Five New Plays Featured in Primary Stages' Readings Series

Primary Stages has announced the 10th year of The Dorothy Strelsin Fresh Ink Readings, which is the culmination of the recently renamed The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group (formerly known as the New American Writers Group). The series will take place from May 16th through 20th at the 45th Street Theatre (354 W. 45th Street,between 8th and ­ 9th Avenues). All readings will begin at 4 PM.

The program brings together six to eight emerging playwrights each season to create new plays for the American theatre. Under the direction of Primary Stages Associate Artistic Director Tyler Marchant, these playwrights attend eight weekly meetings in the fall and spring, when they are required to bring 10 new pages to each of the writing sessions. At the end of the season, Primary Stages presents the first public reading of these plays at the 45th Street Theatre.

Lucy Thurber's play Monstrosity will be seen on Tuesday, May 16th. Suzanne Agins directs. "Facism, youth movements and revolution. Monstrosity follows Tierney and Patrick Morgan, two orphaned teenagers, as they try to maneuver a country turned upside down. A re-telling of the hero story, epic and theatrical."

Lucy Thurber's other plays are Where We're Born, Ashville, Scarcity, Killers and Other Family, Stay, and Bottom of the World. She was the recipient of the 2000/2001 Manhattan Theatre Club playwriting fellowship. She has had readings and workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages, MCC, Encore Theatre in San Fracisco and Soho Rep. She is a member of MCC Playwrights Coalition, The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, 13P and New Dramtists.

On Wednesday, May 17th, Andrew Case's In Loco Parentis, directed by Christian Parker, will be presented. "Having left life in New York to teach in a private boarding school, Paul and his wife are tasked with parenting a house of sixteen-year olds before they have any children of their own. When one girl embarks on a series of self-destructive pranks that intrude into the couple's private sphere, Paul must confront the myth that prep school is a sylvan scene compared to the rough competitive world he left behind in the city."

Andrew Case's plays include Pacific (Steppenwolf Theatre, 2005), Wives (Theatre AUM, Montgomery, Alabama, 2006), The Electric Century (Commissioned by the Manhattan Theatre Club and developed by the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in 2004), and Historic Times (79th Street Theatre Lab, 2001). Other work has been produced by the 24-hour plays at the Atlantic Theatre, the Salon at the Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, and in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

Rogelio Martinez' Lake Effect Show will be seen on Thursday, May 18th. Sam Gold will direct. "As one young college student searches for love and her place in the world, the private life of her parents, who are both professors at her college, takes precedence over her own."

Martinez' most recent play, Learning Curve, will be published in March 2006 by Smith and Krauss in the anthology, New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2005. His new play, My First Radical, was workshopped this past summer at the Ojai Playwrights Conference. Displaced will have its world premiere in May 2006 at the Marin Theater Company. Arrivals and Departures was produced as part of the First Annual Summer Play Festival. I Regret She's Made of Sugar is the recipient of a Princess Grace Award.

Cusi Cram's Dusty and the Big Bad World, directed by Tyler Marchant, will be performed on Friday, May 19th. "'Dusty' is the most popular animated children's television show in America. But when Dusty goes to visit a family with two Daddies, the big bad world intervenes. And it isn't pretty."

Cram's plays include All The Bad Things (LAByrinth @ The Public), Fuente (Barrington Stage) and the upcoming Lucy And The Conquest (Williamstown Theater Festival 2006). She also writes for the animated children's program "Arthur" and has received two Emmy nominations for her work on the show. Her plays have been produced and developed at The O'Neill Playwrights Conference, The Public Theater, South Coast Repertory, Manhattan Class Company, The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, The Humana Festival, and more.

Brooke Berman's The Archduke of Libertyville will be presented on Saturday, May 20th. Josh Hecht directs. "Polly and Graham, estranged ex-step siblings, meet at a funeral after 15 years apart. Two weeks later, he shows up on her doorstep in New York City and the two spend a few days unearthing the seemingly perilous meaning of family. His, hers, theirs. Past, present, future."

Berman's hunting and gathering will be produced by Daryl Roth in the upcoming 2006-07 season. Her plays have been produced at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago, the Second Stage in NYC, The Play Company and Naked Angels and workshopped at the O'Neill, SPF, the Royal National Theatre in London, The Royal Court Theatre in London, ASK Theater Projects, HERE, Clubbed Thumb, and others. Her play smashing has been adapted into a feature film for Fairy Dust Productions.

For more information on the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group and the Dorothy Strelsin Fresh Ink Readings Series, please visit www.primarystages.com.