Photo Preview: Rubicon Theatre's BECOMING INGRID

In May RTP participated in the Dept. of Cultural Affairs' Incubator Series, where we developed Becoming Ingrid and presented it to the community in a workshop performance at the end of the month. Our audience had a chance to see a "work in progress" and voIce Their opinions and reactions during a post-show discussion which were further incorporated into our final production.
RTP collaborates once again with playwright Liza Lentini, having previously worked with Lentini on the world premiere production of Brain Children in 2006 and on the Kassi Dallmann Short Play Festival in 2008.

Becoming Ingrid opens on Thursday, 11/12/09 at 7:30PM. The remaining performances are Thursdays - Sundays at 7:30PM, with the following exceptions: No performances 11/26 (Thursday) or 11/27 (Friday), due to the Thanksgiving holiday with an additional performance on Sunday, 11/22 at 3pm. Becoming Ingrid closes on Saturday, 12/5/09 and will have a special 6pm curtain time to accommodate our annual Ugly Holiday Sweater Benefit to immediately follow the performance. Combo tickets for the performance and benefit can be purchased for $40. All other ticket prices are $10-20 with industry nights on Thursdays and Sundays. All tickets go on sale 10/1/09. Press representatives are invited to receive two complimentary tickets for any performance opening weekend 11/12/09-11/15/09. For reservations, call Rubicon Theatre Project at 773.466.1835. For more information on Becoming Ingrid, or Rubicon Theatre Project, please visit www.rubicontheatreproject.org, email rubicontheatreproject@yahoo.com or call 773.466.1835.
About the Playwright: When she was just nineteen, Liza Lentini's surreal drama The C Zone was chosen as a Regional ACTF participant alongside John Russell's Stupid Kids. That same year she received her first professional production in Boston of The Low Road to Phoenix, which was selected by the Boston Phoenix as one of their weekly must sees.

In 1994 Liza entered the MFA program at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where she focused on historical/biographical drama and took away three Christian H. Moe Awards for the following plays: Little Switzerland, Woodhull, and Ninon & the School of Gallantry. In 2005 she was included in the most recent edition of the book Creating Historical Drama.

She has been Playwright in Residence with both Bowling Green State University (2002) and Silk Rd. Theatre Co. (1999), was a Playwriting Fellow with the Playwrights Theater of New York (1998) and received a commission from the Alliance of Downtown New York (1998) to write a play about 19th Century immigration. She is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, such as The Pinter Review Prize for Drama, Trusts Playwrights' Festival, Playwrights First, Great Platte River Playwrights' Festival, the Lillian Hellman Prize for Drama, and the Siena College International Playwriting Contest, among others. In 2007, Liza was chosen as Manhattan Repertory Theatre's Playwright in Residence.

Liza came to New York in 1997 and has worked with such companies as The Women's Project and Productions, CAP 21, Expanded Arts, and The John Montgomery Theatre Company. In December of 1999, she was selected as a featured playwright in the Showbusiness Weekly Discovery Series, where they produced a reading of her play Roxy Font. In 2001 her absurdist comedy Psychotic & Weird (but enough about me) was produced at the Canal Café Theatre in London, where it was hailed by What's On London as "surreal and sexy". Over the years, her work has been staged regionally by such theaters as Chicago Dramatists, Camenae Ensemble, Stockyards Theatre Project, The Raven, and the Civic Theatres of Central Florida. In the spring of 2006, Rubicon Theatre Project produced the World Premiere of Brain Children, praised by critics as "convincing and funny...there are plenty of laughs in this flashback to the early 80's encapsulating pivotal moments of preadolescent angst."

New York City productions include, Psychotic & Weird (but enough about me) at the American Theatre of Actors, Life in Exodus at the Milagro Theatre, and an extended run of Drowning in Euphoria at Off-Broadway's McGinn/Cazale Theatre, which Showbusiness Weekly called "poignant and haunting...almost musical."

In 2007, Roxy Font was produced by Crazytown Productions and FringeNYC at the Cherry Lane Theatre, and was named one of the Top Five Fringe Shows by New York Magazine and also won a Fringe Award for Best Ensemble. (Daily Candy, Time Out New York, BroadwayBullet, Broadway World)

The Enthusiast was produced at New York City's P.S. 122 in the spring of 2008, and Liza had two plays produced in FringeNYC 2008: Thumbelina (FringeJR, New York Sun, NYTheatre.com, Backstage, EDGE) and Woodhull: A Play About the Woman Who Ran for President. (TimeOutNY) In June 2009, Manhattan Rep produced LIZAFEST!, a week-long tribute featuring 9 of her early works.

Liza is the Creative Director of Elephant Ensemble Theater which brings children's theater to New York City hospitals. She is a regular panelist and lecturer on women in the arts, and holds an MFA in Playwriting from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Photos by Bridget Schultz.

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