Megan Hilty, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Beau Willimon to Lead Waterwell's Summer Theater Lab

Waterwell, one of the Village Voice's Best Arguments for Devised Theater and creators of GOODBAR and #9, launches its Summer Theater Lab at the Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS) in Manhattan, under the leadership of Victor Maog, with world-class guest artists from the worlds of theater, television, and film. The program has two sessions: Monday-Friday, July 15-August 3, and August 5-24, 2013. For more information about classes and enrollment, visit www.waterwell.org/summer. The early bird deadline is April 19th.

Star of TV's Smash and Broadway's Wicked and 9 to 5: The Musical, actress Megan Hilty; Grammy and Tony Award-winning creator and star of In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda; and Oscar-nominated writer Beau Willimon, creator of "House of Cards" starring Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey, and the film "The Ides of March", directed by Oscar-winner George Clooney and starring Oscar-nominee Ryan Gosling and Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, will serve as the Master Class Artists in the program's inaugural year. More names will be announced shortly.

The Waterwell Summer Theater Lab @ PPAS offers dedicated middle and high school students from across the country the opportunity to engage in a focused three-week training program with world-class practitioners in the heart of New York City's fabled Theater District. Over the course of an NYC summer, the artistic community at the Summer Theater Lab will showcase brave new works by some of the American theater's rising voices. They will premiere just steps from Times Square and, through publication, build upon the catalogue of quality age-appropriate material for theaters and schools world-wide.

Pulitzer-finalist Lin-Manuel Miranda states, "Waterwell Summer Theater Lab is about thinking like an artist. It's about innovation. It's about breaking barriers. These are skills from theater that transfer to life. And I'm thrilled to support that vision."

"When you create a safe space for young people that incubates ideas, values leadership, and pioneers new work, the very best come out. I'm honored to share these successful and generous artists with my first crop of students," said Victor Maog, who is leading this new Waterwell program.

Waterwell artistic director Tom Ridgely said in a statement, "Lin-Manuel, Megan and Beau are just the kind of hard-working, open-hearted, deeply-engaged theater folk we want these young people to hear from. We know that for many of them, these encounters will be transformative."

The Professional Performing Arts School is located at 328 W 48th St in New York, NY.