terraNOVA Collective returns October 1, 2009 at 10:00pm with SUBTERRANEAN, their monthly performance party in the D-Lounge, a 75-seat cabaret-style venue below the Daryl Roth Theatre at 101 East 15th Street at Union Square. SUBTERRANEAN presents a variety of performers, including spoken word, music, burlesque, magic, storytelling, short play readings, vaudeville acts and DJs. Admission is $10 plus one drink minimum.
October's event marks the first time Groundbreakers, terraNOVA Collective's playwrights development program presents work at the monthly party. The 10-minute plays written by the Groundbreakers revolve around the central theme of "Speed."
"We're very proud to be putting up plays for this month's party," said SUBTERRANEAN curator James Carter. "All of these writers are amazing, and we're glad to have crossover between programs. I can't wait to see what these talented playwrights have in store!"
The Groundbreakers playwrights include: Snehal Desai, Susan Ferrara, Lucy Gillespie, Mario Quesada, Andrea Thome, Karen Smith Vastola, and Heather J. Violanti.
Snehal Desai toured his first solo show, Finding Ways to Prove You're Not an Al-Qaeda Terrorist When You're Brown (and other stories of the Indian), to sold out audiences across the United States from Philadelphia to San Francisco and recently had his third run in New York City at the HERE Arts Center. He recently presented his new play, Sita/Sati Part I: Apu A-Sleep with Desipina Theater Company in New York. A graduate of the MFA Directing Program at the Yale School of Drama and the founder of The Yale Southasian Theater Collective, Snehal's Directorial works include: Bertolt Brecht's Baal, an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, the world premiere of FOB: Fresh off the Boeing, Booty Fire, Cabaret, and Jose Rivera's Marisol. He has worked at theaters across the United States including: Yale Rep, Theater Emory, the Alliance Theater, Theater Rhinoceros, and Dad's Garage and is a member of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab.
Susan Ferrara is an actor and playwright whose plays include The Machine (a 2009 O'Neill semi-finalist and part of the Berwyn Trilogies which also includes Suicide on Pennsylvania Avenue and DNR). She has written and performed her own solo show Peasant at The Zipper Theatre, Theatre Row and Chashama all in Manhattan, Darger (co-created with Jeremy Williams), Buzz (inspired by the search for famed director MaryAnn "Buzz" Goodbody), Beat ‘n Dobin (co-created with Teresa Harrison), and Hit Mom. Susan participated in the Flea Theatre's pataphysics workshop with Mac Wellman. As an actor, Susan was most recently on The Onion News Network and has performed at The Public Theatre in Suzan-Lori Park's 365 Plays. Other theatre credits includes The Cherry Orchard (Beckett Theatre), The Commission (Connelly Theatre), Candles to the Sun (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Charles L. Mee's Mail Order Bride, Henry VI, Parts I, II and III, Lie of the Mind and Orlando (with and adapted by Sarah Ruhl) and Clubbed Thumb Theatre's festival SummerWorks, among many. Susan studied acting in London, Chicago and New York and is a member of Actors Equity, the Screen Actors Guild, the Dramatists Guild and Resonance Ensemble.
Lucy Gillespie is an Anglo-American writer and performer who is mostly interested in bad people, and the people who suffer them. Writing and collaborating credits include Driving Lesson (Strawberry One-Act Festival), Keeping the Light: Stories of Lighthouse Keepers (Mystic Seaport, CT), Shadow Dracula (Northwestern), and Adrift (Theatermakers Ensemble, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center). As an actor, Lucy has performed with Full Stop Collective in NYC, Remy Bumppo Theater Company and the Oak Park Festival Theater in Chicago, the Mystic Seaport, and at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Summer Playwright's Conference. She is also the author of The Pith and the Peel, a novella about a woman who kills and eats her husband. Her first full-length play, Hangman/School for Girls, will premiere this Fall in New York City, produced by Vagabond Theater Ensemble and Full Stop Collective. Lucy holds a BA from Northwestern University in Theater and Fiction Writing.
