Theatre East to Present A NAME FOR A GHOST TO MUTTER

Theatre East presents A Name for a Ghost to Mutter by Cyndi Williams at Urban Stages, 259 West 30th Street NYC. Performances begin for the limited engagement on Friday, November 11, 2016. Creative team and casting to be announced at a later date.

From the rich complexities of the Southern Gothic, A Name for a Ghost to Mutter celebrates four generations of amazing, powerful, and audacious women. The play explores how we inherit stories, sometimes without our choosing, and through that understanding come to acknowledge, cherish, and perhaps even forgive those who came before us. Forgiveness, mercy, ownership, acceptance, solidarity, and even discovering that the most imposing old woman in the world was once a little girl as well. A Chekhovian tale with Horton Foote sensibilities.

Cyndi Williams is an Austin-based writer and actor. Her plays include Roaring (Austin Playhouse 2013-2014 Mainstage Season), Dug Up (David M. Cohen Award for Best Original Script, Austin Critics' Table), Where Are They Now? (Best Drama, Austin Critic's Table), Fish (Top Ten Plays, Dallas Morning News), A Name for a Ghost to Mutter (Live Oak Harvest Festival Best Original Script, Larry L. King Award Best Texas Play), and Cars and Bars (Best Original Play, Austin Circle of Theatres). She collaborated on the site-specific project In This House (Everything is You), and wrote the lyrics for their play Denim Doves. With Refraction Arts Project, she collaborated on The Assumption, Orange, Up In the Old Hotel, and The Metamorphosis. Her screenplay for Bright Shining City, Deeper and Deeper, was nominated for Best Original Script in the World Music and Independent Film Festival. For ADV, she wrote American versions of anime scripts including Wedding Peach and Gatchaman. She is an Acting Company Member at Austin Playhouse. Film work includes Room (Independent Spirit nomination for Best Lead Actress, the Women Film Critics Circle's Karen Morley Award), The Leftovers, Computer Chess, and The Preacher's Daughter. Cyndi is a Founding Core Member of Script Works and on the Artistic Advisory Board for Salvage Vanguard Theater.

Theatre East is a 501(c)3 nonprofit theatre company whose mission is to advance the dialogue of the shared human experience through works that utilize simple storytelling, providing their community with a platform to deepen their understanding of themselves, each other and the world they share. The New York based company believes that theatre is not a luxury, but should be accessible to all, regardless of economic or social status.

The company was founded in 2008 by husband-and-wife producing partners Judson Jones (Artistic Director) and Christa Kimlicko Jones (Associate Artistic Director), along with Joseph Mitchell Parks, after producing such hits as the premiere of Christopher Durang's The Vietnamization of New Jersey (NY Times Critic's Pick), and the premiere of Texas playwright David W. Crawford's Harvest (BackStage Critic's Pick, Smith & Kraus Best New Plays of 2008), as well as earning a spot as producers to watch in 2008 on PBS's Theater Talk. Since its founding, Theatre East has mounted such critically acclaimed New York and World Premieres as Tim Blake Nelson's Eye of God, Daniel McIvor's The Soldier Dreams, Bennett Windheim's Normalcy, Megan O'Brien's The Jungle Book, and last season's Devil and the Deep with original music and lyrics by Air Supply's Graham Russell.

For more information visit www.theatreeast.org