ImprovBoston Presents PLAYBOOK in March and April

This Spring an elite team of improvisers from ImprovBoston will do in 75 minutes what it takes most playwrights years to do. In Playbook, running Friday nights at 10 p.m. from March 15-April 12, some of IBs top improvisers will complete an unfinished script from a known playwright. Tickets cost $18 and $14 for students. They are available online www.improvboston.com. ImprovBoston is located at 40 Prospect Street.

Using the first page of an unfinished script as inspiration, these quick-witted improvisers create a one-act play before the audience's eyes that's as hilarious as it is impressive. The show opens with the cast seeing the set and script for the very first time and the audience helping to cast the roles on the first page. The actors will then read the lines on the first page, drop the scripts when they're done and continue without missing a beat. This inventive form itself relies as much on the skills of the improviser as it does on the improviser's knowledge of play structure and theater presentation. The goal is to put on a show that is hilarious and consistent with the tone and style of the playwright.

The Playbook cast includes: Jackie Arko, Michelle Bonanno, Scot Colford, Anne Colpitts, Christine Cuddy, Chris Duffy, Sasha Goldberg, Emily Holland, Alex LeBaron, Bryce Read, Lori Strauss and Ben Walsh. The show is directed by ImprovBoston's Artistic Director Emeritus Will Luera, who also conceived the form. The show was first produced at ImprovBoston in 2002 and has appeared at festivals, including the 2009 Del Close Marathon at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

"Playbook is a unique opportunity for audiences to explore the intersections of art and comedy, improvisation and writing, head and heart," said ImprovBoston Artistic Director Mike Descoteaux. "We are thrilled to join forces with some of the most exciting playwrights in America to push the limits of improvisation as we know it. "
Playwright Schedule:
March 15 - Jami Brandli
Jami Brandli is an award-winning playwright who has had productions across the country. She was a Visiting Artist at the Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting Intensive, a contributing writer for the Elliot Norton Award-Winning production of PS: Page Me Later, a finalist for the Disney ABC's TV Writing Fellowship, and a Visiting Playwright for the 2009 ATHE Conference. She also has short plays published with Smith & Kraus. Her play, Technicolor Life, was awarded the 2010 John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award and developed at the 2010 WordBRIDGE Playwrights Lab In addition to being a winning play at the 2010 Ashland New Plays Festival, Technicolor Life was also a finalist for the 2010 Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship, the 2010/2011 Global Age Project New Works Program at The Aurora Theatre and the 2011 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.
March 22 - Faith Soloway

Faith Soloway has been hailed by critics and audiences as one of the best and brightest of the Boston area's singer-songwriters. What distinguishes her from the rest of the pack in this crowed scene is the theatrical nature of her shows. Whether singing with her animated, energetic band, The Faith Soloway Crisis, or creating and performing in one of her many comedic "Schlock Operas," Faith has built a very large and very devoted following because she provides the folk-scene with attributes it so desperately needs: humor, showmanship and, most of all, humility.
March 29 - James Ferguson (Boston based Playwright)

With over twenty years of experience, James Ferguson has been hired to write numerous screenplays, blogs and sketch comedy projects; his plays have been produced throughout The United States and in London. He is also the author of two novels. In October of 2012, his short play Ori & Addison was one of 40 plays selected (from over 900 submissions) to participate in The 37th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival at The Beckett Theatre in New York City. Awards include: Best Play, Best Director and Best Actress at The 6th Annual Long Island City One Act Festival, produced by The Secret Theater in NYC; Best Play at Word*Play, produced by InterMedia Arts in MN and Best Play at The Writer Speaks 20 at The Secret Rose Theatre in Los Angeles.
April 5 - Jeff Sweet (writer of Something Wonderful Right Away)

Jeffrey Sweet is an American writer, journalist, songwriter and theatre historian. Sweet has been a playwright, screenwriter, lyricist, critic, journalist, teacher, theatre historian, and sometime songwriter and director. He is a resident member of Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater, where thirteen of his plays-including Flyovers, The Action Against Sol Schumann, The Value of Names, Berlin '45, With and Without, Court-Martial at Fort Devens, and Bluff have been produced. Sweet is also the author of Something Wonderful Right Away (an oral history of Chicago's The Second City), The Dramatist's Toolkit and Solving Your Script.
April 12 - Melinda Lopez (Local award-winning playwright)
Melinda Lopez is a playwright and actress, and was the first recipient of the Charlotte Woolard Award, given by the Kennedy Center to a "promising new voice in American Theatre." Her play Sonia Flew, which was developed and premiered by the Huntington Theatre Company, won the Elliot Norton Award for Best New Play and two IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) Awards for Best Play and Best Production. It has subsequently been produced at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Laguna Playhouse, Ariel Tepper's Summer Play Festival (NY), the Milagro Theatre (Portland, OR), and the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. The play has been broadcast on NPR's "The Play's The Thing!" in a production by L.A. Theatre Works with a cast that included Elizabeth Peña and Hector Elizondo. Most recently, her play Gary was produced at Steppenwolf Theatre's First Look Play Festival in Chicago and, in March 2008, at Boston Playwrights' Theatre where it was nominated for an Elliot Norton Award by the Boston Theatre Critics Association.

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