AboutFACE Ireland Announce Selected Plays For NEWvember New Plays Festival

AboutFACE Ireland have announced the final selections for the 2018 NEWvember New Plays Festival Dublin - a showcase of original plays to be held at The New Theatre in Dublin's city centre, November 8-10 2018. The announcement was made by AboutFACE Co-Artistic Directors Anna Nugent and Paul Nugent. NEWvember Dublin will feature these works over a three-day weekend, presented via rehearsed readings. After 5 years of NEWvember Festivals in New York, this is the 2nd year the event will be held in Dublin. The spirit of NEWvember is to provide a dynamic, interactive and welcoming place where writers can hear their plays read by seasoned actors, and discuss their work and creative process. It was also announced that many of this year's playwrights will be in attendance, and will take part in post show Q&As, including writers travelling from the US.

The NEWvember Dublin 2018 plays are:

Deanna and Paul by Dagney Kerr

When a boy with a tight lid on his heart and a girl with a sensitive spirit (and a strict no-tipping policy) meet one rainy night, their lonely worlds collide in a small-town diner where magical things happen and one cup of coffee can change everything, in this sparkling romcom.

&

Split by Fiona Rose Stout

Modern romance in Dublin ain't so easy, no matter what age you are - or what music you listen to. Even when you're trying your hardest, heartbreak is so easy but life is short and there are sexy selfies. Relationships criss-cross and clash in this kaleidoscope drama of flirting, falling apart and finding love.

Thursday 8th November at 6.30pm in a double-bill

The Caspian Sea by Neil Sharpson

In the totalitarian, Neo-Luddite state of the Caspian Republic, artificial intelligence is outlawed. But the Republic is thrown into disarray when a murdered man is revealed to be an AI living there in secret. Somehow dead-end State Security agent Nikolai South is tasked with escorting the murdered AI's beautiful widow when she comes to Caspian ... and is forced to make a choice between his duty and his sense of right and wrong, in this powerful thriller.

Friday 9th November at 6.30pm

The Gods of the Ozarks by Matthew Kelly

Small-town doctor Jonah Hahn never intended to create a new religion in his tiny 19th century mountain community. But when people are dying all around of treatable illnesses and his wife is getting sicker, he must secretly overcome the ban on cutting corpses that holds back his medical understanding ... only those bodies start resurrecting and a town goes wild, in this hilarious tale of ghosts and faith, promises and lies, and the war between science and religion (even after death ...)

Saturday 10th November at 2.30pm

Holy and Unruly by David Beardsley

In 1593 amidst the war with the Spanish Armada, two of the world's most powerful women, Queen Elizabeth and the Irish pirate Grace O'Malley, are forced into a meeting to try to save the realm ... and themselves. But can they make a deal when they've got plotting English lords and bloodthirsty Irish rebels around them, can you believe a Queen who is seeing visions, and can two women trust each other in the heat of battle - and at what cost?

Saturday 10th November at 6.30pm

All performances will take place at The New Theatre Rehearsal Space in Temple Bar in Dublin's city centre, and tickets are available now.

AboutFACE are very grateful to be supported for NEWvember 2018 by Dublin City Arts Office, FRINGE LAB at Dublin Fringe Festival and The New Theatre, as well as a new transatlantic connection with the Off-Broadway theatre The Cell, with one of this year's final plays set to be given a further reading at the Cell in New York.

The outstanding plays were selected based on originality, range, production potential, storytelling quality and emotional resonance. AboutFACE Ireland Co-Artistic Director Paul Nugent reflects on the wide variety of stories selected: "We are so excited by the line-up of terrific new plays for our 7th annual NEWvember Festival. It feels very suited to the festival's history that this year we see a fascinating international mix of playwrights at the festival, Irish and American, and with such a bold range of topics and locations: from a feminist tale of Irish piracy in Elizabethan England to a futuristic espionage thriller examining AI, from a faith-challenging black comedy in the Old West to a very contrasting pair of plays about love, magical romance at a rainswept diner and complex relationships in modern Dublin. All are engrossing, ambitious and full of heart, and I can't wait for audiences to dive into these stories - and help us improve them."

He adds: "We're honoured and deeply grateful to have support this year from generous partners Dublin City Arts Office, Dublin Fringe, The New Theatre and Nancy Manocherian's The Cell. We're also very excited this year to add additional dramaturgical expertise to the festival, with playwright and dramaturg Krystal Sweedman coming on board to offer further input to our writers towards developing their plays."

This marks NEWvember's second year in Dublin after 5 years in New York. AboutFACE co-created and co-produced NEWvember at the Carpenter Shop Theatre in the village of Tivoli in upstate New York, with partners Tangent Theatre, from 2011 to 2015. During this time, NEWvember was highly successful - drawing large audiences, including breaking the box office record for the venue on successive nights; and finding massive interest from writers - by its fifth year, submissions reached nearly 500 plays a year and rehearsed readings of new work by over 30 playwrights had been presented, while several plays developed at the festival have gone on to Off-Broadway and regional American productions.

In 2017 NEWvember moved to Dublin, Ireland, where the festival was held at Belvedere House. Already from NEWvember 2017, plays have gone on to further success - Extremophiles by Fergal O'Byrne has since been awarded the prestigious Eamon Keane Playwriting Award at the 2018 Listowel Writers' Week while The Barber of Moville by Ronan Carr has gone on to full production including a 10-venue Irish tour.

At AboutFACE, we believe Theatre Makes Life Better. For artists, audiences and for us. So we produce plays we're excited to share, as well as providing open-door opportunities and safe spaces for actors to play, for playwrights to develop scripts and for audiences to share their input with us.

Founded in 2002, in our first phase, the company produced the acclaimed Irish premieres of seven plays including Tape Boy Gets Girl, The Glory of Living, Collected Stories and The Laramie Project. AboutFACE then took an educational hiatus with company members based in New York, Edinburgh and Dublin. The company entered its second phase in 2011, co-producing the first 5 years of the annual NEWvember New Plays Festival in Tivoli, upstate New York, in partnership with Tangent Theatre Company, and marking its 10th anniversary in 2012 by producing its first World Premiere show in Dublin, Orson Welles' Christmas Carol. Since 2017, returning full-time to producing in Ireland, AboutFACE has begun its latest phase by advancing its New Works Initiative to develop new plays through bringing NEWvember to Dublin and its Winter Pub Reading Series, workshops including a work-in-progress presentation of Brutal Selfish Rattlesnake by Aaron Weissman, and by opening new creative opportunities via its Great Plays Gang and acting classes, with plans for exciting new programming and productions in 2018 and beyond.

The NEWvember New Plays Festival at The New Theatre (Temple Bar, Dublin 2), November 8 - 10, 2018.

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