Steve Yockey's THE THRUSH & THE WOODPECKER to Make NNPN Rolling World Premiere This Season

The National New Play Network, the country's alliance of nonprofit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, announces THE THRUSH & THE WOODPECKER by Steve Yockey as its 55th Rolling World Premiere (RWP).

This is Mr. Yockey's fifth RWP with the Network and the first time one playwright has had two Rolls in one season. It will be performed in repertory with the NNPN RWP of Yockey's Blackberry Winter at Core Members Actor's Express (Atlanta, GA, October 31-November 15, 2015) and Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas, TX, May 27-June 25, 2016). THRUSH will complete its RWP at Associate Member The Custom Made Theatre Company (San Francisco, CA) in August 2016.

In this modern revenge play, Brenda Hendriks has her hands full dealing with her son Noah after he is expelled from a prestigious college and unexpectedly returns to their isolated Northern California home. When a mysterious woman arrives on their doorstep, Brenda and Noah find their world turned upside down in ways both intimate and epic.

Steve Yockey is a Los Angeles based writer with work produced throughout the country, Europe, and Asia. His plays Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, CARTOON, Subculture, Very Still & Hard to See, The Fisherman's Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, and Niagara Falls & Other Plays are published and available from Samuel French. He was one of two writers selected for the US/Australia playwright exchange in February 2013, sponsored by the National New Play Network and Playwriting Australia. Steve holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He currently contributes issues to the Zenescope comic book series Grimm Tales of Terror and writes on HBO's The Brink. newplayexchange.org/steve-yockey

Actor's Express (Atlanta, GA) offers original voices and new perspectives that reflect Atlanta's diverse and evolving community. Founded in 1988, The Express has proven itself the most adventurous producing theater in Atlanta, by offering audiences a diverse and artistically challenging program of both World and Southeastern premieres. www.actors-express.com

It is the mission of Kitchen Dog Theater to provide a place where questions of justice, morality, and human freedom can be explored. We choose plays that challenge our moral and social consciences, invite our audiences to be provoked, challenged, and amazed. We believe that the theater is a site of individual discovery as well as a force against conventional views of the self and experience. It is not a provider of answers, but an invitation to question. Since theater of this kind is not bound by any tradition, Kitchen Dog Theater is committed to exploring these questions whether they are found in the classics, contemporary works, or new plays. kitchendogtheater.org

The Custom Made Theatre Company is committed to producing plays that awaken our social conscience, focusing on the strength of the ensemble and creating an intimate theatrical experience. The award-winning company, recently relocated to the heart of San Francisco's Union Square theatre district, maintains a reputation for accessibility, be that in its casting policy that provides expanded opportunities for local theatre artists or its commitment to affordable tickets. In addition to NNPN, Custom Made is a member of TCG and serves on the Theatre Services Committee of Theatre Bay Area. custommade.org

The National New Play Network (NNPN) is the country's alliance of non-profit professional theaters dedicated to the development, production, and continued life of new plays. Since its founding in 1998, NNPN has supported more than 160 productions nationwide through its innovative National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere program, which provides playwright and production support for new works. Additional programs - its annual National Conference, National Showcase of New Plays, and MFA Playwrights Workshop; the NNPN Annual and Smith Prize commissions; its residencies for playwrights, producers and directors; and the organization's member accessed Collaboration, Festival, and Travel banks, and online information sessions - have helped cement the Network's position as a vital force in the regional theater landscape. NNPN's programming allows its members and their affiliated artists to create, grow, and share new work across the country and around the world, and it strives to pioneer, implement, and disseminate ideas and programs that revolutionize the way theaters collaborate to support new plays and playwrights. Its most recent project, The New Play Exchange, launched in January of 2015, is already changing the way playwrights share their work and others discover it. NNPN's 31 Core and 69 Associate Members - along with the more than 250 affiliated artists who are its alumni, the thousands of artists and artisans employed annually by its member theaters, and the hundreds of thousands of audience members who see its supported works each year - are creating the new American theater. nnpn.org

Pictured: Actor's Express, 2015, Kathleen Wattis, Matthew Busch, Stacy Melich. Photo by BreeAnne Clowdus.

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