DCTC Announces Colorado New Play Summit Lineup

The Denver Center Theatre Company (DCTC) today announced of the lineup of playwrights and directors for its Seventh Annual Colorado New Play Summit. Over three days, February 10 -12, 2012 in downtown Denver, DCTC will present multiple showings of four play readings, a multimedia workshop and two fully-produced main stage plays, including new works by Pulitzer nominee Lisa Loomer, 2011 Obie winner Samuel D. Hunter, and direction by Broadway veterans Marcia Milgrom Dodge (Ragtime) and Sam Buntrock (Sunday in the Park with George). 

The Summit also includes the Playwrights’ Slam, a late night gathering where invited playwrights read excerpts from their latest in-progress works. Members of the public are invited to join with artistic directors, literary managers, dramaturges, directors, and press representatives who travel from across the country to view the latest works by both well-established and exciting new voices in American theatre. Full Summit passes, which include guaranteed seating at all readings, admission to the two world premieres, plus meals, receptions, and discounts to nearby downtown Denver hotels, are now available.

For more information and Summit registration, patrons can visit www.denvercenter.org/summit or call 303.893.6030.

Artistic Director Kent Thompson, Director of New Play Development Bruce Sevy and Literary Manager Douglas Langworthy have selected the following new works to present in 2012:

Reading:

 

SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL

Based on the novel by Jane Austen

Book and Lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow Music by Neal Hampton

Directed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge

Director/Choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge, whose recent Broadway revival of Ragtime received critical accolades and seven Tony Award nominations, including Best Direction of a Musical, will helm this stunning new adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. Jeffrey Haddow (book/lyrics) is a winner of the BMI Harrington Award for Creative Achievement. His other works include the musical revue, Scrambled Feet, which ran two years Off-Broadway and was produced as a Showtime TV special starring Madeline Kahn. Neal Hampton (music) is a composer and conductor, whose works for stage include music and lyrics for Charles Dickens’ The Chimes,incidental music for Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days, and additional music and lyrics for The Little Matchgirl at Gloucester Stage. His arrangement of The Splendor of Creation can be heard in the Columbia Pictures release,Mona Lisa Smile. In this sparkling new musical full of passion and wit, sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, opposites in temperament, struggle to find love and happiness in one of Jane Austen’s most beloved romances. When half-brother John inherits their father’s estate, the sisters, now virtually penniless, move to a rural cottage to make do as best they can … but not even desperate financial circumstances can keep love at bay.

SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL is supported in part by Producing Partner Joy S. Burns.

Workshop:

 

ED, DOWNLOADED

by Michael Mitnick

Directed by Sam Buntrock

Videography by Charlie I. Miller

This arresting new work will be directed by Sam Buntrock who directed the first West End revival of the musicalSunday in the Park with George (a transfer from the Menier Chocolate Factory), which went on to take Broadway by storm with its highly innovative use of integrative onstage video projections, winning the 32 year-old director stellar reviews in both the UK and America, and Olivier, Tony, and Drama Desk award nominations. PlaywrightMichael Mitnick has had his works developed around the country at theatres including Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, Ars Nova, McCarter Theatre Center, TheatreWorks, and The Kennedy Center. This past summer the musical Fly By Night, which he co-authored, received critical acclaim in its World

Premiere at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, with the San Francisco Chronicle declaring it, “A breathtakingly good new musical… Smart, funny and poignant.”

Ed, Downloaded, equal parts live action and feature film, was commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company. This intriguing new comic drama, set sometime in the not too distant future, tells the story of Ed, who is dying. Given a chance to be immortal, Ed selects the boutique procedure of having his brain downloaded. He’s allowed ten memories to accompany him into eternity. But when his wife discovers that Ed has chosen moments spent with another woman, she decides to intervene.

Reading:

 

HOMEFREE

by Lisa Loomer

Directed by Justin Zsebe Dramaturgy by Liz Engelman

One of America’s leading playwrights (The Waiting Room, Living Out, Distracted) and screenwriters (co-writer,Girl Interrupted), Lisa Loomer will unveil her latest work, a captivating modern drama commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company. Loomer, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, creates a dark urban tale about today’s cast-out kids: teens living on The Edge in the streets, parks, freeway underpasses, malls, meth houses — in other words, America. Based on extensive interviews and time spent by the author with youths at homeless shelters,Homefree, with grit, candor, and humor, portrays the lives of a shadow generation struggling to survive in a world not of their own making.

Reading:

 

GRACE, OR THE ART OF CLIMBING

by Lauren Feldman

Director to be announced

Lauren Feldman's plays have been produced throughout the U.S. and at The Royal Court Theatre, London. She was one of two Americans in The Royal Court Theatre’s EXPOSURE 2000: "Crossing the Borders" project, and one of four Americans in World Interplay 2004, the international festival of young playwrights, held in Australia every other year. A two-time Downstage Miami Playwriting Fellow, she has worked with Arthur Kopit and Tina Howe.

In this captivating tale of a reluctant young athlete, rock climbing is both metaphor and action. Emm struggles with doubt, depression, and her own demons, as she trains mind, body, and spirit for a world climbing competition.

Reading:

 

HAND OF GOD

by Richard Dresser

Directed by Pam MacKinnon

In this biting comedy, reality TV is sent sky high as a hot-shot young television producer finds his own life even more complicated than those of the family on his new reality show. TV vérité collides with Pirandello, as playwright Dresser wickedly sets up his characters?and his audience.

Respected playwright Richard Dresser’s 17 published plays have been produced in New York, regional theatre, and Europe. Other plays include Rounding Third, which appeared off-Broadway and has had hundreds of productions, Below the Belt, and Gun-Shy, both of which started at the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville before moving off-Broadway. He also created and writes the TV/web series Life Coach starring Cheri Oteri for AMC.

Pam MacKinnon is an Obie award winning New York-based director. Recent productions include premieres of Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park at Playwrights Horizons (Obie award and Lortel nominations); Rachel Axler'sSmudge at Women's Project; and Cusi Cram's A Lifetime Burning at Primary Stages; as well as Shakespeare'sOthello at the Shakespeare Santa Cruz; and Gina Gionfriddo's Becky Shaw at South Coast Repertory. She has also directed at Arena Theater, Alley Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Second Stage Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Old Globe, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and ACT-Seattle, among many other respected regional theatres, and is a Drama League and Lincoln Center Directors' Lab alumna.

In addition to the readings above, the 2012 Colorado New Play Summit will include two World Premieres, presented on the main stage as part of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s current season. Both works were read at the 2011 Colorado New Play Summit.

 

World Premiere Main Stage Production THE WHALE by Samuel D. Hunter

Directed by Hal Brooks Jan 13-Feb 19 (Opens Jan 19) | Ricketson Theatre

Samuel D. Hunter is author of the recent hit A Bright New Boise (2011 OBIE award for playwriting, 2011 Drama Desk nomination for Best Play; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Fall 2011). Another of his works, When You're Here, was recently

workshopped at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and he is a contributing writer to Headlong Theater's Decade, a site-specific depiction of the events surrounding 9/11 produced by London's National Theatre in Fall 2011. In this new work, Hunter tells the story of Charlie, who hasn’t seen his ex-wife or daughter in 17 years and has grown dangerously obese since his partner’s death. In failing health, Charlie fends off family, friend, and church as he doggedly tries to connect with his estranged daughter.

THE WHALE will be helmed by Hal Brooks, who also directed the Pulitzer finalist Thom Pain (based on nothing)by Will Eno, as well as the Obie award-winning No Child… by Nilaja Sun, and this season’s Off-Broadway production of Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano. The Associate Artistic Director of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, he has recently been appointed Artistic Director at the Cape Cod Theatre Project.

THE WHALE is supported by Producing Partner Carol E. Wolf. THE WHALE is recommended for adults. Children under the age of 6 are not allowed into the theatre.

 

World Premiere Main Stage Production TWO THINGS YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT AT DINNER by Lisa Loomer

Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg Jan 20-Feb 19 (Opens Jan 26) | Space Theatre

Denver Center Theatre Company presents the World Premiere of a work by one of America’s leading playwrights (The Waiting Room, Living Out, Distracted). Lisa Loomer, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, tackles politics and religion in this seriously hilarious — or hilariously serious — work. Myriam’s annual Passover Seder, a multicultural mix of family and friends, threatens to explode as verboten topics hijack the conversation, severely testing the ties that bind. Is peace not possible — even at the dinner table?

Award-winning director Wendy C. Goldberg is currently the Artistic Director of the National Playwright’s Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Under her tenure, the O’Neill was awarded the 2010 Regional Theatre Tony Award. Among the more than 40 projects developed during her tenure at the O’Neill are the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner, two American Theatre Critics Association Citation award winning plays, and the 2009 Pulitzer Winner for Drama. She has directed works at the Guthrie Theater, Goodman Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse, Actors Theatre of Louisville and Arena Stage.

Supported by Producing Partners Jim Steinberg and John & Jeannie Fuller, TWO THINGS YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT AT DINNER is the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award and a grant from the National Endowment for the

Arts. It is recommended for ages 15 and up. Children under the age of 6 are not allowed into the theatre.

The Producing Partners of the 2012 Colorado New Play Summit are Leo and Susan Kiely, Daniel L. Ritchie, and The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

The Denver Center Theatre Company 2011/12 season is generously supported by the Steinberg Charitable Trust, Wells Fargo Advisors, Ashford University, and Larimer Square. Media sponsorship for DCTC is provided by The Denver Post and CBS4. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts is supported in part by the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. For additional information visit www.denvercenter.org.

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