, Pacific Play Company, Richard Hugo House and Seattle Playwrights' Collective. Her play SHARK was a finalist in FUSION Theater Company's 8th Annual New Works Festival in New Mexico. Tracy received her MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and is also passionate about working with young writers. Tracy currently teaches with ACT Theatre's Young Playwrights Program as well as Writers in the Schools.

Katherine Karaus graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Theatre Arts in 2010. She moved to the Pacific Northwest to avoid New York City. Since then she has bar-tended, acted, assistant directed, stage managed, installed carpet, cookEd Lentils, fought the demons under the stage and become the Development Director, all for Annex. Later this year she'll be directing part of Star Crossed and the summer main stage Precious Little.

Annex Theatre is a democratic collective of theatre artists dedicated to creating bold new work in an environment of improbability, resourcefulness and risk. Annex Theatre produces new plays by living playwrights, radical reinterpretations of classic scripts, and ensemble-generated non-linear spectacles. Now in its new Capitol Hill venue, Annex originally opened its doors in 1987 in a former dance studio on 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle. Since then the theater has produced hundreds of world and Northwest premieres.

Second Date performs tonight, January 29th- February 13th, playing Tuesday-Wednesday at 8pm. Tickets $5-$10. Visit www.annextheatre.org for more information.