Partial Comfort to Present All-Female WELCOME MAT, 12/5-6

Partial Comfort Productions (Obie Award winner and Drama Desk nominee A Bright New Boise) kicks off its 12th season with THE WELCOME MAT READING SERIES, a collection of bold and groundbreaking new plays by four of the country's fastest-rising female playwrights.

THE WELCOME MAT READING SERIES runs December 6th & 7th at 3pm & 7pm. All readings will be held at The Sheen Center, located at 18 Bleecker Street. Admission is free and no advance reservations are required.

The series will feature free readings of Mexico by Hillary Bettis and directed by Mia Rovegno (Dec. 6 @ 3pm), A Funny Thing Happened... by Halley Feiffer and directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel (Dec. 6 @ 7pm), Serial Black Face by Janine Nabers and directed by Benjamin Kamine (Dec. 7 @ 3pm), and Still by Jen Silverman and directed by Carolyn Cantor (Dec. 7 @ 7pm).

Mexico
By Hilary Bettis
Directed by Mia Rovegno

One-legged Beatrice has never driven a car, had a job, or left the 20-mile radius of her small American town, but she constantly dreams of running away to Mexico with her high school crush. That is until he shows up at Dairy Queen one afternoon. As fantasy collides with reality, Beatrice and her father are forced to face the horrifying secret that exists under their roof.

Hilary Bettis' plays include The Ghosts of Lote Bravo, The History of American Pornography, Alligator, Dakota Atoll, Mexico, and American Girls. She is a current Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow at The Juilliard School. Residencies, fellowships, commissions, and workshops: NNPN National Showcase, The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Kennedy Center/NNPN, 2050 Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, Sloan/EST, NYFA Fellowship, Crossing Borders Festival at Two River Theater, The Flea, Project Y, GPTC, and Pavement Group. She is currently working on several feature and short film projects, and has had short films selected for multiple national festivals. She is a member of EST, Project Y's writer group, and a New Georges Affiliated Artist. www.HilaryBettisWriter.com

Serial Black Face
By Janine Nabers
Directed by Benjamin Kamine

Atlanta 1979. A serial killer is on the loose and a single black mother's relationship with her young daughter grows more hostile when a handsome stranger enters their lives.

Janine Nabers is currently the 2013-2014 Aetna New Voices fellow at Hartford Stage and a 2013-2014 NYFA playwriting fellow. Her plays include Annie Bosh Is Missing, Welcome to Jesus, Serial Black Face, A Swell in the Ground, the Sylvia Plath/Ted Hughes musical Mrs. Hughes and the book to the Kate Nash/Andy Blankenbuehler musical Only Gold. Recent awards: 2013 NYFA playwriting Fellowship, 2012 New York Theatre Workshop fellowship, and the 2011 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship. Janine is a USUAL SUSPECT at New York Theatre Workshop and a fellow of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group at Primary Stages. She is an alumna of Ars Nova Play Group, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, The Dramatist Guild Fellowship, the MacDowell fellowship, and the 2010 & 2011 Sundance Theater Program. Currently, Janine is a staff writer for Bravo's first scripted series, "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce," and she's working on commissions from Hartford Stage and The Alley Theatre. Education: MFA, The New School for Drama; post-degree, The Juilliard School.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City
By Halley Feiffer
Directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel

Unlikely strangers-a twentysomething foul-mouthed comedienne and a middle-aged man in the midst of a nasty divorce-are brought together when their cancer-stricken mothers become roommates in the hospital. Together, these two very lost people must negotiate some of life's heaviest problems-and make some of the world's more inappropriate jokes-as they learn to laugh through their pain and to lean on each other when all they want to do is run away.

Halley Feiffer is a playwright and actress. Her play I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard will premiere at the Atlantic Theater this winter (dir. Trip Cullman). Other plays include How To Make Friends and Then Kill Them (Rattlestick, dir. Kip Fagan), Sidney and Laura, and Valerie Sweet, a commission for Manhattan Theater Club. Her plays have been developed by Second Stage, New York Theatre Workshop, LAByrinth, The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, and elsewhere. She co-wrote and starred in the 2013 film "He's Way More Famous Than You" and co-created the upcoming webseries "What's Your Emergency." Acting credits include "The Substance of Fire" (2ST), the Broadway revival of "The House of Blue Leaves" (Theatre World Award), and HBO's "Bored To Death." She currently writes for the upcoming Starz series "The One Percent."

Still
By Jen Silverman
Directed by Carolyn Cantor

A mother mourns the death of her stillborn child, a guilt-ridden midwife considers a career change, and a queer dominatrix must make a decision about the baby she doesn't want. Meanwhile, a dead baby searches for the meaning of the word "wow," a satisfying explanation of S&M, and above all, his mother.

Jen Silverman's work has been produced off-Broadway by The Playwrights Realm (Crane Story), off-off Broadway by Clubbed Thumb (Phoebe in Winter), and regionally by InterAct Theatre (The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane, upcoming). She has been commissioned and produced by Playwrights Horizons Theatre School (That Poor Girl and How He Killed Her, upcoming.) She is an affiliated artist with New Georges, Ars Nova, The Playwrights Realm, and The Lark, and has developed work with Playwrights Horizons, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival, PlayPenn, The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils, NYTW, and The New Harmony Project. She's a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of the Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, New York Foundation for the Arts grant, and a Leah Ryan/Lilly Award for her play The Moors. The Hunters was selected for the Cherry Lane Mentor Project (mentor Lynn Nottage). Still won the Yale Drama Series Award, and was published by Yale University Press. Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, The Juilliard School. www.jensilverman.com

Partial Comfort Productions is a collaborative ensemble devoted to the development and presentation of original new theater. The company was co-founded in 2002 by Chad Beckim and Molly Pearson. Past productions include Samuel D. Hunter's A Bright New Boise (Best of 2010, New York Magazine, 3 Drama Desk Nominations and an OBIE win), Thomas Bradshaw's The Bereaved (Best of 2009, Time Out New York), five acclaimed works by Beckim (And Miles To Go, After., nami, The Maine Play and ...a matter of choice), Ross Maxwell's Open House (Best Ensemble Award winner at FringeNYC 2006); Craft and Nelson by Sam Marks; Kidstuff by Edith Freni, Booty Candy by Robert O'Hara; and Play by OHara, Chay Yew, Kia Corthron, Eddie Sanchez, Keith Adkins and Tracey Scott Wilson. For more information visit www.partialcomfort.org.