The Drilling Company Theatre welcomes Reverie Productions for its second annual festival of new play development, WET INK, including a workshop production of URGE FOR GOING by Mona Mansour, directed by Tania Inessa Kirkman. The festival also includes MONDAY NIGHT SEX, a night of steamy one-acts from Reverie's writers lab, as well as staged readings of new plays by Michael Bettencourt, Fengar Gael, Katharine Clark Gray, and Laura Marks.
URGE FOR GOING: 17-year-old Jamila, a Palestinian born in a Lebanese refugee camp, is desperate to pass her exams so she can escape the slum she calls home. But leaving the camp means leaving behind her family, especially her father, who both encourages her learning and resents her opportunity. Urge for Going was a 2009 finalist of Reverie's Next Generation Playwriting Contest. The cast features Maha Chehlaoui (In My Own Skin), Ramsey Faragallah ("The Good Wife"), Omar Koury (New York Arab American Comedy Festival), Laith Nakli (the upcoming I'm Not Me), and Peter Sabri (Visiting Mr. Green), among others to be announced.
WET INK kicks off with FRESH FROM THE LAB readings, new works developed by regulars in Reverie's ongoing playwriting lab. Beggar at the Feast by Fengar Gael, directed by David Hilder will be performed on Sunday 2/28 at 7pm. Monday Night Sex: mini (fore)plays by Michael Bettencourt, Katharine Clark Gray, David Hilder, Laura Marks and Lisa O'Hara will be performed Mon 3/1 at 7pm. Bethany by Laura Marks, directed by Davis McCallum will be performed on Tuesday 3/2 at 7pm. Timber Land by Katharine Clark Gray, directed by David Hilder will be performed on Wednesday 3/3 at 7pm. A Round of Slaughter by Michael Bettencourt will be performed on Thursday 3/4 at 7pm.
Urge for Going will run Fri, 3/5 at 7pm and Sat, 3/6 at 3pm & 7pm. WET INK runs February 28 - March 6, 2010 at The Drilling Company (236 West 78 th Street), and tickets to all performances are PAY WHAT YOU CAN at the door. To make reservations, email reserve@reverieproductions.org or go to www.ReverieProductions.org.
MONA MANSOUR (Urge for Going playwright) recently completed a year in the Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group. Her play The Hour of Feeling will be read in April as part of the Public's Spotlight Series. Her first play, Me and the S.L.A., ran at the Groundlings (LA) and was named Best of the Fest at Seattle Fringe. Girl Scouts of America (co-written with Andrea Berloff) had readings at New York Theatre Workshop, in the Public Theater's New Work Now!, and a production in NYC Fringe 2006. Others had a staged reading at the Flea in August 2007. Worse Things will be published in 2010 Best Ten-Minute Plays. Television: "Dead Like Me" (Showtime) and "Queens Supreme" (CBS). Mona was named "One of 50 to Watch" by the Dramatists Guild.
TANIA INESSA KIRKMAN (Urge for Going director) is the Co-Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Overlap Productions. Her directing credits include Patty Red Pants, Billboard (a co-production with Reverie Productions), Fits and Starts: The Sacred Heart, Sand, Regarding Those Responsible, Beowulf, Bang Big, Psychodrama Qu'est Ce Que C'est, Wallenberg, and Mommy and Daddy are Doing Dirty Things. She has worked with Hypothetical Theater Company, LAByrinth Theatre Company, Reverie Productions and Six Figures.
REVERIE PRODUCTIONS, now in its 12th season, is one of the few established not-for-profit theatre companies in New York devoted exclusively to developing playwrights and new plays dealing with contempory socio-policial issues. Previous productions include premieres of Self Defense or, death of some salesmen, American Ma(u)l, Mephisto and Fatboy (Edinburgh Fringe First Award). Reverie shows at 59E59 Theaters include Havana Bourgeois, Ping Pong Diplomacy, Billboard, Rearviewmirror by Eric Winick, which garnered a 2007 Drama Desk nomination for actress Sarah Nina Hayon and the 2008 New York premiere of Ariel Dorfman's Widows, directed by Hal Brooks.
