Join terraNOVA Collective February 9-12 at the Incubator Arts Project (131 East 10th Street at 2nd Avenue), for the second tier in their Groundbreakers Playwrights Group, a five month long program in which playwrights work on a specific script with intent to create a completed draft. Through its three-tired process of table reads, staged readings and main stage productions terraNOVA Collective has cultivated some of the best emerging playwrights in New York City.
"After shifting focus of this seven year old program last season to form a writers' group, Groundbreakers produced so much exciting new work this season we're celebrating with an annual reading series that showcases these production-ready new plays in hopes we can help them find their premiere productions," said Groundbreakers Program Director, Jessi D. Hill. "We are so thrilled with the work we've seen from the emerging talent and are eager to share this work with our audiences."
This year's Groundbreakers are actress and playwright Halley Feiffer (How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them at Second Stage Theatre; Passion Fruit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) award winning playwright Lauren Feldman (Agnes Ranjo Capps Award for an Emerging Female Playwright; nomination for the 2009 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award), emerging playwright Andrew Kramer (A Map of Our Country at the 2010 Samuel French Short Play Festival), and writer and director Leah Nanako Winkler (Big Girls Club at The Brick; The Internet at Incubator Arts Project).
Directors for these readings include Mallory Catlett (Beowolf - A Thousand Years of Baggage, Joe's Pub; Oh What War, HERE Arts Center), Tom Wojtunik (Ragtime and Children of Eden, Astoria Performing Arts Center), and Jessi D. Hill (Creating Illusion, soloNOVA Arts Festival, The Children's Hour, Astoria Performing Arts Center), and Adam Greenfield (Director of New Play Development at Playwrights Horizons, 13P's The Zero Hour).
SIDNEY AND LAURA
Written by Halley Feiffer
Directed by Adam Greenfield
February 9 @ 8pm
Newlywed Laura has a lovely new husband and a lovely new home - her only problem is that pesky mysterious thumping coming from the other room, and the rock that her husband Sidney insists on carrying around at all times. Halley Feiffer's absurdist comedy curiously uncovers how lies, loss and love combine creating a recipe for redemption, forgiveness and baked seashells.
WHALES AND SOULS
Written by Andrew Kramer
Directed by Tom Wojtunik
February 10 @ 8pm
A Creature emerges from the lake in a small, rural town to warn the villagers of an impending doom. This one-woman fable delves into the way we relate to the environment and the choices we make to free ourselves from the shackles that bind us to the place called "home".
DEATH FOR SYDNEY BLACK
Written by Leah Nanako Winkler
Directed by Mallory Catlett
February 11 @ 8pm
Mean Girls with bite. Heathers with fangs. Death for Sydney Black follows Nancy, the frumpy new girl at Northeast Valley High as she maneuvers her way through an absurdist deconstruction of a familiar movie genre. Props fall from the sky and original songs on ukulele frame this wacky world, but a truth about the way girls - and ultimately women - treat each other rises from the extreme imagination of Leah Nanako Winkler. This all female ensemble of five portray girls with ambition, girls aimlessly searching, girls with pom poms, girls with lipstick, and the boys who love them.
A PEOPLE
Written by Lauren Feldman
Directed by Jessi D. Hill
February 12 @ 8pm
A magical, lyrical journey into heritage, tradition, religion and humanity. Through vignettes, music and monologues, Lauren Feldman holds up a mirror to 4000 years of Jewish history, reminding us that we're all descendents, and we choose to embrace our lineage, deny it, or wrestle with it. Hilarious and terrifyingly honest, A People gathers a tight ensemble of ten performers, taking on a mass of old and new world personalities to create snippets of life the way we see it, the way we want it to be, and the way it is.
