Julie White to Host Page 73 Productions' Spring Benefit, 5/11

Tony Award-winner Julie White (THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED) is set to host the 2012 Page 73 Spring Benefit on Friday, May 11 at 7:00pm at City Winery (155 Varick Street) in Manhattan, it has been announced by Page 73's Executive Directors Liz Jones and Asher Richelli. 

The entertainment for the 2012 Page 73 Spring Benefit will include a theatrical "bake off" of sorts by three Page 73 playwrights – Robert Askins, Max Posner and Heidi Schreck. At the top of the evening the playwrights will be given three "ingredients" that are drawn from audience members' suggestions. They will then have one hour to write a new play that includes these three "ingredients." The plays will be rehearsed quickly and presented at the benefit. 

Christopher Abbott (Martha Marcy May Marlene with Elizabeth Olsen; HBO's Girls; and the 2011 Broadway revival of House of Blue Leaves) and two other actors to be announced soon will participate in the "bake off".  

While the three playwrights are busy writing, benefit attendees will have the chance to sample a selection of private label wine, craft beer, hearty hors d'oeuvres and the specialty cocktail "The Max Posner" – named in honor of this year's P73 playwriting fellow. Attendees will also be treated to the world-premiere of three commissioned new songs by Matt Schatz performed by Tony Award-winner Cady Huffman (The Producers) and Rebecca Naomi Jones (Passing Strange, American Idiot). 

Robert Askins was a part of Page 73's Interstate 73 Writers Group in 2010-2011. He was just nominated for the John Gassner Playwriting Award from the Outer Critics Circle for Hand to God, which recently finished a successful run at Ensemble Studio Theatre. He has received two E.S.T./Sloan grants, and an Arch and Bruce Davis Award for Playwriting. He has been commissioned by Divercity Theatre and Baylor University. Rob's play PRINCES OF WACO was produced and developed by Youngblood and developed by 9th and Madison, and his play MATTHEW AND THE PASTOR'S WIFE was a part of Marathon 2010 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. 

Max Posner is Page 73's current P73 Playwriting Fellow. His work includes THE THING ABOUT AIR TRAVEL, THE FAMISHED, THE WAR ON SAFETY (published by Playscripts), YOU ME + THE SPIDERS, and SNORE AND OTHER SORTS OF BREATHING. Max is a 2011 graduate oF Brown University. He is the recipient of the Weston Award in Playwriting and the 2011 Heideman Award from Actors Theatre of Louisville. Max was a finalist for Clubbed Thumb's Biennial Commission, is a member of Interstate 73, the Page 73 writers group, and is a founding member of FRANK. 

Heidi Schreck was Page 73's 2009 P73 Playwriting Fellow, and Page 73 produced the world premiere of her play CREATURE with New Georges in 2009. Her most recent play, THERE ARE NO MORE BIG SECRETS, was premiered by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2010 after being developed through the P73 Playwriting Fellowship.  As an actor, Heidi was recently seen in HOW THE WORLD BEGAN at Women's Project. She has also worked with Actors Theatre of Louisville, Clubbed Thumb, The Empty Space, The Foundry, MCC, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, PS 122, New Dramatists, Printer's Devil (founding member), Soho Rep, SPF, Sundance Theatre Lab, and others. She was named one of Time Out New York's favorite actors in 2007, and in 2008 she received an OBIE for her work as an actor in Two-Headed Calf's DRUM OF THE WAVES OF HORIKAWA at HERE Arts Center. 

Matt Schatz is a member of Interstate 73, Page 73's writing group, of which he was also a member in 2008-2009. He is a playwright and songwriter who was a finalist for the 2009 Fred Ebb Award for excellence in musical theatre songwriting. Matt's plays and musicals include THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD (Luna Stage, spring 2011), LOVE TRAPEZOID (Developed with EST/Sloan and Page 73), PINNING HOPE (Creative Destruction's "Obama Drama" Festival) and THE BABY IS BLUE (Incumbo Theater Company/Midtown InterNational Theatre Festival). Matt is a three-time recipient of an EST/Sloan Commission, a two-time Shubert Fellow, and has been a finalist/semi finalist for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, the Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship, and the Magic Theatre's Sloan Initiative. Member: the BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop and the Dramatists Guild. Alumnus: Youngblood Playwrights Residency at EST. MFA: Carnegie Mellon University. 

The generous leadership support of the following individuals has underwritten the cost of the benefit, so that every penny earned will go directly to support Page 73: Jake Beinecke, Gaily and John Beinecke, Brad Bershad, Arika and Jonathan Couchman, Carson and Joseph Gleberman, Martha Mortenson, Debra and Stone Phillips, Pamela and Bill Ryckman. 

The 2012 Page 73 Spring Benefit Invitation Committee includes: Clea Lewis and Peter Ackerman, Gavin Berger and Craig Berggren, Kate and Jerry Hathaway, Hannah and Richard Ramsden, and Maxine Sleeper.

The Page 73 Board of Directors is John B. Beinecke, Gavin Berger, Allison Blinken, Jonathan Busky, Eliza Clark, Liz Jones, Dan LeFranc, Martha Mortenson, Doreen Oliver, Asher Richelli, Hannah Ramsden, Pamela Ryckman, Anuj A. Shah, Daniel Shiffman, and Amanda Woods.

PAGE 73 Productions – under the leadership of Executive Directors Liz Jones and Asher Richelli and Associate Director Michael Walkup – develops and produces the work of early-career playwrights who have yet to have their work professionally produced in New York. Page 73 produces at least one New York or world premiere by an early-career playwright each year. Page 73 also offers production-oriented development opportunities that help usher the works of early-career playwrights from first draft to final script. The company hosts the P73 Playwriting Fellowship, a year-long program supporting one playwright's creative and career development, a week-long Summer Residency at Yale for 4 early-career playwrights, "Interstate 73", a year-long writers' group for eight playwrights, and "Page 2", a three-week workshop process culminating in public presentations. 

Page 73 produced the world premieres of ELLIOT, A SOLDIER'S FUGUE by Quiara Alegría Hudes, directed by Davis McCallum (2007 Pulitzer finalist and prequel to Quiara's 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning play WATER BY THE SPOONFUL), SIXTY MILES TO SILVER LAKE by Dan LeFranc directed by Anne Kauffman and co-produced with Soho Rep (2010 New York Times Playwriting Award); CREATURE by Heidi Schreck, directed by Leigh Silverman and co-produced with New Georges; JACK'S PRECIOUS MOMENT by Samuel D. Hunter directed by Kip Fagan and EDGEWISE by Eliza Clark directed by Trip Cullman and co-produced with The Play Company, as well as the New York premieres of 1001 by Jason Grote, directed by Ethan McSweeney (Time Out New York - Top 10) and LIDLESS by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, directed by Tea Alagic. The company received from the League of Professional Theatre Women their 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for "innovative and creative work dedicated to the emerging dramatist". 

Tickets to the 2012 Page 73 Spring Benefit range from $125 general admission tickets to $5,000 premium reserved table for 10. Tickets may be purchased online at www.page73.org, or by mailing a check made payable to Page 73 Productions at: 138 South Oxford St., Suite 4E, Brooklyn, NY 11217. 

For more information about Page 73 Productions, please visit www.page73.org.