terraNOVA Collective Presents the Groundbreakers Reading Series at Incubator Arts

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.

The staged readings, presented by terraNOVA Collective in association with the Incubator Arts Project (131 East 10th Street at 2nd Avenue), will be February 9-12 at 8pm. For advance reservations please call 917-639-3166.

Halley Feiffer is a New York-based playwright and actress. Her play Easter Candy was produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre as part of the Young Playwrights' Festival XXII; her play Passion Fruit was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; her play Thank You So Much For Stopping will be published in the Vintage Anthology "Shorter, Faster, Funnier", to be released Spring 2011. Her play How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them was developed first at Second Stage Theatre in NY, and later at the Lark and the Orchard Project, and was nominated for the Cherry Lane Mentor Project 2011; her play Sidney and Laura was also nominated. She has received readings of her work at The Vineyard Playhouse, The Berkshire Theatre Festival and The Rattlestick Theatre. As an actress she has appeared in numerous films and TV shows, including The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding, Stephanie Daley, The Messenger, Gentlemen Broncos, "Flight of the Conchords", "Ugly Betty", "The Good Wife" and the upcoming HBO miniseries "MildrEd Pierce," as well as the upcoming films Twelve Thirty, Fighting Fish and Last Night. Her off-Broadway credits include Tigers Be Still, suburbia, Election Day, Some Americans Abroad (Second Stage), and Still Life (MCC). BA: Wesleyan University.

LAUREN FELDMAN is an itinerant playwright who hails from Miami, Florida; has lived in 6 different cities this past year; and is now settling into a nook in Brooklyn. Plays include Grace, or the Art of Climbing; The Egg-Layers; a People; Fill Our Mouths; and her current work-in-progress Quinn and also The Mooncalves; as well as a dozen short plays; the solo piece Funny Story; and several collaborative/devised works. She is also a co-creator of The Apocryphal Project. Her plays have been seen throughout the U.S. and in London, Canada, and Australia. She was a U.S. playwright delegate at The Royal Court Theatre and at World Interplay/Australia, and she has been an artist-in-residence at Tofte Lake Center (upcoming), Montana Artists Refuge, Cornell University, The Missoula Colony/Montana Rep, Sewanee University of the South, and Theater Emory/Brave New Works Festival. Most recently, she received the Agnes Ranjo Capps Award for an Emerging Female Playwright, and a nomination for the 2009 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award for Grace, or the Art of Climbing. She is published by Applause Books and Broadway Play Publishing. M.F.A. Playwriting, Yale School of Drama; B.A. English, Cornell University; The Shakespeare Programme, British-American Drama Academy/Skidmore College. She is now writing, collaborating, teaching, and learning trapeze.

ANDREW KRAMER hails from Cleveland and is a proud recent graduate of Ball State University's Department of Theatre and Dance in Muncie, Indiana where he was the founder/president of Busted Space Theatre Company, Ball State's student-run theatre company specializing in new works and non-conventional theatre performances. His play, A Map of Our Country, was a part of this year's 35th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. He was a 2010 Core Apprentice Writer at the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, where he developed his play The Dog(run) Diaries. He is currently being considered to be the newest member of the X-Men.

LEAH NANAKO WINKLER is a writer and director from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington, Kentucky who now lives in NYC. Leah's essays on hapa identity has been seen on Discover Nikkei through an New York University A/P/A commission for the Japanese American National Museum in California. She has directed her plays at the Ontological Hysteric Theater (Pale Horse...), The Brick Theater (Big Girls Club- Happy Dance Dance Princess Show in The Antidepressant Festival), HERE Arts Center (The Formula Play) and the Indianapolis New Art Theatre (Everywhere). Her short plays have been seen at the Cultural Development Corporation's Source Festival (little girls- dir Scott Fortier), Workingman's Clothes Productions' Binge Festival (BGC-Dir.Teddy Nicholas) and Butler University. She has also worked with the Asian American Arts Alliance and Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and is a founding member of Everywhere Theatre Group. She most recently wrote for the multi-media dance piece, The Internet at the Incubator Arts Project. She makes songs happen on her ukulele to relieve stress.

TERRANOVA COLLECTIVE is a vibrant playground for artists devoted to innovative new and original theatrical works. Its multi-layered development process, solo arts festivals, and productions serve to nurture and liberate our community.