'99 AND UNDER' Featured On CUNY TV 12/7 & 12/12

The American Theatre Wing's "Working in the Theatre" will feature "99 and Under" on CUNY TV on Sunday, December 7 at 5 p.m. The segment will repeat on Friday, December 12 at 9 a.m., 2 and 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, December 13 at 11 a.m. The program becomes available as streaming audio and podcast from www.americantheatrewing.org beginning Wednesday, December 10.

Guests Jonathan Bank, Artistic Director of The Mint Theater; Sarah Benson, Artistic Director of Soho Rep.; Susan Bernfield, Artistic Director of New Georges; and David Van Asselt, Artistic Director of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater all share the distinction of running theatres that are quite different from Broadway...venues with 99 seats or under. They discuss their mission statements and how each of their companies got started; making sure they are able to balance new voices in playwriting with more established writers when choosing and presenting plays; how, instead of competing with one another, their companies serve as resources for each other; the wealth of material, and talent, available to them; who their base audiences are and marketing strategies for broadening that base; funding challenges, particularly in difficult financial times; the pros and cons of subscriptions for their companies; how pricing structure for their smaller theatres affects the bottom line; and their goals for expansion beyond their current theatre size.

Jonathan Bank has been the artistic director of Mint since 1996 where he has unearthed and produced dozens of lost or neglected plays, many of which he has also directed. Most recently at the Mint, Jonathan directed the American Professional Premiere of The Fifth Column by Ernest Hemingway. Other recent productions at the Mint include The Return of the Prodigal by St. John Hankin and Susan and God by Rachel Crothers. Jonathan both adapted and directed Arthur Schnitzler's Far and Wide and The Lonely Way which he also co-translated (with Margaret Schaefer). These two plays were published in a volume entitled "Arthur Schnitzler Reclaimed" which Bank edited. He is also the editor of two additional volumes in the "Reclaimed" series (Harley Granville Barker and St. John Hankin) as well as "Worthy But Neglected: Plays of the Mint Theater Company" which includes his adaptations of Thomas Wolfe's Welcome to Our City and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, both of which he directed, along with five other Mint rediscoveries.

Sarah Benson, Artistic Director at Soho Rep, is a native of the U.K. She moved to New York on a Fulbright Award, and has directed and developed new plays by Erin Courtney at NY Stage and Film, Heidi Schreck at Soho Rep Lab, Jake Hooker at La MaMa ETC, along with new works by emerging playwrights Jason Grote, Jonathan Bernstein, and B. Walker Sampson. Benson has also helmed the Prelude Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center for the most recent two seasons with Frank Hentschker and has been responsible for doubling audience attendance. In 2008, she will curate a new festival of contemporary American theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. At Soho Rep, she has co-chaired the theatre's celebrated Writer/Director Lab, as well as directed its current Off-Broadway hit production of Sarah Kane's Blasted.

Susan Bernfield is the founder and artistic director of New Georges, an award-winning nonprofit theater company which produces ambitiously theatrical new plays downtown and provides an artistic home to some of the most adventurous theater artists (who are women) working today. Since 1992, she has produced 32 new plays off‑off Broadway (including works by Sheila Callaghan, Jenny Schwartz, Diana Son, Kate Moira Ryan, Lisa D'Amour, Tracey Scott Wilson and Neena Beber), ten festivals of new work, and countless shorter works, performance pieces and works‑in‑progress. Susan is also a playwright and solo performer whose plays have been presented or developed at, among others, O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Horizons, HB Playwrights, New York Theatre Workshop, Magic Theatre, Adirondack Theatre Festival and, of course, New Georges, where her play Stretch (a fantasia) premiered earlier this year. Susan is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and trained as an actor at Circle in the Square Professional Workshop. She serves on the LCT3 Brain Bank, an advisory council to Lincoln Center Theater's new emerging artists initiative, and as a Vice President on the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Resident Theaters/New York (A.R.T./New York).

David Van Asselt is the Artistic Director and a co-founder of Rattlestick Productions, Inc. and has extensive experience in the theater. His works include: Dog Daze, Incident at Irving's Pet Place, (a radio play), A Trip to the Beach, Winning, and The Messenger. He has also directed plays, led a playwrights' group, and taught playwriting, as well as designed and built sets. His plays have been produced in New York, Washington D.C., Virginia, and Arizona. Van Asselt has a B.F.A. from NYU Film Schools and a Masters degree in Philosophy from NYU.

The program is moderated by Gordon Cox, Theatre Reporter from Variety.

The ATW "Working in the Theatre" panels bring together theatre's best-known performers, producers, playwrights, directors, choreographers, composers, agents and others for peer-to-peer conversation about the art, the craft and the business of theatre.

CUNY TV is a cable channel serving the five boroughs of New York City with educational, cultural and public affairs programs. As part of The City University of New York, CUNY TV operates as a non-commercial station. Its mission is to extend the academic and intellectual richness of the University beyond the campuses and to offer New York City residents a haven for lifelong learning experiences through television.

About The American Theatre Wing

The American Theatre Wing is best known as the creator of the Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards®, which it presents annually with The Broadway League. The Wing's other activities, dedicated to recognizing excellence and supporting education in theatre, include "Working in the Theatre," now in its 30th year of telecasts on CUNY TV in New York and on other national cable outlets; "Downstage Center," an hour-long weekly interview program on XM Satellite Radio; "Guides to Careers in the Theatre," a video series developed for schools and libraries; a grants and scholarship program to New York City schools and not-for-profit theatre companies, which has granted nearly $3 million since its inception; the Theatre Intern Group, a career development program for young professionals; and SpringboardNYC, a two-week college-to-career boot camp for young performers moving to NYC; and the Jonathan Larson® Grants, recognizing and supporting emerging writers of musical theatre. Visitors to www.americantheatrewing.org can view or download an archive of "Working in the Theatre" and the career guides and listen to "Downstage Center", all as free, on-demand streaming audio and podcast. Theodore S. Chapin is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Theatre Wing and Howard Sherman is Executive Director.

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