Free Reading of LIDLESS, 2009 winner of the Yale Drama Series

Yale Repertory Theater (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) will present a reading of the 2009 winner of the Yale Drama Series, LIDLESS by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, directed by Hal Brooks, on Monday, September 21 at 7:30PM at the Iseman Theater.

LIDLESS is about a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who journeys to the home of his female US Army interrogator 15 years after his detention, demanding half her liver for the damage she wreaked on his body and soul.

The cast includes Laura Esposito, Lameece Issaq,
and Kate Nowlin.

In addition to the reading at Yale Rep, playwright Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig will receive the David C. Horn Prize of $10,000 and LIDLESS will be published by Yale University Press.

The reading is free and open to the public. Reservations
are strongly encouraged. Please call (203) 432-7087 or email dramaseries@yale.edu.

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (Playwright) is the recipient of the 2009 Keene Prize for Literature, the 2008 Glimmer Train New Writer's Award, and grants from the Playwrights' Center, Interact Theatre, Santa Fe Art Institute, the Ragdale Foundation, and the MacDowell Colony. Her work has been developed by the Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, PlayPenn, Ojai Playwrights Conference, the Alley Theatre, and the Open Fist Theatre. In 2010, her work will be published by Glimmer Train. She received her MFA in Writing from the James A. Michener Center for Writers, her BA in Sociology from Brown University, and a certificate in Ensemble Created Physical Theatre from the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. She was raised in Philadelphia, Northern Virginia, Okinawa, Taipei, and Beijing.

Hal Brooks (Director) directed the national tour of Nilaja Sun's Obie Award-winning No Child... which performed at Berkeley Rep, Woolly Mammoth, American Repertory Theatre, Lookingglass and the Kirk Douglas Theater, after a year-long, critically-lauded run at both the Barrow Street Theatre and Epic Theatre in New York City. He also directed the acclaimed Off-Broadway hit and Pulitzer finalist Thom Pain (based on nothing) by Will Eno at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Soho Theatre in London, and the DR2 in New York. Other recent productions include My Name is Asher Lev (Marin Theatre Company), Precious Little (Clubbed Thumb), Itamar Moses's Back Back Back (Dallas Theater Center), Lady by Craig Wright (Asolo Rep), the premiere of Lee Blessing's Lonesome Hollow (Contemporary American Theater Festival), "MASTER HAROLD"...and the boys (Weston Playhouse), and James Braly's Life in a Marital Institution (59 E 59, Soho Playhouse). He was the Artistic Director of the Rude Mechanicals Theater Company of New York where he directed the Off-Broadway premieres of Don DeLillo's Valparaiso and Will Eno's The Flu Season (Oppy winner). This summer, Hal developed plays at PlayPenn (Mary Hamilton's We Three), Cape Cod Theater Project (Aladdin Ullah's Indio), and at the Ojai Playwrights Conference (Bill Cain's How to Write a New Book for the Bible). Hal is a proud member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and SSDC. He was a Drama League Fall Directing Fellow in 2003 and is a recipient of the 2007-2009 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors.

The Yale Drama Series, jointly sponsored by Yale University Press and Yale Repertory Theatre, is generously funded by the David Charles Horn Foundation. Edward Albee served as the first judge of the series and selected the 2007 and 2008 recipients: The Boys from Siam by John Austin Connolly and Grenadine by Neil Wechsler, respectively.

The judge for the 2009 and 2010 competitions is David Hare. The winner of many awards on both sides of the Atlantic, David Hare is one of Britain's best-known playwrights. Ten of his plays have been presented on Broadway, including Plenty, Skylight, Amy's View, The Blue Room, The Judas Kiss, Via Dolorosa, and The Vertical Hour.

The David Charles Horn Foundation was established in 2003 by Francine Horn to honor the memory of her late husband. David Horn was the publisher and CEO of Here & There, the leading international forecasting and reporting publication for the fashion industry. Ms. Horn
created the Foundation to support new initiatives in the literary and dramatic arts to commemorate her husband's lifetime commitment to the written word. www.dchornfoundation.org

Founded in 1908, Yale University Press is one of the largest and most distinguished American university presses. It publishes over 320 books a year in a wide range of disciplines, including history, literature, drama, art and architecture, American studies, philosophy, politics, religion, reference, music, and the sciences. www.yalebooks.com 

A champion of new work, Yale Repertory Theatre has produced well over 100 world, American, and regional premieres-including two Pulitzer Prize winners and four other nominated finalists-by emerging and established playwrights. Eleven Yale Rep productions have advanced to Broadway, garnering more than 40 Tony Award® nominations and eight Tony Awards, and Yale Rep itself is the recipient of the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. In its 42-year history, Yale Repertory Theatre has produced the world premieres of plays by David Adjmi, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Lee Blessing, Christopher Durang, Jules Feiffer, Athol Fugard, Marcus Gardley, Kama Ginkas, John Guare, Albert Innuarato, Walton Jones, Adrienne Kennedy, Arthur Kopit, Sunil Thomas Kuruvilla, Wendy MacLeod, Julie McKee, Terrence McNally, Richard Nelson, Suzan-Lori Parks, David Rabe, Keith Reddin, José Rivera, Sarah Ruhl, Sam Shepard, William Styron, Derek Walcott, August Wilson, and Doug Wright, among many others. www.yalerep.org 

 

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