Columbia Presents Second Part Of M.F.A. Playwrighting Event

Columbia University School of the Arts Theatre Arts Program and Columbia Stages Present MASTERPIECES: Part Two of SPRING, a Series of Three Springtime Events Celebrating Columbia's M.F.A. Playwriting Class of 2009

Columbia University School of the Arts Theatre Arts Program and Columbia Stages present MASTERPIECES, the second event in SPRING, a celebration in three parts of Columbia's M.F.A. Playwriting Class of 2009. In MASTERPIECES, each playwright presents a staged reading of a full-length play in various locations around New York City.

SPRING consists of three unique events: THE FOUR SEASONS, MASTERPIECES, and FESTIVAL, and takes place between February and May of 2009 in venues located throughout New York City. 2008-2009 marks the inaugural year of the Theatre Arts' Playwright Mentoring Program, a new initiative that pairs every third-year M.F.A. playwriting candidate with a playwright of his or her choosing.

Columbia's M.F.A. Playwriting Class of 2009 includes: Steven Gridley, Tariq Hamami, Joshua Hill, Ken Kaissar, Josh Koenigsberg, Harrison David Rivers, E. Dale Smith and Melisa Tien.

The playwrights were mentored over the course of this year by Edward Albee, Deborah Brevoort, Christopher Durang, David Grimm, John Guare, David Henry Hwang, Kenneth Lonergan, Charles L. Mee, Dael Orlandersmith, Theresa Rebeck, Kate E. Ryan and Kelly Stuart.

For more information about Columbia University School of the Arts, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu. For more information about Columbia Stages, the producing arm of Columbia University School of the Arts' Theatre Arts Program, please visit http://www.ColumbiaStages.com.

Information about each reading in MASTERPIECES follows:

MASTERPIECES

The Dudleys!
By Steven Gridley (John Guare, mentor)
Monday, February 16th at 8:00PM
Urban Stages
259 West 30th Street (Between 7th and 8th Avenues)

The Dudleys! takes the drama of a grieving family and translates it into the world of an old malfunctioning Nintendo (NES) video game. Washing dishes, fighting with your sister, going to a funeral are all stages in The Dudleys! It's the game of disappointing domestic life.

White Picket Fences
By Tariq Hamami (Theresa Rebeck, mentor)
Thursday, February 26th at 4:00PM
Manhattan Theatre Club, Creative Center
311 West 43rd Street, 8thFloor (Between 8th and 9th Avenues)

Patrick and Suzanne, recently engaged, live in a modest apartment in Newark, New Jersey. Having deferred their life's dreams for the comfort of Americana, they silently fill molds they don't fully understand.An old friend of Patrick's, Laurie, unexpectedly shows up after an eleven-year absence. She's eight and a half months pregnant and needs a place to stay until her baby is born. A natural muse with no anchor in life, Laurie reignites Patrick's old passions of life. He must now reconcile his two very different lives in a world that seems void of ambition.

we are misquoted texts, made right when you say us
By Harrison David Rivers (Dael Orlandersmith, mentor)
Monday, March 2nd at 7:00PM
3LD Art & Technology Center
80 Greenwich Street (Between Rector and Edgar Streets)

Three years after his parents' mysterious disappearance in the Turkish desert, Cow, a 14-year-old dance prodigy, stops; he stops listening, he stops responding, and most worrisome of all to his grandmother Nana, he stops tapping. we are misquoted texts... explores the crippling effects of loss, the sometimes-seeming futility of hope, and the surprisingly potent power of love.

Rhoda Heartbreak: A Musical
By E. Dale Smith (Deborah Brevoort, mentor)
Music by David Wayne Fox
Tuesday, March 3rd at 7:00PM
Players Theatre, Mainstage
115 MacDougal Street (Between West 3rdStreet and Minetta Lane)

Backstage at a popular New York drag bar, Rhoda Heartbreak reigns supreme. But one fateful night when a cast member calls in sick, everyone is astonished to discover that her replacement is a biological woman. What ensues is a darkly comedic examination of the prejudices that still run deeply through a society that knows better than to speak of such things.

Daughter of Heaven
By Melisa Tien (David Henry Hwang, mentor)
Wednesday, March 4th at 7:00PM
Manhattan Theatre Club, Creative Center
311 West 43rd Street, 8thFloor (Between 8th and 9th Avenues)

In modern-day Shanghai, a country girl arrives as an inexperienced worker at a premier fashion company and confronts a slippery world of close intimacy and ruthless competition from which she struggles to emerge untouched. A contemporary re-telling of the rise of Wu Zetian, the only woman in China's history to have ruled as empress.

Untitled
By Joshua Hill (Edward Albee, mentor)
Wednesday, March 11th at 7:00PM
Theatre Row, Studio Theatre
410 West 42nd Street (Between 9th and 10th Avenues)

A story of family and betrayal on a cotton farm in 1930s Texas.

The Victims or What Do You Want Me To Do About It?
By Ken Kaissar (Christopher Durang, mentor)
Thursday, March 12th at 4:00PM
Manhattan Theatre Club, Creative Center
311 West 43rd Street, 8thFloor (Between 8th and 9th Avenues)

Two men live in the most beautiful garden imaginable, where they grow their own food and have everything they need. Life would be nothing but bliss if not for the reality that the owner of the garden comes to beat them every single day. But hope has arrived, in the form of a visitor who has come to ask the age-old existential question:What do you want me to do about it?

The Dolphins
By Josh Koenigsberg (Kenneth Lonergan, mentor)
Monday, March 16th at 7:00PM
Atlantic Theatre Company, Stage 2
330 West 16th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues)

When U.S. Coast Guard Hertzel is called into his superior's office, he thinks he's finally landed acoveted promotion. Instead he is ordered to assist an elite Navy task force on a top-secret submarine hunt to eliminate 100 killer bottle nose dolphins. Based on a true story.

All tickets to MASTERPIECES are FREE. To reserve a ticket, please email newplays@columbiastages.com.

For more information about MASTERPIECES, and all SPRING events, please visit http://www.ColumbiaStages.com/Spring.html

BIOGRAPHIES

STEVEN GRIDLEY's plays have been seen in downtown theatres such as HERE Arts Center, Lark Theatre, Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, Theatre for the New City, Altered Stages, and Spring Theatrework's Dumbo space. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Smith & Kraus, and by Martin Denton in his Plays and Playwrights 2004 Anthology. Steven was named as one of the "People of the Year" by nytheatre.com saying, "Indisputably one of the smartest and most innovative young playwright/directors working in New York's Indie theatre scene."

TARIQ HAMAMI's previous productions include Spite at the Cherry Lane Theatre (New York, NY) as part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival, Queen Elizabeth of Factory Fifteen at the Schapiro Theatre (New York, NY), and The First Line of Defense at the American Theatre of Actors (NewYork, NY). He is in his thesis year in the Columbia University Graduate Playwriting Program and holds a B.A. in Theatre from Kean University.

JOSHUA HILL is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Theatre and Dance, and an M.F.A. candidate in Playwriting at Columbia University. His plays have been seen in Austin, Texas; Waco, Texas; Omaha,Nebraska; Provincetown, Massachusetts; and New York City. He is a cat lover (ask for pictures).

KEN KAISSAR's ten-minute play Ceasefire was a regional winner in last year's Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. His full length play Creativity was a finalist in the Ashland New Plays Festival and the Texas Non-Profit Theatre Festival. He holds a B.F.A. in directing from Carnegie Mellon University and is currently pursuing his M.F.A. in playwriting at Columbia University. He has recently adapted The Canterbury Tales which was performed at Columbia in November 2008.

JOSH KOENIGSBERG's plays have been produced at The Atlantic Theater, CenterStage, Ars Nova, Collective:Unconscious, and The Richard B. Fisher Center For The Performing Arts. He is a founding member and resident playwright of AT PLAY PRODUCTIONS (the resident off-broadway company for the 24 Hour Plays), and is a member of the Old Vic:New Voices Network. His burrito recipe, "Josh's Famous Burritos" was recently printed in the Dining Section of the New York Times.

HARRISON DAVID RIVERS has always written-on Post-Its, napkins, and in the margins of books? His plays have been seen at Ars Nova (A.N.T. Fest), The New School for Drama Theater (NYCFringe), the 45thStreet Theater (NYMF), Atlantic Theater (24 Hour Plays), Dixon Place, South Oxford Space, Atlantic Stage 2, collective:unconscious and Manhattan Theater Source. Harrison is the Artistic Director of at play productions. He holds degrees in American Studies and Dance & Drama from Kenyon College.

E. Dale Smith. A 1997 graduate of The University of Texas, E. Dale Smith returned to his studies after 10 years of teaching high school theatre in public schools and private theatres throughout the country. He has been awarded a James A. Michener Scholarship and a Shubert Fellowship for his playwriting and his works have been produced by Engage Theatre Company, kef productions, The Hetrick-Martin Institute, Nite Star Theatre, and The Red Curtain Theatre Company in California.

MELISA TIEN. Born in San Francisco and raised in Los Angeles, Melisa wrote her first play at the age of ten, an adaptation of Medea. Her work has been produced at 59E59, Manhattan Repertory Theater, The Tank/Collective Unconscious, and The Great Plains Theater Conference co-founded by Edward Albee. In 2007 her play The Hiding Place was chosen by Julia Hansen (founder of the Drama League Directors Project) to represent Columbia University in a showcase of national M.F.A. playwrights.

COLUMBIA STAGES (Producer) is the producing arm of the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies of Columbia University's School of the Arts. Columbia Stages annually presents a season of graduate actor and director productions as well as a festival of new plays by emerging playwrights. The theatre program offers M.F.A. degrees in acting, directing, playwriting,
dramaturgy, stage management, and theatre management and producing. The goal of the program is to provide each student with the foundation for a career in professional theatre as well as the tools to embrace an ever-changing theatrical landscape and shape the future of theatre.