Plays by Mee, Rebeck, Kron and More Featured in Humana Festival in KY, March 7-April 8

The 30th anniversary Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, KY, featuring the work of 16 emerging and established playwrights, is slated for March 7 - April 8.

"The festival, under the leadership of Marc Masterson, the company's artistic director, is acclaimed as America's preeminent showcase of professional stage premieres," according to press notes. During the theatre's industry weekend (March 31- April 2), journalists and theatre professionals have the opportunity to see all festival offerings in a concentrated schedule.

For the 28th consecutive year, the festival is being underwritten by The Humana Foundation. As the philanthropic arm of Louisville, Ky-based Humana Inc., The Humana Foundation supports and nurtures charitable activities that guide others toward decisions promoting healthy lives and healthy communities.

Playwrights in the 2006 festival include a diverse array of writers in the American theatre. Full-length plays include Natural Selection by Eric Coble (Cleveland Heights, Ohio), Low's Journey: Meditations Trilogy Pt. 1 by Rha Goddess (New York City), Act a Lady by Jordan Harrison (Minneapolis, Minn.), Hotel Cassiopeia by Charles Mee (New York City), The Scene by Theresa Rebeck (New York City) and Six Years by Sharr White (New York City).

Ten-minute plays and playwrights include Three Guys and a Brenda by Adam Bock (New York City), Sovereignty by Rolin Jones (Los Angeles) and Listeners by Jane Martin.

Dramatic anthology playwrights include Liz Duffy Adams (New York City), Dan Dietz (Austin, Texas), Rick Hip-Flores (New York City), Julie Jensen (Salt Lake City, Utah), Lisa Kron (New York City), Tracy Scott Wilson (Newark, N.J.) and Chay Yew (Los Angeles).

Descriptions of the festival's lineup, along with playwright biographies, are as follows:

Full-length Plays

Natural Selection

by Eric Coble

Directed by Marc Masterson

"In the not-so-distant future the Culture Fiesta Theme Park needs to restock the natives of the Native American Pavilion, and curator Henry Carson must venture into the wastes of North America to find one. He will discover if his new acquisition will make a blip on his wife's blog."

***

Low's Journey: Meditations Trilogy Pt. 1

By Rha Goddess

Directed by Chay Yew

"Artist and social activist, Rha Goddess poses the question: What is Insanity? This one-woman, multidisciplinary theatre piece explores the mythology, stigma, fear and confusion surrounding mental illness and asserts that reaching a real state of "well- being" is a revolutionary act. Low's Journey is a mixture of reality, fantasy, insanity and truth."

***

Act a Lady

By Jordan Harrison

Directed by Anne Kauffman

"When the men of a small Prohibition-era town decide to put on a play dressed in 'fancy-type, women-type clothes,' the whole community is affected: gender lines blur, eyebrows raise, identities explode, and life and art are forever entangled. A thoughtful, Midwestern fable about the woman in every man, the man in every woman and the power of theatre to uncover both."

***

Hotel Cassiopeia

By Charles Mee (Big Love, True Love, First Love)

Directed by Anne Bogart

Produced in association with the SITI Company

"The American collage artist Joseph Cornell made wooden boxes filled with pocket watches, coiled springs, maps of the stars, a forest of thimbles, parrots, seashells, broken glass, children's alphabet blocks, brightly colored balls, soap bubbles, whales' teeth, a colored lithograph of the moon in the night sky and starfish. Hotel Cassiopeia is about art, about America, compassion, longing, loneliness and heartbreak."

***

The Scene

By Theresa Rebeck (Omnium Gatherum, Spike Heels)

Directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman

"Clea's new to the scene and Lewis wants to make a new scene from the old scene. Charlie was part of the scene and Stella's trying not to make a scene. This biting new black comedy takes on New York, the entertainment industry, marriage and even Ohio. Three old friends hitting middle age have their worlds upended by the new hot young thing."

***

Six Years

By Sharr White

Directed by Hal Brooks

"After six silent years, Phil Granger returns home to his wife, Meredith, shattered by all he witnessed in World War II. The play returns to Phil and Meredith every six years, from the Post-war boom through the quagmire of Vietnam, in this examination of damaged souls in an era of unparalleled change."

***

Bill of Three Ten-Minute Plays

Three Guys and a Brenda

by Adam Bock (Swimming in the Shallows)

Directed by Frank Deal

"The three guys agree that Brenda is beautiful, but will the one single guy actually ask her out? A sweet gender-bending look at the courage it takes to simply be a nice guy."

***

Sovereignty

By Rolin Jones (The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow)

Directed by Shirley Serotsky

"Gardening, new neighbors, old neighbors, chocolate—life in the suburbs can be so complicated. A scathing and satiric play about the people right next door."

***

Listeners

By Jane Martin

Directed by Jon Jory

"Say what you will, you're not alone. A woman's assigned 'Listeners' let her speak directly to the 'big guy'."

***

Dramatic Anthology

Neon Mirage

by Liz Duffy Adams, Dan Dietz, Rick Hip-Flores, Julie Jensen, Lisa Kron (Well), Tracey Scott Wilson and Chay Yew.

Directed by Wendy McClellan

"Las Vegas: where the rugged outdoors meets Oz, where America's central myth of unbridled possibility collides with its compulsion for perpetual self-invention. In the middle of the desert, glitz and grit combine in a place that is as narcotic as it is undeniably real. Neon Mirage examines what happens where so much possibility and so much failure meet."

For information or reservations call (502) 584-1205 or 1-800-4-ATL-TIX, or visit www.ActorsTheatre.org.