Rover Dramawerks Partners With AACT To Present World Premiere

The American Association of Community Theatre has announced that Rover Dramawerks is producing the AACT NewPlayFest winning play, Proprioception by Marilyn Millstone. The world premiere will open September 10 and run through September 18, 2021 at the Cox Playhouse at 1520 K Ave, Plano, Texas.

Tickets are available at roverdramawerks.com or by calling the box office at 972-849-0358. There is a special pay-what-you-can preview on Thursday, September 9.

In Proprioception, two patients meet in a physical therapy office: a young prima ballerina with a torn ACL and a chip on her shoulder; and an elderly, widowed Holocaust survivor, estranged from her only child. When their physical therapist decides that the two women should share appointments, attachments form, conflicts erupt, secrets surface, and lives unravel. Proprioception is a play about how we heal - and how we don't.

Founded in October of 2000, Rover Dramawerks presents treasures, new and rediscovered: theatre "off the beaten path." For the first five years, Rover Dramawerks was homeless and "roving." In addition to a season of mainstage shows, Rover Dramawerks presents a 365 Women a Year festival, an annual 10-minute comedy contest, a One Day Only 24-hour play festival, and youth plays for actors ages 10-18 each season.

Carol M. Rice directs Rover Dramawerks's world premiere production of Proprioception. The cast features Jason R. Davis, Sue Doty-Goodner, Bennett Frohock, and Jill Lightfoot. The production crew includes stage management by Sara Jones, scenic design by Rustin Rolen, costume design by Stacy Winsett, lighting design by Kenneth Hall, sound design by Robbi D. Holman, properties design by Kristin M. Burgess, and dramaturgy by Kathy Pingel and David Cockerell.

AACT NewPlayFest addresses the critical need for new, high-quality plays for community theatre audiences around the globe. This AACT playwriting competition is unique with the guarantee that an established theatre will produce each play as a world premiere, and that Dramatic Publishing Company will publish the script in an anthology of winning plays. Dramatic Publishing, one of the major licensers of plays and musicals in the United States and beyond, includes the winning plays in their catalog and licenses the performance rights.

Playwright Marilyn Millstone lives in Kensington, Maryland. The award-winning playwriting is rooted in her background as a news and feature journalist and essayist. Her full-length dramas, one-acts, ten-minute plays, and monologues have been produced by Barrington Stage (MA), Birdhouse Theatre (GA), Chagrin Valley Little Theatre (OH), Fells Point Corner Theatre (MD), Silver Spring Stage (MD), Hudson Warehouse (NYC), the West Side Show Room (IL), the End of the Road New Play Festival (AL), and the Short & Sweet Festivals in Sydney and Dubai. Holder of an M.F.A. in playwriting from Spalding University, Millstone's first full-length play, the semi-historical drama The Sculptress, was produced by Baltimore's Fells Point Corner Theatre and won two prizes at the 2011 Baltimore Playwrights Festival. Her short play, Compos Mentis, has been produced eight times (six times in America and twice abroad) and won numerous awards. Two of her plays had world premieres in 2018: her one-act comedy, Birthday Girl, at the Silver Spring Stage One-Act Play Festival, and her short drama Play Date, at the Rockford New Play Festival. Two of Millstone's monologues were selected for Best Women's Monologues of 2019, published by Smith and Kraus.

The AACT NewPlayFest world premiere production of Proprioception, by Marilyn Millstone at Rover Dramawerks is made possible in part by a grant from the Jack K. Ayre and Frank Ayre Lee Theatre Foundation, created by the children of Frank Ayre Lee as a tribute to their father, and a legacy for the creative endeavors of his cousin Jack, who participated in theatre productions at Drew University in New Jersey and at a community theatre in Connecticut in his younger years. Mr. Lee was also an avid aficionado of theatre and had dabbled in playwriting. The family is pleased to honor both men through a lasting legacy promoting new works for theatre through AACT NewPlayFest.

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