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DR2 Theatre, WET Hosts INKubator Summer Series With New Female Writers 6/15
By: Gabrielle Sierra May. 28, 2009
For 3 consecutive Mondays beginning June 15 at The DR2 Theatre, WET will present its 2009 INKubator Summer Series featuring new plays by some of the most dynamic women creating theater today. See new plays written by: Guggenheim Fellow and Obie Award winner, Melissa James Gibson; three time Emmy Award nominee, Cusi Cram; and Princess Grace Award winner, and Six Feet Under alum, Kate Robin, all read by celebrated actors. Each reading will be followed by the extraordinary talents of two of the hottest and most hilarious women taking the comedy world by storm- Eliza Skinner and Glennis McMurray, otherwise known as the unstoppable, musical improv duo, I Eat Pandas. WET's 2009 INKubator Summer Series is an opportunity to catch this work while its heating and hatching. Plus, special refreshments and snacks will available between shows.
WET's 2009 INKubator Summer Series has been co-curated by acclaimed director and theater artist Josh Hecht (Director of Christine Jorgenson Reveals, Slasher at Humana, and co-writer and performer of Ping Chong's Inside/Out) and the dynamic duo of WET, Sasha Eden and Victoria Pettibone. The Series is produced by WET Productions, a non-profit organization that produces media which challenges female stereotypes and advocates for equality.
Current Nobody, written by Melissa James Gibson, and directed by Melissa's longtime collaborator Daniel Aukin, is a loose adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey. Current Nobody was a 2005 finalist for The Susan Smith Blackburn award and received its world premiere at The Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington D.C. Through the INKubator series, Melissa and Daniel are returning to the script to further develop the play and explore new ideas that have arisen since their production at Woolly Mammoth. Melissa's previous credits include: [sic] (OBIE Award for playwriting, Kesselring Prize, The Best Plays of 2001-02). She is the recipient of a 2006 Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights' Fellowship and a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her play THIS will premiere at Playwrights Horizons in the fall of 2009, directed by Daniel Aukin. Previous credits for Daniel Aukin include: Itamar Moses' Back Back Back (Manhattan Theater Club), Mark Schultz's, Everything Will Be Different, and Marie Irene Fornes' Molly's Dream (OBIE Award). Daniel was Artistic Director of Soho Rep from1999-2006.
Dusty and The Big Bad World, written by Cusi Cram is an uproarious comedy about censorship, government funding, and gay rights. Only Cusi Cram could make these subjects funny while reaching into your heart and inspiring you to look differently at the world. Dusty received its world premiere at The Denver Theater Center, and has since been further developed in WET's INKubator. Previous credits for Cusi include: Lucy and the Conquest (Williamstown Theater Festival and O'Neill Playwrights Conference), All the Bad Things (LAByrinth Theater Company at the Public Theater). Upcoming: A Lifetime Burning, will receive its world premiere at Primary Stages in August 2009. Cusi has also received three Emmy Award nominations and a Humanitas Award nomination for her writing on the animated children's program "Arthur". Previous credits for director Evan Cabnet include, Mark Schultz' Gingerbread House, starring Bobby Cannivale and Sarah Paulson and Elizabeth Meriwether's The Mistakes Madeline Made at Naked Angels.
Kate Robin has been writing Swimming in March for the past nine years, most recently in a workshop directed by frequent collaborator, Rebecca Bayla Taichman. Swimming in March is a wildly imaginative, haunting adaptation of Buchner's expressionist play, Woyzcek. It follows the story of Louis Woyzcek, a recently deployed soldier from the National Guard, who has just returned home from operation "Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan. Other credits for Kate Robin include, What They Have (South Coast Rep.), Anon. (Atlantic Theater Co.), Intrigue With Faye (MCC), and the acclaimed television show Six Feet Under. Kate received the 2003 Princess Grace Statuette for playwriting. Director, Rebecca Bayla Taichman's credits include: The Scene by Theresa Rebeck at Second Stage starring Tony Shalhoub and Patricia Heaton, Twelfth Night (The Shakespeare Theater and The McCarter Theater), Green Violin by Elise Thoron starring Raul Esparza which she won a 2003 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Direction. Rebecca is the Director in Residence at WET productions.
I Eat Pandas is the outrageous musical improv duo, selling out Upright Citizen Brigade's New York and Los Angeles theaters, created by the two extraordinary actress-comediennes, Glennis McMurray & Eliza Skinner. In 2007 they were named Best Improv Group at The ECNY Awards (New York's comedy awards celebrating the absolute best in New York comedy) and were again nominated in 2008 for Best Musical Act. Though I Eat Pandas is known for their sharp musical improv skills, Eliza and Glennis are making a name for themselves on Showtime with a string of promos they wrote and star in for Showtime's The Tudors. www.poptudors.com
The New York Daily New calls I Eat Pandas the "best musical improv either side of the Hudson" and The Onion says "If improv seems like magic to the untrained eye, I Eat Pandas would probably appear to be levitating over the Grand Canyon."
MONDAY, JUNE 15:
7:00p - Current Nobody, written by Melissa James Gibson, directed by Daniel Aukin
9:30p - I Eat Pandas Featuring Eliza Skinner and Glennis McMurray
MONDAY, JUNE 22:
7:00p - Dusty and The Big Bad World, written by Cusi Cram, directed by Evan Cabnet
9:30p - I Eat Pandas Featuring Eliza Skinner and Glennis McMurray
MONDAY, JUNE 29:
7:00p - Swimming in March, written by Kate Robin, Directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman
9:30p - I Eat Pandas Featuring Eliza Skinner and Glennis McMurray
The DR2 Theatre, Where WET is a Theater in Residence
103 East 15th Street, between Union Square East and Irving Place. Accessible from
the L, N, Q, R, W, 4, 5, 6 trains at 14th street Union Square.
Admission: the 7:00pm play readings are FREE; 9:30pm performances by I Eat Pandas are $5 dollars.
Reservations: INKubator@wetproductions.org, or through www.wetproductions.org
About WET's INKubator: The Ray and Kit Sawyer Development Series: WET's INKubator is a script development division of WET, created to shepherd new plays and screenplays written by women writers into production. Each year, a small handful of scripts are selected to participate in The INKubator, providing writers with support designed to meet each writer's unique and specific creative needs, through dramaturgy, workshops, private and public readings and residencies. Over the past two years, WET has partnered with Naked Angels, The Williamstown Theater Festival, and The National Theater Institute at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center on specific plays developing in The INKubator. Playwrights who have participated in WET's INKubator include Julia Jordan, Francine Volpe, Brooke Berman, Sarah Schulman, and Cusi Cram. In September 2009, WET will launch the film division of WET's INKubator, WET Films, run by producer and film development executive, Jordana Mollick. WET's INKubator is made possible through generous support provided by Ray and Kit Sawyer. Additional support for this summer series is provided by Time Warner, Inc. and WET's 2009 season sponsor Yogaworks.
About WET Productions: Founded in 1999, by Sasha Eden and Victoria Pettibone, WET Productions is a 501(c)3 non profit Production Company that produces media that challenges female stereotypes and advocates for equality. WET develops, produces and promotes innovative, non -niched, female generated work in film, theater, television, events and education. www.wetproductions.org
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