NNPN Kicks Off 35th Rolling World Premiere: PLUTO by Steve Yockey Today

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, announces its 35th Rolling World Premiere: Steve Yockey's Pluto will receive three productions through the Network's Continued Life of New Plays Fund in the 2013/14 season. Pluto will begin its Rolling World Premiere at Actor's Express (Atlanta, GA, today, November 16 - December 8, 2013), followed by performances at Forum Theatre (Washington, DC, February 20 - March 15, 2014) and Orlando Shakespeare Theatre (Orlando, FL, February 27 - March 23, 2014).

In the wake of a local tragedy, single mother ElizaBeth Miller and her withdrawn son Bailey try to jump-start their relationship across the breakfast table. But with berserker appliances, shifting astronomy, the talkative new family dog, and some noisy, angry forces threatening to invade her kitchen, Elizabeth might not be able to really "see" the person she needs to see most.

Steve Yockey is a Los Angeles based writer with work produced throughout the country and in Asia. afterlife: a ghost story, Large Animal Games, Octopus, CARTOON, subculture (collected short plays) and Very Still & Hard to See are published & available from Samuel French. Last season: Heavier than... premiered at the Boston Court in Pasadena and Bellwether premiered at Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley, CA. This season: the new play Wolves will open in Atlanta, New Orleans, Phoenix, & Los Angeles as an NNPN Rolling World Premier and the sex farce The Fisherman's Wife will open in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Other plays include: Wonder, The Thrush & The Woodpecker, and Feverish. Steve is a Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts (2008). After completing a yearlong National New Play Network residency at Marin Theatre Company, he now lives in Los Angeles, CA where he serves as an adjunct professor in the MFA Writing for Performance program at CalArts. He is the creator and co-executive producer of the Sony Pictures Television project Teeth and is currently adapting the Tama Janowitz novel Slaves of New York into a series for Sony/Wet Dog Entertainment/Killer Films.

NNPN's flagship program, the Continued Life of New Plays Fund supports three or more theaters which choose to mount the same new play within a twelve-month period. The result is a Rolling World Premiere through which the playwright develops a new work with multiple creative teams, for multiple communities of patrons, ensuring the resulting play is of the highest possible quality. And with a minimum of three productions in a single year, the play attains the momentum it needs to join the repertoire of frequently-produced new American works. NNPN provides grants of $7,000 to the first three participating theaters in each Rolling World Premiere; to date, NNPN has championed the continued life of 34 new plays in over 100 productions, with over a quarter-million dollars in grants.

Founded in 1988, Actor's Express is one of the most daring theatres in the Southeast. Presenting provocative work meant to jumpstart individual transformations, AE maintains a strong commitment to the development and production of new plays, and to nurturing emerging theatre artists. Consistently praised for the quality of its work, AE has been called Atlanta's "most vital theatrical venue" (Creative Loafing). Under the leadership of Artistic Director Freddie Ashley and Executive Director Nan Barnett, AE strives to catalyze dialogue essential to the vitality of our city and to enhance Atlanta's reputation nationally as a thriving center for live performance.

Founded in 2003, Forum Theatre is dedicated to adventurous, challenging theater that is engaged with and affordable to our community. Known for tackling social, spiritual, and political questions in our work, we believe that theater should provoke debate -- and that we should cultivate those discussions. We want our plays to be a conversation with our audiences. We want our plays to be about who we are -- as a local, national, and global community.

With Shakespeare as their standard and inspiration, the Orlando Shakespeare Theater in Partnership with UCF, produces bold professional theater, develops new plays, and provides innovative educational experiences that enrich their community. Their vision is to create theater of extraordinary quality that encourages the actor/audience relationship, embraces the passionate use of language, and ignites the imagination. Their goal is to be a nationally recognized destination theater offering productions and education year round for all audiences.

The National New Play Network (NNPN) is the country's alliance of non-profit professional theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays. Since its founding in 1998, NNPN has commissioned almost two dozen playwrights, provided nineteen MFA graduates with paid residencies, and supported more than 100 productions nationwide through its innovative Continued Life of New Plays Fund, which creates "Rolling World Premieres" of new plays. Hundreds of artists have gained employment through these efforts in the dozens of regions of the country where NNPN member theaters are located. NNPN receives substantial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Shubert Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Network is comprised of a relatively small group of Core Members, who pioneer and implement collaborative new play strategies, and a growing group of Associate Members, who disseminate the Network's programs and strategies nationwide.

NNPN's Core Member theaters are: Actor's Express Theatre (Atlanta), Actor's Theatre of Charlotte (Charlotte, NC), Borderlands Theater (Tucson), Curious Theatre Company (Denver), Florida Studio Theatre (Sarasota), Fountain Theatre (LA), Horizon Theatre Company (Atlanta), InterAct Theatre Company (Philadelphia), Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas), Magic Theatre (San Francisco), Marin Theatre Company (Mill Valley, CA), Mixed Blood Theatre Company (Minneapolis), New Jersey Repertory Company (Long Branch), New Repertory Theatre (Watertown, MA), New Theatre (Coral Gables, FL), Orlando Shakespeare Theater (Orlando), Performance Network Theatre (Ann Arbor, MI), Phoenix Theatre (Indianapolis), Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey (Madison), Prop Thtr Group (Chicago), Riverside Theatre (Iowa City, IA), Salt Lake Acting Company (Salt Lake City), San Diego REPertory Theatre (San Diego), Southern Rep (New Orleans), Unicorn Theatre (Kansas City, MO), and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Washington, DC).

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