59E59 Theaters' SUMMER SHORTS Returns in July

59E59 Theaters will host the return of SUMMER SHORTS 2015, the annual festival of six short plays tailor-made for summer viewing, now in its 9th year. Produced by Throughline Artists (J.J. Kandel, Producing Director), SUMMER SHORTS 2015 begins on Friday, July 17 and runs through Saturday, August 29. The general performance schedule is Tuesday - Thursday at 7:15 PM, Friday at 8:15 PM; Saturday at 2:15 PM and 8:15 PM; and Sunday at 3:15 PM & 7:15 PM. Please note, there are no performances on Saturday, July 18 & July 25 at 2:15 PM and Sunday, July 19 at 3:15 PM. Individual performance dates for Series A and Series B are below. To download a calendar schedule, click here. Press Opening for Series A is Sunday, July 26 at 3:15 PM. Press Opening for Series B is Sunday, August 2 at 3:15 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Single tickets are $25 ($17.50 for 59E59 Members). A Pair of Shorts (a ticket to both Series A & B) is $40. To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or go to www.59e59.org.

NYC's cheeky summer theater festival, called "shamelessly clever and deeply satisfying" by the New York Times, returns to 59E59 Theaters for a ninth consecutive season! Featuring new American short plays from some of the country's top playwrights, with some of today's best directing and acting talents, SUMMER SHORTS celebrates theater, summer, and the short form. The festival's two separate series offer a diverse range of voices, styles, and subject matter. SUMMER SHORTS 2015 offers six premiere one-act plays, presented as two separate evenings of three each. The two series will run in rotating repertory.

SUMMER SHORTS 2015 features new one-act plays from Neil LaBute, Matthew Lopez, Vickie Ramirez, Robert O'Hara, Stella Fawn Ragsdale and Lucy Thurber. Casting will be announced at a later date.

The design team includes Rebecca Lord-Surratt (set design); Greg MacPherson (lighting design); Dede Ayite (costume design); Nick Moore (sound design/composer); and Isabella Carter (prop designer). The Production Stage Manager for Series A is Dee Dee Katchen. The Production Stage Manager for Series B is Jenna R. Lazar.

SUMMER SHORTS SERIES A

Performance schedule: 7/17 @ 8:15PM, 7/18 @ 8:15PM, 7/19 @ 7:15PM, 7/21 @ 7:15PM, 7/22 @ 7:15PM, 7/23 @ 7:15PM, 7/24 @ 8:15PM, 7/26 @ 3:15PM, 8/1 @ 2:15PM, 8/2 @ 7:15PM, 8/4 @ 7:15PM, 8/5 @ 7:15PM, 8/8 @ 8:15PM, 8/9 @ 3:15PM, 8/13 @ 7:15PM, 8/14 @ 8:15PM, 8/15 @ 2:15PM, 8/18 @ 7:15 PM, 8/19 @ 7:15PM, 8/22 @ 8:15PM, 8/23 @ 3:15PM and 7:15PM, 8/27 @ 7:15PM, 8/28 @ 8:15PM.

Press Opening: Sunday, July 26 at 3:15 PM

10K written and directed by Neil LaBute

A man and a woman meet on a wooded path while jogging. Is it an accident or something planned? Is it the first time or the hundredth? 10K is a suburban mystery shot through with humor and tension and desire.

THE SENTINELS by Matthew Lopez, directed by Stephen Brackett

Once a year in September, Alice, Christa and Kelly gather at a small downtown coffee shop for breakfast. There the three woman catch up on each other's lives and remember another September morning many years ago.

GLENBURN 12 WP by Vickie Ramirez, directed by TBD

A Native American woman and a Black man walk into a bar taking refuge from the "die-in" protests at Grand Central over police brutality. With the pub deserted and bartender strangely absent, these two strangers have their run of the place. But as the liquor starts to flow, so do some inconvenient truths.

SUMMER SHORT SERIES B

Performance schedule: 7/25 @ 8:15PM, 7/26 @ 7:15PM, 7/28 @ 7:15 PM, 7/29 @ 7:15PM, 7/30 @ 7:15PM, 7/31 @ 8:15PM, 8/1 @ 8:15PM, 8/2 @ 3:15PM, 8/6 @ 7:15PM, 8/7 @ 8:15PM, 8/8 @ 2:15PM, 8/9 @ 7:15PM, 8/11 @ 7:15PM, 8/12 @ 7:15PM, 8/15 @ 8:15PM, 8/16 @ 3:15PM and 7:15PM, 8/20 @ 7:15 PM, 8/21 @ 8:15PM, 8/22 @ 2:15PM, 8/25 @ 7:15PM, 8/26 @ 7:15PM, 8/29 @ 2:15PM and 8:15PM.

Press Opening: Sunday, August 2 at 3:15 PM

BUILT written and directed by Robert O'Hara

Mason and Mrs. Back meet in an empty space. A transaction is made. And the truth takes its toll.

LOVE LETTERS TO A DICTATOR by Stella Fawn Ragsdale, directed by TBD

Stella is a writer. Stella lives in New York. Stella misses her family. Stella worries about being good. Stella writes North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for advice. Kim Jong-Il writes back. A play about looking for answers in all the wrong places.

UNSTUCK by Lucy Thurber, directed by Laura Savia

Everyone wants something from Pete. Jackie wants advice on her new tap routine. Sara wants confirmation she's not a narcissist. And Deirdre just wants him to get off the damn sofa. But Pete is stuck - in more ways than one. A play about a man who can solve anyone's problem except his own.

BIOS

Series A

Neil LaBute (10K playwright and director) received his Master of Fine Arts degree in dramatic writing from New York University and was the recipient of a literary fellowship to study at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and also attended the Sundance Institute's Playwrights Lab. His films include: In The Company Of Men; Your Friends and Neighbors; Nurse Betty; Possession; The Shape Of Things (a film adaptation of his play by the same title); The Wicker Man; Lakeview Terrace; Death At A Funeral; Some Velvet Morning and Dirty Weekend. LaBute's television work includes: bash: latter-day plays (Showtime); Full Circle (DTV); 10 X 10 (DTV) and Billy & Billie (DTV). LaBute's plays include Filthy Talk for Troubled Times; bash: latter-day plays; The Shape Of Things; The Mercy Seat; The Distance From Here; Autobahn; Fat Pig; Some Girl(s); This Is How It Goes; In A Dark Dark House; Wrecks; Reasons to be Pretty; The Break of Noon; In a Forest, Dark and Deep, Lovely Head; Reasons to be Happy; Things We Said Today (a collection of short plays and monologues); The Money Shot (MCC) and The Way We Get By (Second Stage). LaBute has also adapted Dracula, Woyzeck, Miss Julie and Antigone for the stage. Seconds Of Pleasure, a collection of his short fiction, was published by Grove Atlantic.

Vickie Ramirez (Glenburn 12 WP playwright) is a founding member of Chukalokoli Native Theater Ensemble. Her work has been produced and/or developed at The Public Theater, Amerinda, and Native Voices at the Autry, the Roundabout Theater's Different Voices Program, Mixed Phoenix Theater Company, the Classical Theatre of Harlem and the 52nd Street Project. Plays include: Standoff at Hwy#37, Smoke, Ashes, The Varlettes vs. the Space Rock, Case 24: Roswell, NM, Leona by the Bayou and Pocahontas Redux. Honors include: 2009/2010 NYC Urban Artists Fellowship, 2010 NYSCA Individual Artist Award and three Monologues will be published in Routledge's Monologues for Actors of Color in spring 2015.

Matthew Lopez (The Sentinels playwright) is the author of The Whipping Man, one of the most widely-produced American plays of the last decade. Other works include Somewhere and Reverberation, both of which were recently seen at Hartford Stage Company. His play The Legend of Georgia McBride premiered last year at the Denver Center and will be presented off-Broadway this fall by MCC Theater at the Lucile Lortel. Matthew holds commissions from Roundabout Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Hartford Stage and South Coast Rep. Matthew is a recent Aetna New Voices fellow at Hartford Stage and is currently serving as the inaugural Playwriting Fellow at the Denver Center. He wrote for the HBO series "The Newsroom" and recently adapted Javier Marias' trilogy Your Face Tomorrow for Brad Pitt's Plan B film company.

Stephen Brackett's (director, The Sentinels) credits include: Jonathan Tolins' Buyer & Cellar (Rattlestick and Barrow Street Theaters/National Tour/London's Menier Chocolate Factory), Joe Tracz and Joe Iconis' Be More Chill (Two River), Anton Dudley's City Of (The Playwrights Realm), Lucas Kavner's Carnival Kids (Lesser America), Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (Theatreworks USA), David West Read's The Great Pretender (TheatreWorks), Ken Urban's The Correspondent (Rattlestick), Dan Fishback's The Material World (Dixon Place), Micheline Auger's American River (Lesser America), Bekah Brunstetter's Nothing is the End of the World (Waterwell/PPAS), Chad Beckim's After (Partial Comfort), Brunstetter's Be A Good Little Widow (Ars Nova), The Tenant (Woodshed Collective), Rick Viede's Whore (Summer Play Festival), Bixby Elliot's PN1923.45LS01 Volume 2 (Culture Project) and Kilroy Was Here: A Styx Rock Opera (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Stephen is a company member of Lesser America and Partial Comfort, and an alumnus of the Soho Rep Lab.

Series B

Lucy Thurber (Unstuck playwright) is the author of eleven plays. The Insurgents was produced at Labyrinth Theater Company and Contemporary American Theater Festival. Her five play cycle The Hill Town Plays was produced Off Broadway by Rattlestick Playwright's Theater in conjunction with The Cherry Lane Theater, The Axis Theater and The New Ohio Theatre. Produced at The Atlantic Theater Company: Bottom of The World and Scarcity. Lucy wrote the text for QUIXOTE, conceived and directed by Lear deBessonet, a site-specific performance with the Psalters made for and with The Broad Street Community. Also with Lear deBessonet, and produced by 13P, Monstrosity. Thurber is an alumnus of New Dramatists. She is a member of 13P, Labyrinth Theater Company and Rising Phoenix Rep. She is the recipient of the 1st Gary Bonasorte Memorial Prize for Playwriting, a proud recipient of a Lilly Award and a 2014 OBIE Award for The Hill Town Plays.

Laura Savia's (Unstuck director) production of The Recommendation in Los Angeles recently garnered two Ovation Awards, including Best Production. New York directing credits include Red Flamboyant (Firebone Theatre Co.), Bareknuckle at Gleason's Gym (Vertigo Theater Co.), The Mnemonist of Dutchess County (Theatre Row), Letters to Santa (Naked Angels), House Strictly Private (1st Irish Festival), The Color of Justice (Theatreworks USA), and The Lover (The Drama League), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Lee Strasberg Institute) The Glass Menagerie (University of Rochester) as well as numerous short plays for Labyrinth Theater Co., Ars Nova, Partial Comfort, At Play, and the 24 Hour Plays. She has developed work with The Public Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, Atlantic Theater Company, Second Stage, Playwrights Realm and Ma-Yi Theater Company, among others. Assistant directing includes Broadway's The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino. Four seasons as Workshop Artistic Producer at Williamstown Theatre Festival; five seasons at Atlantic Theater Co. Director of The Living Newspaper, which has performed at Joe's Pub, Le Poisson Rouge, and the A.R.T.'s Club Oberon. Laura teaches at NYU/The Lee Strasberg Institute, Fordham University, and The New School. 2009 Drama League Directing Fellow. Alumna of Northwestern University. Upcoming: Red Light Winter at the Itself Festival in Poland.

Robert O'Hara (Built playwright and director) has received the NAACP Best Director Award, the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play, two OBIEs and the Oppenheimer Award. He directed the World Premieres of Nikkole Salter and Dania Guiria's In the Continuum, Tarell McCraney's The Brother/Sister Plays (Part 2), Colman Domingo's Wild with Happy as well as his own plays, BootyCandy and Insurrection: Holding History. His new plays Zombie: The American and Barbecue, will world premiere this year at Woolly Mammoth Theater and New York Shakespeare Festival, respectively. He is currently the Mellon Playwright in Residence at Woolly Mammoth Theater.

Stella Fawn Ragsdale (Love Letters to a Dictator playwright) was born and raised in East Tennessee. Her play, Perish, was featured in The Public Theater's Spotlight Series in 2011 and The High Tide Festival in the UK, and is published in American Next Wave (Methuen). She was a member of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group and writer in residence at Cape Cod Theatre Project in 2014 and The Vineyard Arts Project. She works on a farm.