Roundabout Announces Winners for Columbia@Roundabout Reading Series

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) and Columbia University School of the Arts (Carol Becker, Dean of Faculty) just announced the winners of Columbia@Roundabout's 2018 New Play Reading Series. As part of the collaborative partnership between Roundabout Theatre Company and Columbia University, the reading series awards three playwrights from the current MFA program and recent alumni with a cash prize as well as a reading in Roundabout's Rehearsal Hall, followed by a post-reading reception. Five finalists have also received cash prizes in recognition of their exceptional work. No other collaborative partnership in the New York area brings together an esteemed Ivy League MFA program with a Tony Award-winning, not-for-profit theatre. The reading series is made possible by a grant from The Tow Foundation.

Playwrights featured in the third annual Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series include Andy Boyd (Os Confederados), Kristin Slaney (Hockey Messiah) and Jay Stull (Undone). Finalists include Melis Aker (When My Mama Was a Hittite), Matt Barbot (Princess Clara of Loisada), Jack T. Calk (Not All That Far), Samantha Cooper (And, And, And Isabella Bootlegs) and Stephen Foglia (Outer Banks).

The New Play Reading Series will be held September 24 - 27 at Roundabout's Rehearsal Hall. Mentorship is provided by celebrated Columbia faculty members, including Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, Pulitzer Prize winner and Tony Award nominee Lynn Nottage and Obie Award winner Charles L. Mee. The series creates a bridge for Columbia's emerging writers and provides Roundabout audience members with an opportunity to experience work by the next generation of leading theatre artists. Readings will be open to industry members and other guests by invitation only.

The selection committee consisted of two representatives from Roundabout Theatre Company: Director of New Play Development Jill Rafson and Artistic Consultant Robyn Goodman; and two representatives from Columbia University: Christian Parker, Chair of the Theatre Program at Columbia University School of the Arts and David Henry Hwang, head of the Playwriting concentration for the program.

Schedule of Readings

OS CONFEDERADOS
By Andy Boyd
Directed by Whitney White Monday, September 24 at 3:30pm

In the year 1867, following defeat in the Civil War, a small group of men and women from the Southern United States immigrated to Brazil, where they founded a new city known today as Americana. Os Confederados tells the story of that city in two parts: one act in 1867 and one act in 2017. In the first act, the colonists struggle to determine whether their new city will be a recreation of the antebellum South or an experiment in creating a more inclusive society from the ashes of the old. In the second act, set at the city's 150th anniversary celebration, descendants of the original colonists struggle as well to determine their identity in the context of their history, this time the past of the city itself as well as the past of the Confederate South. Os Confederados is a play about why we hold on to histories of oppression - and how we let go.

HOCKEY MESSIAH
By Kristin Slaney
Directed by Ellie Heyman Wednesday, September 26 at 3:30pm

Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, 2001. Shawn is a thirteen-year-old hockey prodigy, on a track leading him to the NHL. Viola is the weird girl who lives up the street. When Shawn and Viola collide as teens, they begin an unlikely friendship that follows them throughout their lives, constantly complicating both their understandings of what it means to be an adult. Hockey Messiah is about success and love and growing up and hockey.

UNDONE
By Jay Stull
Directed by Knud Adams
Thursday, September 27 at 3:30pm

Undone is a portrait of two friends whose decade-long relationship is fractured by schizophrenia. What are the limits of friendship when reality is less shared? How does one measure sanity against a world that is insane?