TOO HEAVY FOR YOUR POCKET, New Play Readings and MOONLIGHT Screening Coming Up at Alliance Theatre

The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition continues to spotlight the best emerging playwrights with a full production for the competition winner and staged readings for four competition finalists.

Too Heavy for your Pocket, the 14th competition winner by Jiréh Breon Holder, will have its world premiere on the Hertz Stage February 4 - 26, 2017. Opening night is Thursday, February 9, 2017.

Holder has also won the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award, which will support a second production of Too Heavy for Your Pocket at the Roundabout Theater Company in New York.

The four finalists will be heard in staged readings February 8 - 10, 2017, during the Festival of New Plays celebrating new work.

This year's festival will also include a free screening of Moonlight, the much buzzed-about, Academy Award nominated film. Moonlight is based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by former Alliance/Kendeda Competition winner Tarell Alvin McCraney. The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture and won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama.

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The list of readings and events for this year's festival includes:

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8

FINALIST READING: BOREALIS - by Ben Fisher, University of San Diego; Directed by Rachel May

February 8, 2:00 p.m. - Black Box Theatre

Synopsis: When a cryptic but ominous letter arrives from her brother on the oil fields, thirteen-year-old Cozbi sets off for Anwar, Alaska to find him. Armed with a book by Donald Trump and an axe, Cozbi battles her way through an Arctic wilderness in pursuit of her missing brother, squaring off against a host of monstrous Ass-Hats on each rung of the corporate ladder. Part mythic journey, part workplace satire, Borealis is a darkly comic adventure about family obligation, career aspiration, and what we leave behind to make our way to the top.

FILM SCREENING: MOONLIGHT - A new film inspired by the play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, 2008 winner of the Alliance/Kendeda Competition

February 8, 7:30 p.m. - Rich Auditorium

Synopsis: A timeless story of human self-discovery and connection, Moonlight chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9

FINALIST READING: MY LOVER JOAN - by Emily Feldman, University of California, San Diego; Directed by Leora Morris

February 9, 2:00 p.m. - Black Box Theatre

Synopsis: Whether wearing sackcloth, toga, golden bangles, or a pantsuit, there seems to be no moment in history when it's easy to be a woman. Wiser than the powerful men who keep her in her place, Joan longs to use her mind and take charge. Her ambition will take her on a surprising journey, all while her lover watches longingly from the sidelines, wondering where he fits in her topsy-turvy world.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10

FINALIST READING: MOONLIGHT ON THE BAYOU by Lindsey Ferrentino, Yale School of Drama; Directed by Freddie Ashley

February 10, 2:00 p.m. - Black Box Theatre

Synopsis: Oil rig worker Sonny must come off the rig to care for his aging father and win back his pregnant girlfriend. Increasingly sleep deprived, Sonny can't stop having nightmares about his father's legends of New Orleans. Can he recreate home in a post-Katrina FEMA trailer before it's too late?

Q&A: MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT a conversation with Jiréh Breon Holder, whose play Too Heavy for Your Pocket is the 14th winner of the Alliance/Kendeda Competition, and Celise Kalke, ALLIANCE THEATRE Director of New Projects

February 10, 5:30 p.m. - Black Box Theater

FINALIST READING: SPACE GIRL by Mora V. Harris; Directed by Julie Skrzypek and Rebekah Suellau

February 10, 7:30 p.m. - Black Box Theatre

Synopsis: Arugula Suarez just wants to fit in. But it's not easy when you're a 16 year old lesbian alien from the planet Zlagdor. In an alien world where the only things that make sense are Roller Derby and salad, Arugula and her father, Nancy, must find out what it means to be human before time runs out for Planet Earth.

Special note - Space Girl is now scheduled to have its world premiere production by Atlanta's Weird Sisters Theatre Project in Summer 2017

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All readings and events are free and open to the public. Reservations for the readings are required and can be made by calling the Woodruff Arts Center Box Office at 404.733.5000 or by going online to www.alliancetheatre.org/kendedaweek.

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