Dwayne Clark and David Hess Join Cast of MDR's Staged Reading TORN ASUNDER

Midtown Direct Rep (MDR) continues its 2016-17 staged reading series, Theater at The Woodland, with a presentation of TORN ASUNDER, written by Obie Award-winner Nikkole Salter and directed by Janeece Freeman Clark. This staged reading will be performed for one night only on Sunday, December 11, 2016 at 7pm at The Woodland (60 Woodland Rd. Maplewood, NJ), where MDR is the resident theater company. The reading is $15 (advance purchase), $20 (if purchased at the door) and open to the public. Student/Senior discounts are also available. Tickets can be purchased online through Brown Paper Tickets (http://tornasunder.bpt.me) by clicking the direct link HERE OR by calling 1-800-838-3006.

The cast will include MDR members DWayne Clark (Broadway: The Color Purple (currently), Spider-Man, In the Heights, Cry Baby, Tarzan)and David Hess (Broadway/Tour: Sweeney Todd, Annie Get Your Gun, The Bridges of Madison County), with additional cast members to be announced shortly.

About TORN ASUNDER

Prince George's County, MD, 1860. Hannah, a relatively contented enslaved woman, has her world rocked when her master dies and she, for the first time, is separated from her family, new husband, and baby. But, just as she begins to lose all hope to ever see her husband and child again, the suceded south falls to the Union, the enslaved are freed with the 13th Amendment, and Hannah has the opportunity to put her family back together...if she can find them. TORN ASUNDER dramatizes true stories of newly emancipated African Americans trying to overcome the ever-present vestiges of instiutional slavery to reconnect with their families. Based on the research of Prof. Heather Andrea Williams. (Commissioned by Prof. Heather Andrea Williams and Prof. Kathy Perkins of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

About Playwright Nikkole Salter

Hailed by Variety as "thoroughly convincing", Los Angeles-born, OBIE Award-winning actress and writer Nikkole Salter arrived onto the professional scene with her co-authorship and co-performance (with Danai Gurira) of the Pulitzer Prize nominated play, IN THE CONTINUUM (ITC) for which Ms. Salter received an OBIE Award (2006), and the NY Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Award for Best New American Play (2006), the Seldes-Kanin fellowship from the TheatreHall of Fame, and the Global Tolerance Award from the Friends of the United Nations. Since then, Ms. Salter has written 6 full-length plays, been produced on 3 continents in 5 countries, and been published in 12 international publications. Her work has appeared in over 20 Off-Broadway, regional and international theatres, and the Crossroads Theatre production of her play REPAIRING A NATION (Kilroy's Honorable Mention) was aired on the second season of the WNET program "Theatre Close-Up." Ms. Salter is a 2014 MAP Fund Grant recipient, a Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, a two time Playwright's of New York (PoNY) Fellowship nominee, is currently working on commissions from Woolly Mammoth, NJPAC/Luna Stage, and was selected to write the screen adaptation of Claude Brown's New York Times Bestselling novel, Manchild in the Promised Land. Ms. Salter is an active member of the Actors Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Dramatists Guild, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Theatre Communications Group. She received her BFA in theatre from Howard University and her MFA from New York University's Graduate Acting Program under the tutelage of Zelda Fichandler and Ron Van Lieu. www.NikkoleSalter.com

About Theater at The Woodland
Midtown Direct Rep's Theater at The Woodland is a series of readings of new plays and musicals in development, presented on Sundayevenings in the Parlor at The Woodland, right in the center of Maplewood Village. The readings include lively post-show discussions with the cast and creative team, fostering a fun and collaborative environment that allows the audience to be a part of the development of vital new works. Many of the plays presented by this reading series have gone on to major productions off-Broadway, in regional theaters, and beyond.

About Midtown Direct Rep

Midtown Direct Rep (MDR), the resident theater company of The Woodland in Maplewood, NJ, is a professional, ensemble-based theater company of over 100 working Broadway actors and theater professionals who call South Orange and Maplewood home. Midtown Direct Rep is dedicated to developing and presenting new plays and musicals focusing on work that reflects our diverse community. Midtown Direct Rep is also the local presenter of the hugely successful event Listen to Your Mother, which showcases local writers and performers each year around Mother's Day. Company members include two-time Tony Award-winner Norbert Leo Butz, Tony Award-winner Michele Pawk, Tony Award-nominees Stephanie J. Block, Megan Lawrence, and Christiane Noll, plus Sebastian Arcelus, Joel de la Fuente, Bradley Dean, and many others. Guest actors have included James McDonald, Michelle Hurst, Geoffrey Arend, and Academy Award®-winner Olympia Dukakis. Recent projects include work by Matt Schatz, Kate Moira Ryan, Y York, Jack Canfora, Peter Flaherty, Jeremy Desmon, Chad Hardin, James Hindman, Chisa Hutchison, David Johnston, Kait Kerrigan, Kara Lee Korthron, David Myers, Sandy Rustin, John Walch, Douglas J. Cohen, Zoe Samuel, and others. The Company is led by Managing Director Aliza Wassner, Artistic Producer Steven Tabakin, Literary Manager Marni Raab, and Artistic Advisor Sandy Rustin. For more information, visit http://www.middirrep.org.

This program is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/ Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts and administered by the Essex County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs.