Berkshire Playwrights Lab Announces 2013 Season

Berkshire Playwrights Lab will present the Berkshire Playwrights Lab Sixth Season Multi-Media Gala Celebration on Friday, June 7 at 7:30pm and staged readings of new plays on Wednesdays, July 10, July 24, August 7, and August 21 at 7:30pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center (14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, Mass.). The company will also present its first full workshop production, Anna Ziegler's Life Science, June 19 through June 30 (press opening June 21), Wednesdays through Saturdays at8:00pm and Sundays at 2:00pm, with the exception of the Saturday, June 22 performance, which will begin at 9:30pm at Bard College at Simon's Rock Daniel Arts Center (84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, Mass.).

"We're excited about the mix of veteran artists and emerging talent participating in this year's Gala," said Berkshire Playwrights Lab Co-Artistic Director Matthew Penn. The benefit evening will feature new one-act plays written exclusively for the Lab by Joe Cacaci, Richard Dresser, and Mark Malone, a scene from Anna Ziegler's upcoming Life Science, as well as a monologue written and performed byMaddie Meyers, a talented young emerging actor and playwright. The Gala cast will include Treat Williams and Tony Shalhoub (who was just nominated for a Tony Award for his Broadway performance in Golden Boy), and others TBA. The Gala will also include a screening of Halftime, a short film written by Richard Dresser and directed by Berkshire Playwrights Lab Co-Artistic Director Joe Cacaci that stars Treat Williams and was produced by John Whalan's Black Ice Entertainment LLC. The film, which was shot on location at Berkshire School, grew out the play Dresser wrote for last year's Berkshire Playwrights Lab Gala.

The Lab's first full workshop production of Anna Ziegler's Life Science, directed by Joe Cacaci, will involve four weeks of rehearsal vs. the four days traditionally allotted for its staged readings, plus simple costumes, lighting, and sets. The play examines the lives of four high school seniors living in the plush Washington, DC suburbs. Over the course of several months, the students make out, break up, discuss their plans for the future, and debate the role that being Jewish plays in their budding sense of themselves. The professional cast includes Jess Jacobs, David Kremenitzer, Julian Leong, and Arielle Lever.

"Life Science is one of those rare plays that is at times moving, touching, insightful, and uproariously funny, and that appeals to all age groups," said Cacaci. "For the 15 to 25 crowd, it zeroes in on a pivotal period in their lives that they've either just gone through, are about to, or are in the midst of. For the rest of us, it conjures memories, painful and joyous, of that time in our lives when our imminent future seemed at once rife with exciting possibility and fraught with downright uncertainty and foreboding."

Berkshire Playwrights Lab is a longtime supporter of Ziegler's work, having staged readings of two of her full-length plays, Variations on a Theme and An Incident, as well as three short plays at its annual galas. "It is fitting, indeed, that our first ever full workshop production be a play by Anna Ziegler. I'm looking forward to directing it and we're all looking forward to its premiere," said Cacaci. Ziegler's plays have been, or will be, produced at a wide range of theaters, including Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Magic Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Georges, Theater, The Cherry Lane (Playwrights Realm), Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep, Vermont Stage, Chester Theatre, and others. For more about her background, see annabziegler.net.

Richard Dresser's newest play, The Handyman, is one of four plays the Lab will give developmental staged readings of at the Mahaiwe this summer. The other three plays, along with the date for Dresser's reading, will be announced shortly.

Founded in 2007 by theatre professionals Joe Cacaci, Jim Frangione, Bob Jaffe, and Matthew Penn, the Berkshire Playwrights Lab is the area's only theater dedicated exclusively to encouraging, developing, and presenting new plays. Through readings-and this season, a full workshop production-the Lab provides emerging and established writers with a professional and creative environment, while offering audiences the engaging and provocative opportunity to share in the dramatic evolution of premiere works. The Lab has staged readings of more than 50 new plays, many of which have gone on to full productions, including Kelly Masterson's Against the Rising Seaat Queens Theatre in the Park, Chris Newbound's The Birthday Boy at Berkshire Theatre Festival, Kate Wenner's Make Sure It's Me at Stage Left Theatre, and Kelly Masterson's Edith at Berkshire Theatre Group. Also, Jonathan Caren's The Recommendation went on to The Old Globe, Andrew Dolan's The Many Mistresses of Martin Luther King received rave reviews at Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles, Matt Hoverman's The Glint was optioned for Broadway, and Matthew Penn recently directed the New York premiere ofScrambled Eggs by Robin Amos Kahn and Gary Richards.

Tickets

Tickets to the Berkshire Playwrights Lab Sixth Season Gala Celebration are $27 to $52 (performance only) and $202 (the latter including a post-show reception with the artists at Castle Street Café). To purchase tickets, see berkshireplaywrightslab.org or call 413.528.2544.

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