Four Local Playwrights Receive New Voices/New York Awards

The Lark Play Development Center today announced the launching of "New Voices/New York," a fellowship program for local playwrights to develop new work with an eye towards production. Four awards have been granted in the first round of the program to playwrights Joshua Allen, Thomas Bradshaw, Bekah Brunstetter and Andrea Thome, thanks to major support from New York City's Theater Subdistrict Council and additional support from Time Warner.

During an 18-month residency, New Voices/New York playwright fellows are the beneficiaries of a four-pronged effort to advance their careers: a $20,000 stipend for living expenses, artistic resources, an expanded professional network, and financial leverage for local productions.

"We want playwrights to think of writing as their job, not something they do when they get home from work if they still have the energy," explained Lark's Artistic Director John Clinton Eisner. "We're helping them to recalibrate the equation that balances their needs with productivity. We often talk of giving artists a 'home,' but perhaps we should first provide them the economic freedom to work at their craft and to share what they create."

Each fellow receives $20,000, paid in monthly increments throughout the fellowship period, to buy time to create new work. The program was designed in response to one of the most frequently-cited challenges facing New York City playwrights today - balancing artistic work and career development with the economic realities of day-to-day life. The stipend provides a financial bridge to writers who might otherwise need to work multiple "survival jobs" that take their focus away from playwriting. The Lark also contributes artistic resources to support the strategic goals set by playwrights for their residencies including office and meeting space, studio time, actors and directors, and staff assistance.

In addition, the New Voices/New York program enlists artistic leaders from four New York City theaters as "producer advocates" for the playwright fellows: Sherri Kronfeld, Artistic Director of SUPERWOLF (Brunstetter), Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director of Primary Stages (Allen), Louis Moreno, Artistic Director of Intar Theatre (Thome), and Jerry Patch, Director of Artistic Development at Manhattan Theatre Club (Bradshaw) have each committed their time and staff support during the fellowship to advise participating playwrights with respect to long-term career goals advancing their work to production. Bringing artists and institutional decision-makers together to build relationships is a core part of the Lark's mission.

Finally, each playwright fellow is provided an Enhancement Fund of $5,000 with which to leverage a New York City production of a play developed during the residency. While this amount only represents a small portion of a play's production budget, it is the Lark's goal to help playwrights come to the table as partners in the production of their own work.

Joshua Allen, whose play Last of the Earlies was presented during Lark's annual Playwrights' Week Festival this past fall, will develop his intergenerational family play Boy in a Blue Tweed Suit and begin to write a second play, Chrysalis, about the trials and triumphs of being fourteen.

Thomas Bradshaw, whose play Mary recently debuted at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, will develop Hot & Sticky, which he began during a Lark playwright retreat on the Vassar College campus last July as part of an ongoing partnership between the Lark and New York Stage & Film. He will also develop a new play about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Bekah Brunstetter, whose play Miss Lilly Gets Boned was presented during the 2009 Playwrights' Week, will begin work on Melancholia, which follows a family traveling the Oregon Trail and explores the nature and consciousness of depression during the 19th century.

Andrea Thome, whose play Undone was presented in Lark's BareBones® program, will develop The Necklace of the Dove, inspired by the work of 11th Century Arab-Spanish philosopher Ibn Hazm and the world of Mexican transgender performers in Queens.

The Theater Subdistrict Council ("TSC") is a not-for-profit corporation established pursuant to a 1998 zoning regulation that allows owners of certain Broadway theaters to transfer air rights within the Theater Subdistrict, provided the theaters are preserved, there are commitments to use the spaces for legitimate theater use, and funds are deposited into the Theater Subdistrict Fund. The TSC administers the Theater Subdistrict Fund and allocates grants with the goal of promoting the production of new theater work, developing new audiences, and showcasing Broadway's singular role in the history of American theater. The TSC consists of the Mayor, the Speaker of City Council, the Manhattan Borough President, and the Director of the Department of City Planning, as well as four representatives appointed by the Mayor and the City Council Speaker from the performing arts, theatrical and related industries.

This past fall, TSC awarded grants to fifteen organizations, totaling $2.15 million, for various projects that will foster the creation of new theatrical work and audience development. In addition to the Lark Play Development Center, the award recipients are The 52nd Street Project, Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, The Apollo Theater, The Atlantic Theatre Company, The Broadway League, Fractured Atlas, The Lincoln Center Theater, The New 42nd Street, Playwrights Horizons, Rosie's Broadway Kids, Roundabout Theatre Company, Signature Theatre Company, Theatre Development Funds and Walker International Communications Group.

Founded in 1994 as a laboratory for new voices and new ideas, the Lark Play Development Center provides playwrights with indispensable resources to develop their work, nurturing artists at all stages in their careers, and inviting them to express themselves freely in a supportive and rigorous environment. The Lark reaches into untapped local populations and across international boundaries to seek out and embrace unheard voices and diverse perspectives, celebrating differences in language and worldviews. By encouraging artists to define their own goals and creative processes in pursuit of a unique vision, we believe we are reinvigorating the theater's ancient and enduring role as a public forum for discussion, debate and community engagement.The Lark is led by its co-founder and Artistic Director John Clinton Eisner and Managing Director Michael Robertson. For more information: www.larktheatre.org.

Joshua Allen - A native of Chicago, he is currently in his second year at The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Fellowship. His play The Last Pair of Earlies has been developed at the Lark's Playwrights' Week and at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. His other plays include Goodbye, Heathcliff, which appeared at the Actor's Playpen in Hollywood, and God Is a Woman, which appeared at the Space Theatre in Hollywood. In 2007, he was a finalist for the inaugural Emerging Writers Fellowship at The Public Theater in New York City. He is also a member of the Ars Nova Play Group. Joshua is a proud graduate of the University of Southern California.

Thomas Bradshaw - His play Mary premiered at The Goodman Theater in February 2010; it was also presented as a staged reading at The Public Theater and Theater Smash (Toronto). His play, The Bereaved, was produced by Partial Comfort Productions (NYC) in 2009, The State Theater of Bielefeld (Germany), was named one of the Best Plays of 2009 in Time Out, and was a New York Times Critic's Pick. His premieres of Southern Promises at Performance Space 122 and Dawn at The Flea Theater were listed in the Best Performances of Stage and Screen for 2008 in The New Yorker. Purity was produced at Performance Space 122, and Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist and Cleansed were produced on a double bill at The Brick Theatre. Strom was also produced in Los Angeles in 2008. In 2010, Job was presented at The Wilma and produced at Roehampton University in London. Dawn was presented at The National Theatre of Mannheim (Germany), as well a German translation was presented at Theater Bielefeld and published by Theater Der Zeit. Purity was published by Theaterheute (Germany). Mary and The Bereaved have been published by PAJ Publications. Prophet, Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist, Cleansed, Purity, Dawn, and Southern Promises are all published by Samuel French, Inc.. Mr. Bradshaw is a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow, 2010 Prince Charitable Trust Prize awardee, an Assistant Professor at Medgar Evers College, featured playwright in Time Out New York's ten playwrights to watch, Village Voice's Best Provocative Playwright, and was a Playwright in Residence at The Soho Theatre in London, where he wrote and work shopped The Ashes.

Bekah Brunstetter - Her plays include: A Long and Happy Life (Naked Angels, Spring 2011), Be A Good Little Widow (Ars Nova, Spring 2011), House of Home (Williamstown Theater Festival), Oohrah! (Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater, 2009), and Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Finborough Theater 2010, Lark Playwrights Week 2009, Finborough Theater, June 2010). She is a member of The Primary Stages Writer's Group, the Naked Radio writing team, and a Playwright's Realm fellow. She is an alumni of the Women's Project writer's Lab and the Ars Nova Play Group. She is the 2011 Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theater, London. BA UNC Chapel Hill; MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama. www.bekahbrunstetter.com.

Andrea Thome - A Chilean-Costa Rican, Wisconsin-born mutt who grew up navigating the multiple landscapes and languages that now inhabit her plays. Her plays, translations and video satires have been presented at theaters, galleries and universities around the U.S. and Latin America. Andrea helped develop the Lark Play Development Center's US-México Playwright Exchange as Program Director since 2006. Her translations of Mexican plays include Richard Viqueira's play H and Ximena Escalante's RealAndromaca (presented at New York's hotINK Festival 2009 and at PEN World Voices). She is translating Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón. Andrea's own play Undone (originally developed by the Lark Play Development Center and INTAR Theatre's New Works Lab) was selected for Victory Gardens Theatre's 2010 Ignition Festival of playwrights of color. Worm Girl, her absurd physical comedy, was produced by Cherry Red Productions in Washington, DC (2004). Andrea co-directs the satirical video & performance collective FULANA (www.fulana.org). From 1994-99 she co-created twenty-two original plays with San Francisco's Red Rocket Theater. She has also worked extensively as a performer; past collaborators include Culture Clash, Latina Theatre Lab, Campo Santo and Guillermo Gómez-Peña. She has taught at various universities, schools and community centers including New York University, Adelphi University, El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice, and NYC public schools. Andrea received fellowships from NYFA, New York City, the City of Oakland, Lark Play Development Center, INTAR, New York University and the Women's Project. She is a graduate of NYU's Dramatic Writing MFA and a member of New Dramatists.