Columbia Stages' NEW PLAYS NOW Festival Features SCISSORING, 5/2-5

SCISSORING, a new play by Christina Quintana, will be presented as part of Columbia Stages' NEW PLAYS NOW Festival on Thursday May 2nd at 2:30pm, Saturday May 4th at 8pm, and Sunday May 5th at 2:30pm, at the Studio Theater in the Pershing Square Signature Center located at 480 W 42nd St New York, NY 10036.

In SCISSORING, Abigail Bauer, a New Orleans native and resident, must confront the clash between the life she has created with her long term girlfriend and her career as a devoted teacher in a repressive Catholic school. Through her struggle, Abigail receives pressure from the school's shape-shifting, personified P.A. System and guidance from the figures of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Roosevelt's devoted lifelong friend and once lover, Lorena Hickok. (Recently chosen as a Finalist in the 2014 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition)

SCISSORING is directed by Rebecca Cunningham, and it features the cast of Joe Cordaro, Emily Everidge, Ramona Floyd*, Jeannine Foster-McKelvia, Elizabeth Gray, Jene Hernandez*, Jonathan Hooks, and Phylis Rossi*. (*Appearing Courtesy of Actors' Equity Association.)

Christina Quintana (Playwright) is a New Orleans-grown playwright. Her plays have been developed, produced and workshopped in New York City, Santa Fe and New Orleans, with companies including The Movement Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival and Southern Rep Theatre. Quintana is the book writer/lyricist for GUMBO, a new musical, with music by Brett Macias, which received an industry reading, directed by Terry Berliner, at the Riverside Theater this March. Blank Canvas was a festival selection for tea in a big mug's Sweet Tea Summer Reading Series 2012. The Gay Play was featured in Outworks 2012 at LSU Department of Theatre. The Recession Club was nominated for "Best Overall Production of a Staged Reading" in the 2011 Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. Her first play, (HEARSAY), was featured on KSFR Santa Fe Public Radio. The Next Thing is a site-specific collaboration currently in development with the New-York based ExtantArts Company. BFA, Santa Fe University of Art and Design (formerly College of Santa Fe); MFA Playwriting candidate, Columbia University http://cquintana.com

Rebecca Cunningham (Director) is a New York City based director with a strong passion for female representation in all aspects of theatre. Recent directing credits:
Who Gets the Fish? (reading, tea in a big mug) and Blank Canvas (reading, tea in a big mug), Douche (Manhattan Rep), With the Lights Out (reading, Slant of Light), romance,
Freshwater, How to Build a Bomb, Uncommon Women and Others, Dog Sees God, Out in the Open, and The Vagina Monologues. AD credits: The Heidi Chronicles (Asolo Rep, dir. Laura Kepley), Goliath (Identity Crisis), Looking Glass Writers/Directors Forum, The Beggar's Opera (dir. Erica Gould), and The Glory of Living. Producing credits: Scottish Sperm (Edinburgh Festival Fringe). Her production of Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl will be going up this June at the Gene Frankel Theatre. Rebecca is an Artistic Board Member of tea in a big mug and the Co-Founder of Table Readings: A Potluck Play Reading Series in Astoria. She was recently selected as an SDCF Observership Applicant. Training: Pace University, BA Directing.

SCISSORING will be presented at the Studio Theater in the Pershing Square Signature Center located at 480 W 42nd St New York, NY 10036, on Thursday May 2nd at 2:30pm, Saturday May 4th at 8pm, and Sunday May 5th at 2:30pm.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS: THE Oscar Hammerstein II CENTER FOR THEATRE STUDIES