Northern Manhattan Based UP Theater Announces 2016-17 Season

UP Theater, under the direction of Artistic Director James Bosley, celebrates its seventh season of premiering penetrating new plays. Atar Hadari's provocative play Merciful Father will open UP's 2016-17 season in November and will be followed by the World Premiere of Lost/Not Found by Kirby Fields. The season will also include their annual benefit Onward & UPward in early 2017, Showing UP Artist's Salons throughout the year, and Dead of Winter Reading Series which takes place over four Sundays in January 2017.

• Merciful Father by Atar Hadari, directed by James Bosley, will run November 1st - 12th with performances Tuesdays - Saturdays at 8:00 pm at Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 West 181st Street) in Washington Heights. The play is based on Sholem Asch's scandalous Yiddish play God of Vengeance which was the inspiration for Paula Vogel's new play Indecent. Casting to be announced next week.

The play follows the story of a brothel owner who commissions the creation of a Torah scroll to win a respectable husband for his daughter. His daughter instead chooses ill repute.

• UP Theater invites uptown artists and alum the opportunity to present something new at Showing Up Artist's Salon which takes place throughout the year. Artists are encouraged to share something new, a work-in-progress, a piece of a play, a short story, a chapter, a joke, a dance, a painting, an aria, a rant, a rave, a poem, a pitch, a catch, a trick, an idea, an inkling, as long as it is... half-baked & brand-spankin'.

• Dead of Winter Reading Series takes place over four Sundays in January of 2017. The reading series presents four new plays in various stages of development and written by local playwrights.

• Lost/Not Found by Kirby Fields will have its World Premiere in the spring of 2017. A staged reading of the comedy/drama was produced by UP Theater in November 2015.

Three desperate twenty-somethings from Washington Heights "rescue" a missing autistic girl and detain her, while the growing reward for her return offers visions of riches. What they learn about themselves, however, may prove to be the more valuable bounty.

UP Theater Company (James Bosley, Artistic Director) was founded in 2010 by Inwood theater artists who endeavored to bring professional productions to their neighborhood of Northern Manhattan. Eschewing crowd-pleasing chestnuts, UP produces provocative new work by contemporary playwrights. After six years and eight full productions, including Ashé, Broad Channel, Epic Poetry, and last year's critically acclaimed production of An American Drum Circle; UP has established a reputation for being gritty, rambunctious, and irreverent.

More information is available at www.uptheater.org