MST's Reading of THE WAY OF THE WATER Marks 2-Year Anniversary of The BP Oil Spill Tonight, 4/30

Main Street Theatre will participate in international reading project marking the two-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill in a free reading of THE WAY OF THE WATER by Caridad Svich tonight, April 30, 2012 at 7:30pm in the MST – Chelsea Market. The new play will receive multiple readings across the U.S. and abroad.

"Main Street is honored to be included in this effort," remarked Artistic Director ReBecca Greene Udden. "We so admire Caridad and her works and applaud her efforts with this new project."

MST previously produced the English-language premiere of Ms. Svich's The House of the Spirits.

The Way of the Water focuses on the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill and its effects on human health and the environment in the US Gulf region. The play has been made available for local presentations during the month of April (and selected venues in May) to mark the two-year anniversary of the spill and to raise increased awareness toward health and environmental concerns. The project is the brainchild of NoPassport theatre alliance & press, an unincorporated collective dedicated to the advocacy, production and publication of works expressive of cross-cultural and aesthetic diversity in the arts.

The reading at Main Street will be directed by Rob Kimbro and features Eva De La Cruz (The House of the Spirits), JoVan Jackson (Richard III), Seán Patrick Judge (Richard III, The Coast of Utopia, The House of the Spirits), Eva Laporte (Woof), and Jerome Vielman.

Among the theaters that will be presenting the play are Alameda Theatre in Toronto, Canada; American Stage Theatre Company in St. Petersburg, FL; Atomic Age Theater Company in collaboration with Emerson College in Boston, MA; California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA; Cornell University's Teatrotaller and Theatre Incognita in Ithaca, NY; EAST LA REP in Los Angeles, CA; Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City; Atomic Age Theater Company in collaboration with Emerson College in Boston, MA; Halcyon Theatre in Chicago, IL; ion theatre company in San Diego, CA; Lark Play Development Center in New York City; Main Street Theater in Houston, TX; Occupy Ashland, Oregon; Opera del Espacio in Los Angeles, CA; Scriptworks in coproduction with Hyde Park Theatre in Austin, TX; Teatro Paraguas in Santa Fe, NM; Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque, NM; internationally at Aberystwyth University in Wales/UK, Rose Bruford College in England/UK, and Pat the Dog Playwrights Centre in Ontario, Canada, and venues in Berlin, Sao Paolo, Australia, and South Africa, and over fifteen US universities including Carnegie Mellon and UC-Davis. Additional presenting venues will be announced in the near future.

The dramaturgy team for the international reading scheme for The Way of Water are Philadelphia-based dramaturge Heather Helinsky and New York City-based dramatist & dramaturge R. Alex Davis. 

The Way of the Water was developed at the 2011 Winter Writers' Retreat at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City, after Svich's two years of extensive research on the subject. The Way of Water is a two-act play with four characters that focuses on poverty in America and the devastation of the ongoing health and environmental crisis in the US Gulf region.
Caridad Svich's other plays include 12 Ophelias, Iphigenia…a rave fable, and The House of the Spirits, based on the novel by Isabel Allende. In 2011, Ms. Svich won the American Theatre Critics Association Francesca Primus Prize.

For more information about Caridad Svich's The Way of Water, visit http://www.nopassport.org/wayofwater

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