Keen Company's Teens Program Returns for 10th Year

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company (Jonathan Silverstein - Artistic Director, Mark Armstrong - Keen Teens Producer) will present the Tenth Season of Keen Teens. This season's offerings will be Thirty Million, a new musical with music and lyrics by Max Vernon; book by Jason Kim, directed by Mark Armstrong, with choreography by Brad Landers and musical direction by Lena Gabrielle; Landlines by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, directed by Liz Carlson; and How The Moon Would Talk by Nick Gandiello, directed by Sash Bischoff. Auditions will be February 3rd through 5th. To more information about auditions, please visit http://www.keencompany.org/ktaudition/.

Performances will be Friday May 13th at 8pm, Saturday May 14th at 3pm & 8pm, and Sunday May 15th at 2pm & 5pm at The Lion Theatre in Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues). Tickets are only $19.25 and may be purchased by calling Telecharge at 212-239-6200 or online at www.telecharge.com. Tickets will go on sale April 1st.

Keen Teens is a unique educational theatre program which seeks to improve the quality of plays written for high school students by commissioning scripts from highly regarded professional writers. Playwrights write plays 30 minutes in length that involve a large cast and also reflect Keen Company's mission of producing plays that provoke identification, reflection and emotional connection. The plays are performed by high school students from across the metropolitan area, as part of a free program which allows students an immersive experience in new play production. The productions are all designed and directed by theatre professionals, allowing the students a unique opportunity to work alongside some of the most talented emerging artists working in New York today. Keen's program partner, Samuel French, Inc., then publishes the plays and make them available for future productions around the globe. In its first eight seasons, Keen Teens produced plays by Courtney Baron, Barton Bishop, Bekah Brunstetter, Jonathan Caren, Kristoffer Diaz, Bathsheba Doran, Anton Dudley, Halley Feiffer, Kenny Finkle, Liz Flahive, Marcus Gardley, Madeleine George, Jason Grote, Naomi Iizuka and Ryan Pavelchik, Greg Kotis, Mike Lew, Cheri Magid, Winter Miller, Michael Mitnick, Anna Moench, Janine Nabers, Qui Nguyen, Jenny Schwartz, and Kathryn Walat.

""All of us at Keen couldn't be more excited to welcome another group of talented professionals and teens to the Keen family to premiere these wonderful new works in Keen Teens' 10th Anniversary Season! All of the writers are exciting voices in the American Theatre and we eagerly anticipate seeing their work come alive this season. We are especially looking forward to our first ever original Keen Teens musical, a dream that has finally come true, thanks to the extra funding raised from our generous supporters," said Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein.

"Each season, Keen Teens combines the dynamism of professional playwrights with the energy and enthusiasm of New York City teenagers. Our tenth anniversary season is our biggest yet, mixing poignant drama, slapstick comedy and a new musical about teen life in the viral age. Through these productions, we bring young people from all five boroughs together for an off-Broadway production experience, as well as grow a new canon of meaningful work for young people to perform. Through our partnership with Samuel French, these works live on for generations, and here at Keen Company, young people perform in their world premiere productions," added Mark Armstrong, Keen Teens producer

For more information, go to www.keencompany.org.