CHOSEN CHILD Plays Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Now thru 11/22

Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) continues its 2014-15 season of new plays next week with Monica Bauer's Chosen Child.

Running from today, October 30 to November 22, this new drama is directed by Megan Schy Gleeson, who directed Peter M. Floyd's Absence at BPT last season. Debra Wise, artistic director of Underground Railway Theater, and Lee Mikeska Gardner, artistic director of the Nora Theatre Company, lead the cast.

"This is a definite first -- having both artistic directors from Central Square Theater with us bringing this new play to life," says BPT Artistic Director Kate Snodgrass. "Both Debra and Lee are experienced actors, and both are strong proponents of new work -- whether it's at their own theatre or ours. It's this kind of collaboration and support we all want to foster. We're honored to have them with us!"

The play begins at New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal and leaps across space and time to tell the story of a family -- most particularly a brother and sister now lost to each other. David suffers from schizophrenia, but he hopes to reconnect with his family after his mother's death. It turns out his sister may be right around the corner or halfway across the country. Either way, she doesn't want to be found.

The production also includes Margaret Ann Brady, Melissa Jesser and Lewis D. Wheeler.

A graduate of Boston University's Playwriting Program, playwright Bauer's award-winning plays have been seen off-Broadway (My Occasion of Sin, Lighter) and beyond (Detroit Repertory Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe). Bauer performed her autobiographical solo show The Year I Was Gifted at the Whitney Arts Center in Pittsfield, Mass., last summer.

A special Ground Floor Conversation with the Chosen Child playwright, cast and director will take place after the 8 p.m. performance on Saturday, November 1.

ABOUT BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS' THEATRE - Founded in 1981 at Boston University by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) is an award-winning professional theatre dedicated to new works. At the heart of BPT's mission is the production of new plays by alumni of its M.F.A. Playwriting Program, the latter in collaboration with Boston University's renowned School of Theatre. The program's award-winning alumni have been produced in regional and New York houses, as well as in London's West End. BPT's productions have been honored with numerous regional and Boston awards, including 12 IRNE Awards for Best New Script and six Boston Critics' Association Elliot Norton Awards.

ABOUT THE CAST:

MARGARET ANN BRADY's (Lee) first adventure with BPT was as Dylan Thomas' mother in A Child's Christmas In Wales, co-produced with Boston Children's Theatre. Elsewhere, she's appeared at Stoneham Theater (Something's Afoot, 42nd Street, and The Full Monty); Wheelock Family Theatre (Pippi Longstocking, The Little Mermaid), American Repertory Theater (The Lily's Revenge), Ryan Landry's Gold Dust Orphans, The New Repertory Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage, Lyric Stage Company, and Apollinaire Theatre. She enjoys her work in educational theatre, as creative director of The Freedom Trail Foundation's Scholars Program (as well as inhabiting the patriot landlady Mrs. Mary Clapham on the trail itself). She values her long involvement with the Mass. Educational Theatre Guild as workshop teacher and festival adjudicator. Margaret Ann is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, and serves on the board of StageSource, the New England Alliance of Theatre Artists and Producers.

LEE MIKESKA GARDNER (Claudia) has recently relocated to the Boston area as the Artistic Director of The Nora Theatre Company, where she made her regional debut in the title role of Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight. Lee has a long history of working on plays in development and in her former city, Washington, D.C., she earned a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actress for the role of Mary in A House in the Country with Charter Theatre; also at Charter Theatre she performed the roles of Carla in A Taste of Fire (Helen Hayes nomination), Fran in Short Order Stories, and Susanna in Of A Sunday Morning, all of which were world premieres. Lee originated the role of Hettie in Julie Jensen's Two Headed, which she performed at Washington Shakespeare Company and Mill Mountain Theatre. Other favorite roles include Terry in Sideman (Helen Hayes nomination) and Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir at 1st Stage; Patricia Preece in Stanley at Potomac Theatre Project (Helen Hayes nomination); Kimberly Bergalis in Patiant A at Freedom Stage (Helen Hayes nomination); Clare in Tennessee Williams's The Two-Character Play at Spooky Action Theatre; Josie in The Show-Off at The American Century Theatre; Gertrude in Hamlet and Luisa in A Shayna Maidel (Best Actress, Baltimore City Paper) at Rep Stage. Also a director, Lee helmed the critically successful Her Aching Heart earlier this year at The Nora. An Artistic Associate for ten years at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Lee directed every season and earned three Helen Hayes nominations for Outstanding Direction (After Ashley; Life During Wartime; Goodnight, Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet). Lee spent seven years as Associate Artistic Director with the Shenandoah Playwrights' Retreat working on plays in development and works closely with emerging playwrights at The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival as an actor, director and mentor.

MELISSA JESSER (Anne) is excited to make her debut with Boston Playwrights' Theatre. Boston credits include The Seagull (Huntington Theatre Company, Elliot Norton Award for Best Ensemble); The Hobbit (Wheelock Family Theatre); The Aurora Project (Science Fiction Theatre Company); and Steel Magnolias (The Footlight Club). Boston workshops include The Bluebeard Project, 36 Days, All Times (Huntington Theatre Company) and Xingu (ArtsEmerson). Melissa appeared in the upcoming feature film Tumbledown starring Rebecca Hall and Jason Sudeikis. She can be seen next touring Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in rep for schools across New England (Shakespeare Now!). Melissa holds a B.F.A. from Emerson College where she was the recipient of an EVVY Award (Best Actress for Screen) and the Performing Arts Acting Departmental Award.

LEWIS D. WHEELER's (David) regional credits include No Man's Land (IRNE Nomination-Best Supporting Actor, American Repertory Theatre); Long Day's Journey Into Night, Pattern of Life (New Rep.); Emilie (Nora Theatre); Doubt, An Ideal Husband (Gloucester Stage); The Importance of Being Earnest, A Number, The Glass Menagerie (Lyric Stage); Arcadia (IRNE Nomination-Best Actor and Troilus and Cressida (Publick Theatre); No Exit (Payomet); Hamlet and Macbeth (Shakespeare Now); The Bald Soprano, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, What the Butler Saw, and five seasons with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre (WHAT); also American Stage (Florida), Commonwealth Shakespeare, Huntington Theatre, Underground Railway, Wellesley Summer Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, Vineyard Playhouse, TCAN Natick. A former founding member of Harbor Stage in Wellfleet, he performed in The Seagull and Hedda Gabler and directed David Rabe's Sticks and Bones. Film/TV credits include The Company Men, The Pink Panther 2, Louisa May Alcott (PBS), Brotherhood, pilots Hatfields & McCoys and Gilded Lilys, and the upcoming Whitey Bulger film Black Mass. Lewis earned his B.A. in Theatre and Film Studies at Cornell University and his M.F.A. from the American Film Institute. Proud member of Actors' Equity since 2004.

DEBRA WISE (Donna) is a founding member and currently Artistic Director of Underground Railway Theater (URT), in residence at Central Square Theater (CST) with The Nora Theatre Company. She is also co-director of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, now celebrating its 10th anniversary season at CST. She has been involved in the creation of more than 30 new works, as performer, playwright, director, and/or dramaturge. At CST she has appeared in Brundibar, The How and the Why, The Other Place, Distracted, Breaking the Code, From Orchids to Octopi - an evolutionary love story, Yesterday Happened - Remembering H.M., Einstein's Dreams, Alice's Adventures Underground, and Galileo directed by the late great David Wheeler. She has also performed at SpeakEasy Stage Company (Brooklyn Boy), New Repertory Theatre (Orson's Shadow, A Boston Marriage), and the Public in NYC (The Haggadah, by Elizabeth Swados and Julie Taymor). Upcoming are Arabian Nights and Mr. g, based on the novel by Alan Lightman: www.centralsquaretheater.org.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT - MONICA BAUER was the 2006 Teaching Fellow in the Graduate Playwriting Program at Boston University where she received an M.A. in Playwriting. Off-Broadway: My Occasion of Sin (Urban Stages) and Lighter (New York Musical Theater Festival). Many productions off-off Broadway, and awards include: Emerging Playwright Award from Urban Stages (My Occasion of Sin); Outstanding Script at the Midtown International Theater Festival (The Higher Education of Khalid Amir); Best Production of a Staged Reading at Planet Connections Theater Festivity (Porter's Will); Heideman Award finalist for Answering. Recent productions: My Occasion of Sin (Detroit Rep); Made for Each Other and The Year I Was Gifted (Edinburgh Fringe Festival); The Maternal Instinct (Finalist, New Writing Prize, Brighton Fringe Festival). Plays published by Heuer, Brooklyn, and e-published at Indie Theater Now. Last summer, Bauer performed her autobiographical solo show The Year I Was Gifted at the Whitney Arts Center in Pittsfield, Mass. www.monicabauer.com

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR - MEGAN SCHY GLEESON is honored to be back with all the wonderful people of BPT! Last year she directed BPT's Absence by Peter M. Floyd. The play was nominated for an Elliot Norton Award for Best New Script; the production was invited to do a staged reading at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Additional directing credits: Protocol at New Repertory Theatre's Festival of New Voices; OMP Festival; Boston Theater Marathon; Lesley University's Artist Residency Program; Boston Playwrights' Theatre (New Noises/Massachusetts Young Playwrights' Project as well as the Ground Floor Reading Series); Boston Children's Theatre. Currently she is a director and teacher for Concord Academy's (CA) Performing Arts Program. At CA, she has directed: Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Hairspray, Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid (with an original score), A Streetcar Named Desire, Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, Shakespeare's As You Like It, BAT BOY the musical, William Inge's Picnic and Lorca's Blood Wedding (with an original score). Prior to moving to Boston, Megan worked as an actor, both regionally and in NYC for theatres such as The Public Theatre/NYSF, Playwrights Horizons, Playwrights' Collective, Great Lakes Theatre Festival, New Harmony Project, New Repertory Theatre, among others. Megan is a member of MICHA, the International Michael Chekhov Association. She holds an M.F.A. from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Tremendous gratitude and love to Jeff!

DETAILS:

Chosen Child by Monica Bauer
Directed by Megan Schy Gleeson
October 30-November 22

Three generations of mothers and memories combine to change the fate of a schizophrenic man at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, as he waits for a sister he hardly knows, to fulfill an agreement that was never made. Adoption, desertion, and forgiveness -all this makes up a family. What are the ties that bind?

All performances at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215. Tickets: $30/General Admission - $25/BU Faculty/Staff, Seniors (62+) - $10/Students (with valid ID). Call 866.811.4111 or visit www.bostonplaywrights.org. Subscriptions Available - $50/Adult - $27/Student (25 and under with valid ID).

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