Feldshuh, Cumpsty, Zickel & More Set For 2009 WRITERS JAM SESSION 7/23 - 7/30

The Playwrights Realm - under the leadership of Co-Artistic Directors John Dias and Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Stephanie Ybarra - and the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts present the 2009 WRITERS JAM SESSION - a week of readings by emerging artists, featuring such acting talents as Tovah Feldshuh (IRENA'S VOW, GOLDA'S BALCONY), Michael Cumpsty (DEMOCRACY, COPENHAGEN), Mather Zickel ("Rachel Getting Married," "I Love You, Man"), etc. free and open to the public - at the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program Center (113 2nd Avenue, between 6th and 7th Streets). For reservations please email jd1429@nyu.edu.

The 2009 WRITERS JAM SESSION consists of the following free, public readings:

-- Thursday, July 23rd at 7:00pm - Aurin Squire's BLEED, directed by Katherine Kovner. Something creepy, disturbing and utterly ridiculous is happening to everyman Alex in this dark comedy about a disappearing man making one last stand at mattering.

Aurin Squire is an award-winning playwright whose work includes: DEFACING Michael Jackson (winner - Samuel French, Inc. International Play Competition); MATCH ME (2005 FringeNYC); and TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN (Abingdon Theatre - Fresh Fruit Festival Awards for Best Play and Best Playwright).

Katherine Kovner is Co-Artistic Director of The Playwrights Realm. Earlier this season, she directed Anna Ziegler's DOV AND ALI for The Playwrights Realm. Other credits include: SUBSTITUTION with Jan Maxwell (The Playwrights Realm), ROXY FONT (New York Fringe Festival &winner of the Fringe's best ensemble award), ELLIOT: A SOLDIER'S FUGUE (Luna Stage), LIZARDSKIN (New York Fringe Festival), and IPHIGENIA AND OTHER DAUGHTERS (Luna Stage). She has developed work with New York Theater Workshop, New Georges, Brooklyn Playwrights Collective, and The Manhattan Oracles. Ms. Kovner has been an artistic associate with Classic Stage Company, the directing fellow at The Public Theatre's Shakespeare Lab, and is a member of the Lincoln Center's Director Lab and affiliated artist with New Georges.

-- Tuesday, July 28th at 7:00pm - Cori Thomas' MY SECRET LANGUAGE OF WISHES, directed by May Adrales. A child is caught in the middle of an unlikely custody battle between a poor white caregiver desperate to save her, and a black woman desperate to undo a past mistake.

Cori Thomas' plays include: WHEN JANUARY FEELS LIKE SUMMER (2008 Sundance Theatre Lab; Momentum 08 Pittsburgh City Theatre; Finalist 2008 O'Neill Conference; 2008 Finalist Juilliard Fellowship), SO... (Finalist EST 2008 Marathon); GETTING RID OF THE RAT (Finalist EST 2007 Marathon); PA'S HAT:LIBERIAN LEGACY (Passage Theatre) ...OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES, AND OUR SACRED HONOR (runner-up Theodore Ward Prize); etc. She is a lifetime member in playwriting and acting at Ensemble Studio Theatre.

May Adrales has directed and developed work at The Public Theater, Second Stage Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Williamstown Theater Festival, The Hangar Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Prospect Theater Company, HERE Arts Center, Ensemble Studio Theater, Midtown International Theater Festival, NYU, Yale, Bard College and The New York International Fringe Festival. She is a former member of the Soho Rep Writers/Director's Lab and Women's Project Directors Lab and is the recipient of a Van Lier Directing Fellowship, a SDCF Observership, SSDC Denham Fellowship, WTF Bill Foeller Fellowship, Drama League Fellowship, New York Theatre Workshop Directing Fellowship. May worked as an Artistic Associate at The Public Theater from 2006-08. Currently, May is in residence at The Lark Play Development Center as the recipient of the TCG New Generations Grant. MFA, Yale School of Drama, directing.

-- Wednesday, July 29th at 7:00pm - Carlos Murillo's DIAGRAM OF A PAPER AIRPLANE, directed by Jerry Ruiz. They thought they were going to change the world, but the world changed them; two decades later, five estranged friends reluctantly come together to read the last play ever written by their late ringleader.

Carlos Murillo's plays include DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS, UNFINISHED AMERICAN HIGHWAYSCAPE #9 &32 (OR THE BROKEN TRACTOR GRAVEYARD), MIMESOPHOBIA (OR BEFORE AND AFTER), A HUMAN INTEREST STORY (OR THE GORY DETAILS AND ALL), OFFSPRING OF THE COLD WAR, THE PATRON SAINT OF THE NAMELESS DEAD, SCHADENFREUDE, NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES WITH LENI RIEFENSTAHL, NEVER WHISTLE WHILE YOU'RE PISSING and SUBTERRANEANS. His plays have been produced at Humana Festival, the NYC Summer Play Festival, En Garde Arts, Soho Rep, The Hangar Theatre Lab, Theatre @ Boston Court, Circle X, Son of Semele, Actors Express, City Theatre of Miami, etc. His work has been developed at The Public, NY Theatre Workshop, The Goodman, South Coast Rep, Portland Center Stage, Madison Rep, The Sundance Institute, The Playwrights' Center, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, A.S.K. Theatre Projects, the Chautauqua Conservatory, Annex Theatre, UC Santa Barbara, the Loyola University Museum of Art and others.

Credits of Jerry Ruiz include UNDER THE SKIN (Theatre 54), CHICANO SKETCHES (Yale School of Drama), BOHEMIAN LIGHTS (Repertorio Español), TRANSLATION OF SIGNS (HERE Arts Center), PERFECTOMUNDO (EST), BLOOD WEDDING, LABYRINTH OF DESIRE, MURDER OF CROWS, 4H CLUB, WAITING FOR THE HEARSE (Mixed Blood), KING IS DEAD (Highwire), RATTLERS (Flux Theatre), etc. He is a two-time recipient of the Van Lier Director's Fellowship, a Drama League Directing Fellow; former Directing Fellow at Second Stage. Mr. Ruiz was Assistant to Baz Luhrman on Broadway's LA BOHEME. He is currently developing work with Oregone Shakespeare Festival and will direct 12th Night for Chalk Rep in Los Angeles. BA, Harvard; MFA, UCSD.

-- Thursday, July 30th at 7:00pm - William Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET, directed by Jim Calder. An ensemble of just four young actors take on all of ROMEO AND JULIET in this swift and invigorating approach to Shakespeare's timeless classic.

Jim Calder has received two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and is the recipient of the Rockefeller's U.S. - Mexico Fund for Culture to create a new work which will tour the U.S. - Mexican border. He has received grants to develop new work from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, The Ford Foundation and Inroads. Jim has performed Shakespeare at The Old Globe in San Diego and is co-creator of the THE BUDDY PERFORMANCE - TWO COWBOY GYNECOLOGISTS IN SEARCH OF THE MALE GRAIL. Jim directed WOZA ALBERT for the Lincoln Center Institute after the work was initially performed at NYU and is a 6 inch tall Goblin named "Lurk" in the PBS children's TV show "Noddy &Friends."

The 2009 WRITERS JAM SESSION acting company is a mix of long-time veterans and emerging artists, it includes: Mando Alvarado ("Cruzando"); Heidi Armbruster (seen last in The Playwrights Realm's DOV AND ALI; Drama League nominee for TEA AND SYMPATHY); Ashley Bryant; Nora Cole (last seen on Broadway in ON THE TOWN); Rayme Cornell (host of PBS's "Real Moms, Real Stories, Real Savvy"); Michael Cumpsty (Broadway veteran - last seen in the revival of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE); Manish Dayal (The New Group's RAFTA, RAFTA...; the upcoming "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" opposite Nicholas Cage); Laura Esposito; Tovah Feldshuh (IRENA'S VOW, GOLDA'S BALCONY); Natalie Gold (seen opposite Cynthia Nixon in DISTRACTED) Laura Heisler (last seen on Broadway in CORAM BOY; Soho Rep's EVERYTHING WILL BE DIFFERENT); Charles Hendricks; Marva Hicks (member of the Broadway Inspirational Voices, THE LION KING); Andre Holland (seen on Broadway last season in JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE); Sisi Aisha Johnson; Teresa Avia Lim; Nikiya Mathis; Nanah Mensah; Irungu Mutu; Lucas Near-Verbrugghe (The Public's BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON); Joyce O'Connor; Maria Christina Oliveras (Off-Broadway's NIGHT SKY opposite JorDan Baker); Chivas Michael Perkins; Ken Robinson; Nilaja Sun (the critically acclaimed solo show NO CHILD...) and Mather Zickel ("Rachel Getting Married," "I Love You, Man").

The Playwrights Realm - which most recently presented Anna Ziegler's critically acclaimed production of DOV AND ALI - is committed to developing and producing theater with artists - and for audiences - who share its belief that the playwright's vision is central to great theater. Founded in 2007, The Realm is an off-Broadway theater, led by Co-Artistic Directors John Dias and Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Stephanie Ybarra. It believes in creating immediate, imaginative and theatrically vital productions that spring from the core of the text - its language, its ideas and its mysteries.

The 2009 WRITERS JAM SESSION at the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program center (113 2nd Avenue, between 6th and 7th Streets) runs Thursday, July 23rd; Tuesday, July 28th; Wednesday, July 29th; and Thursday, July 30th all at 7:00pm and is free and open to the public. For reservation please email: jd1429@nyu.edu.

For additional information about the 2009 WRITERS JAM SESSION visit www.playwrightsrealm.org

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi