Paula Vogel's BARD AT THE GATE Continues With Dan LeFranc's ORIGIN STORY

ORIGIN STORY, a play by Dan LeFranc, is the 4th play in Paula Vogel's popular online reading series BARD AT THE GATE, scheduled to debut on Thursday, October 7 at 7 p.m. on YouTube, it has been announced by Ms. Vogel, the Pulitzer Prize winning/Tony nominated playwright (HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, INDECENT). Following the 80-minute reading, Mr. LeFranc, director Christopher Bayes and Ms. Vogel will participate in a discussion about the play on Zoom. For more information about the webstream and post-show Q&A, visit www.paulavogelplaywright.com.

Featured in the cast of ORIGIN STORY are Brandon E. Burton (TITUS ANDRONICUS, CORIOLANUS and numerous productions with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), Edmund Donovan (the most recent BARD reading of Eisa Davis's BULRUSHER), Zoe Mann (COCK at Yale), and Anula Navlekar (Netflix's BRAHMAN NAMAN, B.A. PASS). Sound track and sound effects have been created by Gabriel Levey and Liz Wisan. Christopher Bayes has directed extensively at theaters in NY and across the country, including Guthrie, Yale Rep and Intiman.

Told in the style of a graphic novel, ORIGIN STORY is set in the town of Nowheresville as two teenagers set out to solve a crime with the only clues provided by a comic book entitled ORIGIN STORY, illustrated by the mysterious Pronoun. ORIGIN STORY -- which Ms. Vogel discovered when Mr. LeFranc submitted the play as part of one of Ms. Vogel's celebrated playwriting Bakeoff challenges - considers the ways art can be used as a weapon against the curse of being born different.

Dan LeFranc is the author of the plays SIXTY MILES TO SILVER LAKE (Soho Rep/Page 73), winner of The New York Times outstanding playwright award. Other works include THE BIG MEAL (American Theater Company, Joseph Jefferson Award), TROUBLEMAKER, OR THE FREAKIN KICK-A ADVENTURES OF BRADLEY BOATWRIGHT (Berkeley Rep), and BRUISE EASY (American Theater Company). On television, he has written Showtime's THE AFFAIR, and Steve McQueen's CODES OF CONDUCT.

ORIGIN STORY is available to view online at YouTube starting Thursday, October 7 at 7 p.m. until Monday, October 11 at 7 p.m. (eastern time).

BARD AT THE GATE was created by Ms. Vogel, the country's preeminent playwriting professor (Brown and Yale) in response to COVID 19 and the subsequent lockdown of theaters worldwide, recognized as an opportunity to present plays that have been seldom produced and are not widely known. Recognizing the unprecedented pause in live theater, Ms. Vogel assembled a group of eager artists - writers, directors, actors, producers, dramaturgs, technicians, stage managers - to mount BARD AT THE GATE, which to date has presented YouTube readings of KERNEL OF SANITY by Kermit Frazier, THE DROLL by Meg Miroshnik, and Eisa Davis's acclaimed BULRUSHER.

BARD will conclude its first season with Christina Anderson's GOOD GOODS, a play about an exorcism, on October 29, mere days before Americans go to the polls.

BARD AT THE GATE is produced by Paula Vogel, Rosey Strub, BJ Evans and Ryan Pointer.

Proceeds from the reading of ORIGIN STORY - donations suggested - will benefit the Trans Wellness Center: https://mytranswellness.org/