Victory Gardens to Host 2013 Chicago One-Minute Play Festival, 6/17-18

Victory Gardens and the One-Minute Play Festival (OMPF) present the Third Annual Chicago One-Minute Play Festival, an evening of micro-plays by sixty of Chicago's top playwrights, directed by ten Chicago directors. OMPF benefits the Miller Match campaign and will be presented for two performances only, Monday, June 17 and Tuesday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln Park.

Tickets for the Third Annual Chicago One-Minute Play Festival, $15, are available at www.victorygardens.org/. Proceeds will benefit Victory Gardens as part of The Miller Match campaign.

Dominic D'Andrea, Producing Artistic Director and Founder of the OMPF, along with 60 Chicago playwrights and ten Chicago directors, returns to present these one-minute plays. Following sold-out performances the last two seasons, this year's festival will be an even larger, more inclusive, and more ambitious collaboration between VG and OMPF. The Festival will showcase Chicago's growing pool of exceptional contemporary writers, including some of the most important artistic voices in the nation.

"Chicago is the greatest city in America. Chicago is the greatest theatre city in America," reflects Dominic D'Andrea, "The OMPF that we make in partnership with Victory Gardens and in collaboration with the wider Chicago community is hands down the most fun and engaging festival we will do out of all of our 13 national partnerships. It's also the largest. I love Chicago. I love this community. It's good to be back again!"

In addition to the one-minute plays, a workshop will be held on Sunday, June 16 at 1 p.m. D'Andrea and Victory Gardens' Geoffrey Jackson Scott will offer a one day dialogue and consensus building workshop exploring the questions: Who Are We? What is our relationship to each other? To our work? To the city that we live in? This active workshop will use the conventions of story circles, open space technology, visual representations, and other activities to create conditions for dialogue, active listening, and the identification of assets and actions. The session is free, open to all OMPF artists, and the wider public. Space is limited to 60 participants. To register, email rsvp2@victorygardens.org by June 14, 2013.

This year's Festival will feature work commissioned by: David Cerda, Phillip Dawkins, Lonnie Carter, Randall Colburn, Dana Lynn Formby, Stephen Grush, Patrick McLean, Joel Drake Johnson, Bilal Dardai, Usman Ally, Laura Jacqmin, Mike Ervin, Seth Bockley, Evan Linder, Jake Minton, Nick Patricca, Jonathan Verge, Arlene Malinowski, Nambi E. Kelley, Robert Tenges, Carlos Murillo, Emily Schwartz, Reeny Hofricher, Joe Wescott, Scott T. Barsotti, Joe Zarrow, Rachel Claff , Aaron Weissman, Jon Steinhagen, Edgar Sanchez, Brian Golden, Leean Torsky, Ike Holter , Tanya Saracho, S.L. Daniels, Calamity West, Tim Paul, Joel Kim Booster, Dani Bryant , Emma Stanton, Rachel Caris-Love, Stephen Ptacek, Andrew Bailes, Axel Arth, Jenny Seidelman, Francesca Peppiatt, Reginald Edmund, Caroline Moseley, Tiffany Swalley, Andrew Bayiates, Alex Lubischer, Carolyn Kras, Tony Werner, Dan Caffrey, Brooke Allen, Lily Mooney, Tania Richard, and more.

Directors include Will Rogers, Jeffrey Stanton, Jess McLeod, Jason Gerace, Adam Webster, Sydney Chatman, Sarah Gitenstein, James Palmer, Lavina Jadhwani, and Scott Weinstein.

The Festival is curated by OMPF Producing Artistic Director and Founder, Dominic D'Andrea.

For more information, please visit www.oneminuteplayfestival.com. For breaking news about the Festival, follow @victorygardens and @dominicdandrea on Twitter.

Proceeds from the Third Annual Chicago One-Minute Play Festival will go toward the Miller Match campaign. In February 2013, VG announced a generous $350,000 gift from Steven and Diane Miller. President of the Victory Gardens Board since July 2012, Steve Miller has been involved with the organization since the late 1990s. He joined as a board member in 2008. His gift marked the single largest individual contribution in the Theater's thirty-eight year history. Miller, Principal and Co-founder of Origin Ventures, structured his gift as a match to encourage and inspire both long-time and new supporters to make philanthropic gifts to Victory Gardens.

Parking: $11 valet parking is available for all performances except weekday matinees. Metered and street parking is available, but mind the neighborhood parking restrictions.

Public transit: By CTA train, take the Red, Purple or Brown lines to the Fullerton stop. Walk east on Fullerton to Lincoln, then north 1/2 block to the theater. The #8 Halsted, #11 Lincoln, #37 Sedgwick/Ogden, and #74 Fullerton CTA buses all stop at the corner of Fullerton and Halsted, 1/2 block south of the theater. Please see transitchicago.com for times and routes.

Pre- and post-show dining: See www.victorygardens.org for a list of Victory Gardens' neighborhood dining partners. Each is within walking distance of the Biograph and all offer a special discount to patrons who present a Victory Gardens ticket stub.

About the One-Minute Play Festival (OMPF): The One-­Minute Play Festival (OMPF) is an NYC-based theatre company, founded by Producing Artistic Director Dominic D'Andrea. OMPF works in partnership with theatres and organizations in cities across the country who share missions devoted to new plays and/or a community-specific focus. In each city, OMPF creates a locally sourced, playwright-focused community event with the goal of promoting the spirit of radical inclusion by representing local playwrights of varied age, gender, race, culture, and status.

The work attempts to reflect the theatrical landscape of local artistic communities by creating a dialogue between the collective consciousness and the individual voice. It strives to give a voice, through theater, to the current collective conscious found in a specific region.

Some notable contributors to OMPF have included: David Henry Hwang, Neil LaBute, Tina Howe, Donald Margulies, Nilaja Sun, Lydia Diamond, Phillip Kan Gotanda, Michael John Garces, Kristoffer Diaz, Rajiv Joseph, Sam Hunter, Jose Rivera, Lisa Loomer, Craig Lucas, Greg Kotis, Michael John Garces, along with over 500 famous and emerging writers.

About Victory Gardens Theater: Under the leadership of Artistic Director Chay Yew, Victory Gardens is dedicated to artistic excellence while creating a vital, contemporary American Theater that is accessible and relevant to all people through productions of challenging new plays and musicals. With Victory Gardens' first new Artistic Director in 34 years, the company remains committed to the development, production and support of new plays that has been the mission of the theater since its founding, continuing the vision set forth by Dennis Zacek, Marcelle McVay, and the original founders of Victory Gardens Theater.

Victory Gardens Theater is a leader in developing and producing new theatre work and cultivating an inclusive Chicago theater community. Victory Gardens' core strengths are nurturing and producing dynamic and inspiring new plays that reflect the diversity of our city's and our nation's culture. The Theater partners with Chicago Public Schools to engage diverse communities and bring art and culture to our city'sactive student population.

Since its founding in 1974, the company has produced more world premieres than any other Chicago theater, a commitment recognized nationally when Victory Gardens received the 2001 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Victory Gardens Biograph Theater is located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and includes the Zacek-McVay Theater, a state-of-the-art 299-seat mainstage and the 109-seat Richard Christiansen Theater, a studio theater on the second floor.

In 2012, Victory Gardens appointed new Ensemble Playwrights Philip Dawkins, Marcus Gardley, Samuel D. Hunter and Tanya Saracho, for seven-year residencies. The Playwrights Ensemble Alumni includes Claudia Allen, Lonnie Carter, Steve Carter, Gloria Bond Clunie, Dean Corrin, Nilo Cruz, Joel Drake Johnson, John Logan, Nicholas Patricca, Douglas Post, James Sherman, Charles Smith, Jeffrey Sweet and Kristine Thatcher.

For more information about Victory Gardens Theater, visit www.victorygardens.org. Follow up on Facebook at facebook.com/victorygardensand Twitter @victorygardens.

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