The Denver Center Theatre Company Announces 2012 Colorado New Play Summit Lineup

The Denver Center Theatre Company (DCTC)
confirms its commitment to new works and solidifies its position as one of the nation's top tier new play festivals with the announcement 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 musical Sunday 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. Playwright
Michael 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
Director to be announced

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's Smudge at
Women's Project; and Cusi Cram's A Lifetime Burning  at Primary Stages; as
well as Shakespeare's Othello 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, friends, 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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