SOHO Rep Announces Public Presentations of Work from Two Signature Programs

Soho Rep announces public presentations of work from its two signature development programs: The Writer/Director Lab and The Soho Rep Studio.

In addition to premiering full productions of visionary new works, Soho Rep offers two platforms for the development of emerging writers and directors: its Writer/Director Lab and its Studio. This spring, as part of Soho Rep's 35th Anniversary Season, the organization will present its annual work-in-progress showings from these programs.

Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab fosters collaboration between early-career writers and directors in the beginning stages of the creative process. Each year, writers and directors are paired to develop a new play from scratch over a nine-month process, culminating in a series of readings open to the public. Plays first written in the Lab that have gone on to full productions include Adam Bock’s The Thugs, Melissa James Gibson’s Suitcase and Greg Moss’s Orange, Hat & Grace produced on the Soho Rep Mainstage, and Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles Heidi Schreck’s Creature, Jason Grote’s Maria / Stuart, Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist, David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette (upcoming) and many more. . Other lab alums include: Arin Arbus, Annie Baker, Thomas Bradshaw, Dan LeFranc, Eisa Davis, Steve Cosson and Anne Kauffman.

Playwright Jenny Schwartz and director Ken Rus Schmoll have led the program for 2011/12, serving as mentors for the following: How To Get Into Buildings by Trish Harnetiaux, directed by Jeremy Bloom; Sprawl by Josh Conkel, directed by Jen Wineman; Cockfight by Peter Gil-Sheridan, directed by Anna Brenner; and Really Really Really Really Really by Jackie Sibblies Drury, directed by David F. Chapman. The readings of these plays will take place on Monday evenings—April 2, 9, 16 and May 7—at Soho Rep at 7:00 P.M. and are free and open to the public on a first come, first served basis. Please see the schedule below.

In addition to its Lab, Soho Rep also fosters the creation of new work through The Soho Rep Studio, a commissioning and project-development platform. The Studio provides a flexible environment where all types of plays and projects in development can become stronger, and where artists can dive deeply into multiple aspects of the work, experimenting with ideas in an exploratory rehearsal setting. Each of the 2012 Studio projects will offer work-in-progress presentations at the culmination of their Studio residencies.

The Soho Rep Studio presents two new works-in-progress this spring. On April 27 and 28, recent alum of the Writer/Director Lab, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins explodes Irish playwright Dion Boucicault’s 1859 melodrama into the 21st century with An Octoroon. British playwright/director Mark Ravenhill will direct. On May 18 and 19, Profanity continues Sylvan Oswald’s exploration of self-made spiritualities begun in the play Sun Ra (2008/2009 Writer/Director Lab) and continued in Nightlands (New Georges). Set in North Philadelphia in the 1950s, Profanity, directed by Pam MacKinnon, brings us grimy real estate deals, lapsed Jews, and visions of Old Europe set to Rogers and Hammerstein and Tito Puente.

Studio showings are free and open to the public on a first come, first served basis. Times and locations are below.

The 2012 Writer/Director Lab Reading Series Schedule

Monday, April 2
How To Get Into Buildings
Trish Harnetiaux, writer
Jeremy Bloom, director

Monday, April 9
Sprawl
Joshua Conkel, writer
Jen Wineman, director

Monday, April 16
Cockfight
Peter Gil-Sheridan, writer
Anna Brenner, director

Monday, May 7
Really Really Really Really Really
Jackie Sibblies Drury, writer
David F. Chapman, director

The Soho Rep Studio Schedule

Friday and Saturday, April 27 and 28, 4:00 P.M.
An Octoroon
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Mark Ravenhill
Dorothy Strelsin Playwriting Fellow Workshop
The New Ohio Theater
154 Christopher Street, Ste. 1E (between Greenwich and Washington)

Friday and Saturday, May 18 at 7:00 P.M. and 19 at 5:00 P.M.
Profanity
By Sylvan Oswald, directed by Pam MacKinnon
Dorothy Strelsin Playwriting Fellow Workshop
Robert Moss Theater
440 Lafayette Street, 3rd floor (at Astor Place)

Sylvan Oswald’s Studio is supported by a grant from the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, a partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records, and the Foundation for Jewish Culture, and made possible with major funding from UJA-Federation of New York.

The Writer/Director Lab Bios

Jenny Schwartz (Lab Co-Chair) is a New York-based playwright. New Georges and Vineyard Theatre produced her play, God’s Ear, directed by Anne Kauffman. God's Ear has been produced nationally and internationally, from Lisbon, Portugal to Boise, Idaho to Sydney, Australia. Schwartz is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Benjamin H. Danks Award in Drama. She has also received a Kesselring honor, a Susan Smith Blackburn special commendation, and two grants from Lincoln Center's Lecomte du Nuoy Foundation. She was selected as the inaugural recipient of Soho Rep's Dorothy Streslin Playwriting Fellowship and attended The Sundance Institute. She is an Associate Artist with The Civilians, a member of New Dramatists, and a Juilliard graduate. Schwartz received an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University. Her play, Somewhere Fun, is a co-commission from Soho Rep and Soho Theatre in London. She is currently working on a musical with Todd Almond and a commission for South Coast Rep. Other plays includes Cause For Alarm, presented at FringeNYC, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll.

Ken Rus Schmoll (Lab Co-Chair) is a director whose recent credits include Lucas Hnath's Death Tax at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Erin Courtney's A Map of Virtue with 13P; Madeleine George’s Seven Homeless Mammoths Travels New England at Two River Theater Company; Furee In Pins & Needles, a version of Harold Rome’s 1937 musical Pins & Needles, co-produced by the Foundry Theatre and Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE); Will Eno’s Middletown at the Vineyard Theatre; Ariana Reines’s Telephone for the Foundry, for which he received an OBIE Award; and the American premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s opera Prosperina for Spoleto Festival USA. In the Soho Rep Studio Series, Ken directed Erin Courtney's Black Cat Lost. His staging at Tanglewood of the world premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s cantata It Happens Like This was recently remounted at the Guggenheim. Also upcoming: Ellen Maddow’s The Peripherals with the Talking Band.

Trish Harnetiaux (writer, How to Get Into Buildings) is a Brooklyn-based playwright whose work has been performed and developed in New York at Dixon Place, The 13th Street Theatre, 78th Street Theatre Lab, The Ohio Theatre, Metropolitan Playhouse, The Samuel French Festival, and The New Jersey Rep. She has been a recipient of the Himan Brown Creative Writing Award, and a finalist for the Kesselring Prize, the Heideman Award and the 2011 SLS Fiction Fellowship. Publications include: Straight On Til Morning (Broadway Play Publishing), Best Stage Monologues for Men (Smith & Kraus) and Best Stage Scenes 2007 (Smith & Kraus). She has twice been fellow at both the MacDowell Colony and The Corporation of Yaddo. Full-length plays include Your Pretty Little World, adapted from Shirley Jackson's novel, The Bird's Nest, Welcome to the White Room, and That Little Hand On Your Face. In 2008, Harnetiaux received her MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College. Recently, she co-wrote/co-directed the short film, You Should Be A Better Friend and is a founding member of the Production Company Steel Drum in Space where they make funny and strange tiny films.

Jeremy Bloom (director, How to Get Into Buildings) directs his original adaptations including La Boheme (Spoken), Peter-Wendy (Dark), LIVE Mermaids LIVE, and Leaves of Grass (Nude). With Brian Rady, he creates original Americana musicals like the recent The Orange Person and the cowgirl novel, The Girl of The Golden West, is in development. His opera work includes Loose, Wet, and Perforated in Boston and Aperghis' Sextuour: l'origine des especes. His poetry work includes Walt and Emily, a conversation between Whitman and Dickinson by Jonathan Cott, and his new plays are Furniture Fire by Thomas Higgins (Drama League Directorfest), The American Dream by Dipika Guha (Old Vic), and more. His work has been performed at The Cherry Lane, Incubator Arts Project, The Flea, Walkerspace, NYU Grad, CSV, 45 Bleecker, NY Botanical Garden, festivals and more. He has assisted at the Met, Broadway, LCT3, the Goodman, DC Shakes and Berkeley Rep (mostly for Mary Zimmerman). Bloom is an artist-in-residence at the cell and at Evenstar Films. He is a Drama League Directing Fellow, an EST Resident Director, participated in the TS Eliot US/UK Exchange at The Old Vic, and alum of Northwestern University's Performance Studies Program.

Joshua Conkel (writer, Sprawl) is a Brooklyn-based playwright, blogger and Navy brat from rural Washington. He is the author of MilkMilkLemonade (Best Off Off Broadway Show of 2009-NY Press, published by Playscripts), The Chalk Boy (Published by Original Works Publishing), Lonesome Winter (co-written with Megan Hill), The Sluts of Sutton Drive, I Wanna Destroy You and Sprawl (a Soho Rep commission) and countless short plays. Conkel’s work has been seen all over the country and internationally. MilkMilkLemonade is something of a cult classic, having been produced 27 times since its premiere in 2009. He was recently featured in Next Magazine's "Who's Next" issue, and was called “the most important queer writer of his generation” by Caffe Cino founder Doric Wilson. Conkel's work has been developed by The Management, Soho Rep, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Old Vic/New Voices, The Finborough Theatre, Dixon Place, The Flea and more. He is a member of The Management, where he served as Artistic Director for six years, as well as a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, Sons of Tennessee, and The Dramatists Guild. He is currently finishing a graphic novel adaptation of The Chalk Boy for First Second Books, and editing his first short film, Power Lunch. He is alum of Youngblood and the TS Eliot Old Vic US/UK Exchange, and has a BFA in theater from Cornish College of the Arts.

Jen Wineman (director, Sprawl) is a director of theater and opera, living in New York City. Recent work includes a workshop of Charise Castro Smith’s The Hunchback of Seville at New Georges, Stephanie Dodd and Justin Badger’s new aerial circus/country rock musical Devil in the Hole at The Skybox, Smith’s Estrella Cruz [The Junkyard Queen] at Ars Nova, and the world premiere of José Rivera’s Lessons for an Unaccustomed Bride at 59E59. Regionally, she has directed at New York Stage and Film, the Experimental Theater of Vassar College, Williamstown Theatre Festival (workshop), WordBRIDGE, and with SquidShow in Telluride, Colorado. Up next for Wineman is the world premiere of Roller Boogie: The Musical (The Unauthorized Parody of the Classic Film that Inspired a Generation…For Like Five Minutes), which she co-wrote with Sam Forman and Eli Bolin. It is set to open this May in Cambridge, Mass at the American Repertory Theater’s Club Oberon. Jen is a co-founder and board member of Studio 42, a NYC-based theater company that focuses on producing “unproducible” new work by emerging artists. She received her BA from Vassar College, and her MFA from Yale School of Drama (Julian Kaufman Directing Prize).

Peter Gil-Sheridan (writer, Cockfight) is a multidisciplinary artist whose plays include The Deadly Belles, Everyday I Wake the Fool, Glow and Vanishing Son. His play Topsy Turvy Mouse has been produced by Cherry Lane Theatre (mentor: Michael Weller), Borderlands Theatre in Tucson, and Gustavus Adolphus, was developed at Sundance Institute's Playwright Retreat at Ucross, New York Theatre Workshop and won The Smith Prize from National New Play Network for outstanding political work. His play, What May Fall, was commissioned by and performed at the Guthrie Theatre in 2009, followed by a production with Fordham's Alumni Company directed by Morgan Gould. Residencies include Jerome Fellowship (Playwright's Center, Minneapolis), A Theatre Group in Silverton, CO (annual), The Millay Colony (Austerlitz, NY) and the Ucross Foundation (Wyoming). Gil-Sheridan recently completed a new play, Ritu Comes Home, for the InterAct Theatre's 20/20 Commission in Philadelphia. He is a member of the Playground at the Lark Theatre, where he is developing The Rafa Play, a play about his imaginary marriage to tennis superstar Rafael Nadal. He received his MFA from The University of Iowa's Playwright's Workshop and his BA from Fordham University, where he has been on the faculty since 2005.

Anna Brenner (director, Cockfight) is a director of classic plays and new work. Brenner curated the Stone Open House with Laurie Anderson, directed Robert Attenweiler's Our Greatest Year (Cleveland: Dobama, Brooklyn: The Brick), John Douglas Weidner's The Main Attraction (3LD), Bombs, Babes and Bingo (Artists Laboratory Theater), Look Away (KafkaFest), The Tiny Closet (NYU Atlantic), The Three Sisters (Columbia), The Misanthrope (undergroundzero 2009 Audience Award PS122). She adapted and directed 3 Women (Columbia Stages), The Girl Who Shared His Room (Philadelphia Shakespeare), The Birds (HERE, Target Margin Lab) and co-wrote Are We Here Yet? (undergroundzero festival, PS122), and Uncanny (Littlefield). She has assisted Big Dance Theater, The Wooster Group, Tina Landau at Steppenwolf, and trained with the Siti Company and W?odzimierz Staniewski and Gardzienice in Poland. She has an MFA in Directing from Columbia University, Schubert Presidential Fellowship and a BA from University of Chicago. Brenner taught writing at Columbia and is a Teaching Artist with Classic Stage Company, a visiting artist at John Carroll University, an Actors Studio Writer/Director Workshop member, and a Resident Artist of undergroundzero.

Jackie Sibblies Drury (writer, Really Really Really Really Really) is a Brooklyn-based playwright. Her play We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 is having its world premier this spring at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. Sibblies's work has been featured at PRELUDE.11, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Victory Gardens 2010 Ignition Festival, American Theater Company's 10 x 10 Festival, and The Magic Theatre's Virgin Play Festival. She received a 2012-13 Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists. She is a member of the 2011-12 Soho Rep Writer/Director lab, a 2010-12 New York Theater Workshop Emerging Artist of Color Fellow, a member of The Civilians’ R&D Group, a participant in The Playground at The Lark, and a MacDowell colony fellow. She organizes classes for Pataphysics Playwriting Workshops and The Public School New York. Sibblies is a graduate oF Brown's MFA playwriting program, where she received the David Wickham Prize in Playwriting. Her play Social Creatures was commissioned by Trinity Repertory Theater Company in Providence and will premiere in 2013.

David F, Chapman (director, Really Really Really Really Really) is a New York-based director and writer. He has collaborated on new plays with Bekah Brunstetter, Jordan Seavey, Sam Hunter, Anna Moench, Lauren Yee, Philip Dawkins, and others. NY credits include work at 59E59, Canal Park Playhouse, Joe's Pub, FringeNYC, NYU Grad Acting, Atlantic Conservatory, Abingdon, and Theatre Row, as well as readings/workshops at the Lark, NYTW, Playwright's Realm and Studio 42 (where he is a Resident Artist). Regional and international work includes UNC Grad Acting, Millbrook Playhouse (PA), Cape Fear Regional Theatre (NC), World Youth Theatre (Vietnam), Camden People's Theatre (London), Old Vic (TS Eliot Exchange), and the Edinburgh and Montreal fringe fests. He has assistant directed on and off-Broadway and regionally, including the Public, MTC, LTC, Playwrights Horizons, Chicago Shakespeare and PlayMakers. He has received Luce, Burch, and Fulbright scholarships for theater work abroad, as well as the Drama League and Jonathan Alper Fellowships in New York. He is a member of Directors Lab Chicago, OV/NV, and the inaugural Civilians R&D Group. Chapman is a teaching artist, the author of articles for American Theatre and HowlRound, and the director of the Orchard Project's apprentice program, Core Company. For more information, go to davidfchapman.com

The Soho Rep Studio Bios

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (writer, An Octoroon) is a Brooklyn-based playwright, dramaturg and performer. His work has been seen at The Public Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Soho Rep, New Dramatists, The Matrix Theatre, Theater Bielefeld in Bielefeld, Germany and The National Theatre in London. He is working on commissions from Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3 and Yale Repertory Theater. He is a former New York Theatre Workshop Playwriting fellow, alum of the Soho Rep Writers/Directors Lab, ArsNova Play Group and Public Theater Emerging Writers Group. His honors include a Princess Grace Award, the Dorothy Strelsin Playwriting Fellowship, a fellowship in playwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Helen Merrill Award, a Fulbright Arts Grant, and the Paula Vogel Award. He also holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU.

Mark Ravenhill’s (director, An Octoroon) plays have been produced around the world including London's Royal Court Theatre and National Theatre, the Schaubeuhne and Berliner Ensemble in Berlin, The Market Theatre in Johannesburg and the New York Theatre Workshop. He is currently playwright in residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 2013, the RSC will produce his new play and also his new English version of Brecht's Galileo. In addition, he is currently collaborating with composer Rolf Wallin for a new opera for the National Opera of Norway and with composer Conor Mitchell for a new piece for the Aldeburgh Festival. Ravenhill lives with his husband in London.

Sylvan Oswald’s (writer, Profanity) creates plays, texts, and publications. He often sets his plays in Philadelphia, his hometown. Plays include Nightlands (New Georges), Sun Ra (Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab), Pony (About Face Theatre, Chicago), and Vendetta Chrome (Clubbed Thumb); texts include Dan Hurlin’s Disfarmer (St. Ann’s Warehouse) and the in-progress Zoetrope with Alec Duffy and Mimi Lien. Honors include a Six Points Fellowship for 2010-12; the Dorothy Strelsin Fellowship at Soho Rep for 2010-2011; a Jerome Fellowship from The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis; a Thurber House Playwriting Fellowship from The Ohio State University; fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Dramatists Guild; and a Full Stage Commission from New Dramatists where he is a member playwright. sylvanoswald.com

Pam MacKinnon (director, Profanity) is an Obie and Lilly Award recipient. Recent credits include: Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park (Broadway, Playwrights Horizons, Taper); Itamar Moses' Completeness (Playwrights Horizons, SCR) and The Four of Us (MTC, Old Globe) and Bach at Leipzig (NYTW); David Weiner's Extraordinary Chambers (Geffen); Rachel Axler's Smudge (WPP); Cusi Cram's A Lifetime Burning (Primary Stages); Bruce Norris's The Unmentionables (Woolly Mammoth). She is a frequent interpreter of the plays of Edward Albee, having directed Peter and Jerry (Second Stage, Hartford); Occupant (Signature); A Delicate Balance (Arena); The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (Alley, Vienna); The Play About the Baby (Philadelphia, Goodman); Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Steppenwolf, Arena, upcoming Broadway). MacKinnon is an alumna of the Lincoln Center Directors' Lab and the Drama League and sits on the board of the downtown theater Clubbed Thumb, Inc. committed to new American plays.

About Soho Rep

Soho Rep is now in its 35th Anniversary year. Soho Rep is dedicated to cultivating and producing visionary, uncompromising and exuberant new plays. They perform to one of the youngest adult audiences in New York City, with over three-quarters aged 18-40.

Critics continue to herald Soho Rep as the go-to theatre destination for new and original works. New York Magazine has said, “this indispensable theater offers more excitement per chair than any space in town,” Time Out New York says, “Soho Rep is the best theater in NYC (official),” Variety exclaims “[Soho Rep] has claimed an increasingly vital spot...the venue has suddenly become one to watch for Manhattan theatergoers starved for new work,” and The New York Times declares Soho Rep to be “The downtown powerhouse... regularly outclasses the work done on many of the city’s larger stages.”

For more information, please contact Blake Zidell or Yuri Kwon at
Blake Zidell & Associates, 718.643.9052, blake@blakezidell.com or yuri@blakezidell.com.