Delaware REP Presents New Comedy By Chisa Hutchinson

Playwright Chisa Hutchinson is known for wrapping her pointed, socially probing plays with irreverence and bawdy humor, mixing hot-button issues with barbed comedy to both provoke and entertain.

The Resident Ensemble Players (REP), Delaware's professional acting company performing at the University of Delaware, brings Ms. Hutchinson's newest play, From the Author Of, to their stage November 9 through December 3, where Ms. Hutchinson spins a saucy, sexy comedy about homelessness and privilege to take a wry look at the haves and have-nots in New York City.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Meredith Renner, has made millions on her nonfiction writings about other people's lives, with little consideration of the consequences. When the press calls her out in scathing reviews of her most recent book on the homeless, Meredith's savvy assistant, Samara, formulates a secret plan to save Meredith's career. A pompous PR guru, a homeless phone-sex worker and a secret lover set the stage, but can Meredith pull her head out of her self-centered universe before she's the only one left in it?

"Chisa has a really interesting way of creating these worlds where you walk in and by the end of the play you go 'Oh! Well THAT's not what I expected!'" says the play's director, Jade King Carroll. "I've worked with Chisa on a number of her plays. With this one, she has a way of dealing with poignant topics but shapes the story like a situational comedy, which is an exciting juxtaposition."

REP Producing Artistic Director, Sanford Robbins, commissioned Ms. Hutchinson to create a new work specifically for the resident acting company. "We are dedicated to performing both classic and modern plays," says Mr. Robbins, "but there is something uniquely exciting about producing a new play. Performing a work that has never been seen or heard by anyone before is a daunting, yet thrilling, prospect."

Performances begin Thursday, November 9, and run through Sunday, December 3, in the Thompson Theatre at the University's Roselle Center for the Arts in Newark, Delaware.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.rep.udel.edu, by phone at 302-831-2204 or in person at the REP box office in the Roselle Center for the Arts.

From The Author Of runs approximately ninety-five minutes, with no intermission. The play contains frequent profanity, graphic language, strong sexual content and is recommended for mature audiences.

REP productions are supported, in part, by the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

SCHEDULE AND TICKETS

From The Author Of begins previews November 9, opens Saturday, November 11 and runs through Sunday, December 3.

Single tickets are $26-$31, with discounts available for seniors, full-time students, military, and groups of 10 or more. For tickets, call the REP box office at 302-831-2204, www.rep.udel.edu or visit the box office in the Roselle Center for the Arts, 110 Orchard Rd, Newark, DE.

A convenient parking garage is attached to the Roselle Center.

A complete schedule, directions and information on purchasing tickets can be found at www.rep.udel.edu or by calling the REP box office at 302-831-2204.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Chisa Hutchinson's socially probing plays, which include She Like Girls, Sex on Sunday, The Subject, Dead and Breathing, and Somebody's Daughter among others, have been presented by such venues as City Parks' Summerstage, The Lark, the National Black Theater, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Atlantic Theater Company and it's Stage 2 Theater. She's won a GLAAD Award, the John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, the Paul Green Award, a Helen Merrill Award, the Lanford Wilson Award, and has been a finalist for the highly coveted PoNY Fellowship. She's also been a Lark Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a resident at the William Inge Center for the Arts, a New York NeoFuturist, a staff writer for the Blue Man Group, a Humanitas Fellow, and most recently, Resident Playwright at Second Stage Theater. In addition to venturing into screenwriting, Chisa is currently a proud fourth-year year member of New Dramatists and a Creative Writing Professor at the University of Delaware. (B.A. Vassar College; M.F.A NYU - Tisch School of the Arts)

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Called one of the "People to Watch" by American Theatre Magazine, Jade King Carroll is both a sought-after director of August Wilson's Century Cycle and a tremendous champion of new work. Regionally she has directed Sex on Sunday (BE Company @ Urban Stages) and Alondra Was Here (The Wild Project) both by Chisa Hutchinson; Intimate Apparel (McCarter Theatre); Hartford Stage: The Piano Lesson, Having Our Say (co-production with Long Wharf Theatre); Autumn's Harvest (Lincoln Center Institute); A Trouble in Mind (Two River Theater and Playmaker's Rep); Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Whipping Man (Portland Stage); The Piano Lesson (McCarter Theatre); Sunset Baby (City Theatre); A Raisin In The Sun (Juilliard and Perseverance); The Tempest (Chatauqua Theater Company); Seven Guitars (People's Light and Theatre and Point Park University); King Hedley (Portland Playhouse); Mr Chickee's Funny Money (Atlantic Theater); Janice Underwater (Premiere Stages); The Etymology of Bird (CitiParks Summer Stages); The Piano Lesson (Cape Fear Regional Theater); Cherry Smoke (Theatre Row); The Basset Table (Adelphi); Marisol (NYCDA); Black Girl, You've Been Gentrified (Joe's Pub); Radio Golf (Penn State); The History of Light, Samuel JandK, The Summer House (Passage Theatre); The Persians, Splittin' the Raft (People's Light and Theatre); Spit (Intar); TopDog/Underdog (WVU); and A Member of the Wedding (Tennessee Williams Theater Festival in Provincetown). She served as Associate Director on Broadway for A Streetcar Named Desire and The Gin Game.

Jade has developed new works with such playwrights as Chisa Hutchinson, Aurin Squire, Dominique Morriseau Kirsten Greenidge, Jonathan Payne, Kia Corthron, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Joshua Allen, Kara Lee Corthron, James Mcmanus, Darren Cannady, Nikole Salter, Jocelyn Bioh, Tom Matthew Wolfe, Keith Joseph Adkins, Janine Nabers, Kelli Goff, Don X. Nguyen, C.A Johnson, Rob Zellers, and Liza Jessie Peterson, culminating with readings and workshops at New York Theatre Workshop, The O'Neill Theater Center, McCarter Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Huntington Theatre, Two River Theatre, New Dramatists, Second Stage Theatre, The Lark, Primary Stages, Time Warner New Play Festival, LABryinth, PlayPenn, Joe's Pub, Goethe Institute, Dramatist's Guild, Premiere Stages, The New Black Fest, New Jersey Rep, Luna Stage, Playwright's Realm, Ars Nova, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Naked Angels, NYMF, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Lincoln Center Institute, among many others.

In 2010 Jade was presented with the Paul Green Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Professional from the National Theatre Conference and The Estate of August Wilson. Past fellowships and awards include TCG New Generations Future Leader, New York Theatre Workshop, Van Lier, Second Stage Theatre, Women's Project, McCarter Theatre and Gates Millennium Scholar.

ABOUT THE REP

The Resident Ensemble Players (REP) is a professional theatre company located at the University of Delaware. The REP's mission is to engage audiences throughout the tri-state region with frequent productions of outstanding classic, modern and contemporary plays performed in a wide variety of styles that celebrate and demonstrate the range and breadth of each resident actor in this ensemble of nationally respected stage actors who have been trained in the same way.

The REP is committed to create future audiences for live theatre by offering its productions at low prices that enable and encourage the attendance of everyone in the region, regardless of income.

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