New Georges' 2014-15 Season to Feature Kate Benson's 'A BEAUTIFUL DAY' and HEARTBREAK Premiere

New Georges announces its 23rd production season, which will include the January 2015 remount of Kate Benson's A Beautiful Day on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes and the World Premiere of Ariel Stess' Heartbreak in May 2015.

New Georges will kick off the season on Monday, October 6 with Loft-y Ambitions: New Georges' Big Benefit at a private loft in Tribeca. Performances will include mini-playlets written especially for the party by New Georges affiliated artists, which will be performed site-specifically in rooms throughout the loft, and filmmaker Marielle Heller will give a sneak peek into The Diary of a Teenage Girl, her film version of the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner starring Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgard; New Georges was a producer of her critically acclaimed theatrical adaptation of the same book in 2010. Tickets to this special event may be purchased online at www.newgeorges.org.

This October, New Georges will celebrate 20 years of The Room, its permanent workspace for women theater artists, located in ART/New York's Spaces at 520 8th Avenue. New Georges' long-term commitment to providing its artists with free or low-cost workspace for new play development is unique among downtown theaters. The Room serves the largest ongoing working community of women theater artists in New York City, and has incubated thousands of new works.

"As The Room turns 20, it's busier than ever. The new members of the New Georges Jam were chosen from the largest, most exciting pool yet, and this year's Audrey residents and their deeply innovative projects represent all theatrical disciplines and include artists who've been part of our family since the beginning alongside artists we've just met," says Producing Artistic Director Susan Bernfield. "I'm delighted that the two plays in our producing season have emerged directly from these programs, and happy we can expand their reach through partnerships with Women's Project Theater and The Bushwick Starr."

In January 2015 New Georges will remount Kate Benson's A Beautiful Day on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes directed by Lee Sunday Evans, in association with Women's Project Theater, January 13-February 7 at City Center Stage II (131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues). Reviewing the play at New Georges' Jam on Toast Festival last May, Neil Genzlinger in The NY Times wrote, "Ms. Benson, the playwright, is fearless and remarkably assured in this dizzyingly entertaining work. The direction of Ms. Evans unfurls it on the Dixon Place stage with wit and verve, conjuring the story - the preparation and serving of a gigantic family dinner - without so much as a salad plate in sight." This season New Georges adds 13 new members to The New Georges Jam, its "performance gym" for early-career playwrights and directors. Playwrights Helen Banner, Kim Davies, Tasha Gordon-Solmon, MJ Kaufman, Normandy Sherwood and Caitlin Saylor Stephens and directors Kathleen Amshoff, Louisa Proske, Colette Robert, Lisa Szolovits, Danya Taymor, Nicole A. Watson and Emma Weinstein join Jam co-leaders Jess Chayes and Sarah Krohn and the other returning Jammers: Eliza Bent, Mary Birnbaum, Mary Elizabeth Hamilton, Krista Knight and Mia Rovegno.

New Georges also enters the second year of its Audrey Residency program, which adds a year-long residency component to time spent working in The Room on a new-play project. For 2014-15, this program supports 11 resident artists working in collaboration or independently on 7 new plays. The 2014-15 residents are Elena Araoz and Susan Zeeman Rogers; Carolyn Baeumler, Carson Kreitzer and Elyse Singer; Adrienne Campbell-Holt and MJ Kaufman; Cusi Cram; Gina Femia; Leigh Fondakowski; and Brenda Withers.

In May 2015 New Georges and The Bushwick Starr will present the World Premiere of HEARTBREAK, a new play written and directed by Ariel Stess, in which a man on the brink of retirement contemplates his life's work, his company, his wives, and his homes. HEARTBREAK was developed during Stess' 2014-15 Audrey Residency with New Georges, and an excerpt will be presented as part of PRELUDE 2014 on Wednesday, October 8 at 7:30 p.m. at CUNY's Martin E. Segal Center.