Theater Resources Unlimited to Host 'Writer-Producer Speed Date' This October

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents Writer-Producer Speed Date: The Art of the Pitch on Sunday, October 30, 2016 from 5:30pm to 10:30pm at NOLA, 250 W. 54th St., 11th fl., NYC. Participants will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with commercial and not-for-profit producers. To apply, visit truonline.org/events/speed-date/ and email application to TRUStaff1@gmail.com. If accepted, there is a fee of $75 for non-members, $65 for TRU members.

You meet a producer at a party, and have two minutes to interest him in your work. Do you have the skill to sell yourself? Here's a chance to practice your pitching with real producers who are open to and looking for new work. Okay, they probably won't option you on the spot, but you'll meet them and have the opportunity to start developing a relationship. And that's what this business is all about. Relationships.

We'll have eleven producers lined up, from both the commercial and not-for-profit worlds, all with an interest in new projects; we also may have eleven aspiring producers from our Producer Development program. So you'll be pitching to as many as 22 producers in total!

Confirmed producers include: Margot Astrachan (producer, A Gentleman's Guide..., Ghost the musical, Around the World in 80 Days, Nice Work If You Can Get It, On a Clear Day...); Patrick Blake (producer, The 39 Steps revival, Bedlam Theater's Hamlet/St. Joan, Play Dead, The Exonerated, In the Continuum & founding artistic director Rhymes Over Beats); Bill Franzblau (producer, Tony-nominated Say Goodnight Gracie, Wonderland on Broadway, Sistas, Evil Dead off-Broadway); Lorca Peress (artistic director, MultiStages theatre company); Markus Potter (producing artistic director NewYorkRep, produced The Velocity of Autumn, Stalking the Bogeyman); Ken Waissman (producer, Josephine, original Grease, Agnes of God, Torch Song Trilogy); Frank Zuback (commercial producer, Moolah).

Theater Resources Unlimited(TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a twenty-four year old 501c3 nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-Producing Artists as well as career producers and theater companies.

TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, goods and productions; presents the TRU VOICES Annual New Play Reading Series and Annual New Musicals Reading Series, two new works series in which TRU underwrites developmental readings to nurture new shows as well as new producers for theater; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program whose mentors are among the most prominent producers and general managers in New York Theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop the business skills they need. TRU serves writers through a Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab; programs for actors include the Annual Combined Audition, Resource Nights and "Speed Dating" as well as actor workshops.

Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by public funds awarded through the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, 9th district Council Member Inez Dickens; and with support from the Montage Foundation and the Friars National Association Foundation.

For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org or call (212) 714-7628.