Caridad Svich’s SPARK To Honor War Veterans with Multiple International Readings in November

The initial line-up of organizations that will present 2012 OBIE Award-winning playwright Caridad Svich's new play Spark has been announced. This work, which is about a family of sisters who live in North Carolina, one of whom is a returning veteran from a recent war, is being made available for local presentations during the month of November (and selected venues in October) in time for Veteran's Day and around the national US elections. The national script reading scheme has been developed to honor US war veterans, shed light on the plight of female veterans in particular, and to raise increased awareness for their stories, by NoPassport theatre alliance & press, an unincorporated collective dedicated to the advocacy, production and publication of works expressive of cross-cultural and aesthetic diversity in the arts.

A special Veterans Day reading of the play, followed by a panel, will be held at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City on Sunday November 11, 2012 produced by Gloria Mann, TEL and Mannatee Films, in collaboration with NoPassport, under Scott Schwartz's direction (casting TBA soon). Among the other theaters and venues that will be presenting the play are Atomic Age Theater Company in collaboration with Emerson College in Boston, MA; Bristol Riverside Theater in Bristol, PA; Ensemble Free Theater Norway in collaboration with the Cummins Theatre in Merredin,Western Australia; Off-the-Hyphen Productions in Baton Rouge, LA; Moxie Productions in Vermont; New Dramatists in NYC; Profile Theatre in Portland, OR; Pygmalion Theatre in Salt Lake City, UT; Trap Door Theatre in Chicago, IL; Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque, NM; Working Title Playwrights in Atlanta, GA; and over fifteen US universities including Penn State University, Reed College and the University of Washington-Seattle in collaboration with The Hansberry Project. Additional presenting venues will be announced in the near future.

The play was commissioned by, among others, JT Rogers, Peter Lichtenfels, and Tamilla Woodard, and was developed, in part, at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City. Spark is a two-act play with five characters that focuses on poverty in America, what happens when soldiers come home, and the strength, ultimately, of family. It is the third play in Caridad Svich's American quartet of plays addressing national issues/global concerns, that include 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award-winning Guapa and The Way of Water. Her other plays include 12 Ophelias, Iphigenia…a rave fable, and The House of the Spirits, based on the novel by Isabel Allende. The line producer for the NoPassport reading scheme for Spark is Lanie Zipoy, and the dramaturgy team is led by Zac Kline with Heather Helinsky (as consulting dramaturg) and Erin Kaplan. The play's premiere has not yet been announced.
For more information about Caridad Svich's Spark, visit http://www.nopassport.org/spark