Bay Street Theater Announces TITLE WAVE: The 5th Annual New Works Festival

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is pleased to announce Title Wave at Bay Street: The 5th Annual New Works Festival, May 4 - 6, 2018. All readings are free, but tickets are required, as these events typically sell out. Tickets are available now at baystreet.org or by calling the Bay Street Theater Box Office at 631-725-9500, open Tuesday through Saturday 11 am to 5 pm.

The three-day Festival will include readings of new plays and musicals in development. The mission of the Festival is to give playwrights a chance to hear their works in progress in front of an audience and learn from the audience's response, as well as to give the audience at Bay Street and the East End community a chance to experience up-and-coming works for the theater. Many scripts from previous Festivals have gone on to full productions both at Bay Street and at theater companies around the country. Each play will be read by professional actors in its entirety, accompanied by minimal staging. Each reading will be followed by a talkback during which the playwrights and the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions of each other and share their reactions to the play. Title Wave at Bay Street: The 5th Annual New Works Festival will feature a rock musical adaptation of Medea, written by The Kilbanes and directed by Reggie D. White, A Seagull in the Hamptons, written by Emily Mann and directed by Stephen Hamilton, The Prompter, written by Wade Dooley and directed by Bay Street Theater's Artistic Director Scott Schwartz, and Eight Nights, written by Jennifer Maisel and directed by Bay Street Theater's Associate Artistic Director Will Pomerantz.

Bay Street Theater's New Works Festivals are curated by Scott Schwartz, Artistic Director at Bay Street Theater, and Will Pomerantz, Associate Artistic Director at Bay Street Theater. The Bay Street Patron's Council was an essential part of the selection process as well, reading and offering feedback on scripts under consideration. Title Wave at Bay Street: The 5th Annual New Works Festival is sponsored in part by The Sag Harbor Inn.

"The development and production of new work is a singular passion of Bay Street," says Artistic Director Scott Schwartz, "Since this Festival began five years ago, it has grown into a sell-out sensation on the East End, where artists and audiences alike become a part of a beating heart of creativity and innovation in the live theater. This year, we are so excited to welcome all of these daring writers and directors to the Festival, including one of Bay Street's founders, Steven Hamilton, and we look forward to experiencing the new stories they will tell on our stage."

The schedule for Title Wave at Bay Street: The 5th Annual New Works Festival is as follows:
Friday, May 4 at 8 pm - Medea
Saturday, May 5 at 2 pm - A Seagull in the Hamptons
Saturday, May 5 at 8 pm - The Prompter
Sunday, May 6 at 3 pm - Eight Nights

Tickets are free and are available both in person at the box office and online at baystreet.org. As this event may be covered by a local PBS arts station, anyone attending will need to sign a form that allows them to be seen on camera. PLEASE NOTE: because of the popularity of the Festival, tickets will only be valid until 10 minutes prior to each reading. After that, all open seats will be released to be filled by anyone waiting to be seated.

Descriptions of each play, as well bios for the writers and directors, can be found below.

Medea is a young woman of nineteen, trapped in her father's palace and dreaming of a new life. This contemporary adaptation of a classic tale uses rock music and an innovative performance style that is part concert, part theatrical performance to explore the beginning of a woman whose end we know all too well. A live, four-piece band playing folk-and jazz-infused rock music helps us explore the life and mind of a woman driven to an unspeakable extreme.

The Kilbanes (Writers) are a theatrical rock band led by married songwriting duo Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses. Their rock opera, Weightless, had its world premiere at Z Space in San Francisco in the spring of 2018 and received the highest rating from the SF Chronicle. Their newest piece, Eddie the Marvelous, Who Will Save the World, got its start at Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor and was selected for Theatrework's New Works Festival in 2016. The Kilbanes are currently collaborating on new pieces with nationally-renowned playwright Lauren Gunderson at Marin Theater Company and Lynn Rosen through the Theatreworks Writers' Retreat. They are members of the Just Theater New Play Lab.

Reggie D. White (Director) is a multidisciplinary art-ivist whose directing credits include The Public Theater, Atlantic Theater School, NY Winterfest, Bay Area Children's Theatre, Berkeley Playhouse, AlterTheatre Ensemble, and more. As an actor, he was most recently seen in The Bluest Eye at The Arden. He is a faculty member at the Atlantic Theater School, an associate artist with Merrimack Repertory Theatre, a recipient of the TBA TITAN Award, the TCG Fox Fellowship, and is a company member of The Williams Project, a living wage theatre company. He is also co-writing a play with Lauren Gunderson.

A Seagull in the Hamptons is a 21st-century rendition of Chekhov's classic play The Seagull. Emily Mann's rendition of Chekhov's masterpiece features bright, contemporary language and a modern East End setting that brings the classic story close to home. In a world of appearance, money, business, and celebrity culture, this story about the betrayal of children by their parents is at once heartbreaking and hilarious. With relevance and a flowing, natural language, Mann's adaptation challenges us to think about where American culture is headed.

Emily Mann (Playwright) is in her 28th season as Artistic Director and Resident Playwright of the Tony Award-winning McCarter Theatre Center. Her plays include: Having Our Say, adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth; Execution of Justice; Still Life; Annulla, an Autobiography; Greensboro (A Requiem); Meshugah; Mrs. Packard; and Hoodwinked (a Primer on Radical Islamism). She is currently writing a play with Gloria Steinem and the stage adaptation of The Pianist. Adaptations: Baby Doll, Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The House of Bernarda Alba, Antigone. Awards: Peabody, Hull Warriner, NAACP, Obie's, Guggenheim, Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations, a Princeton University Honorary Doctorate of Arts, a Helen Merril Distinguished Playwrights' Award, and the Margo Jones Award given to a "citizen-of-the-theatre who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to the encouragement of the Living Theatre everywhere."

Stephen Hamilton (Director) co-founded Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, NY with Emma Walton Hamilton and Sybil Christopher in 1991. In his 17 years as Executive Director of Bay Street Theater, Hamilton oversaw over 50 productions including Jon Robin Baitz' adaptation of Hedda Gabler (Tony nomination, Kate Burton), Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend (Julie Andrews' directorial debut and National Tour). Other new plays under his tenure included work from Paula Vogel, Lanford Wilson, Cynthia Ozick, Terrence McNally, Marsha Norman, Chris Durang, and Rick Dresser featuring performances by Cherry Jones, Alan Alda, Diane Weist, Richard Dreyfus, Mercedes Ruehl, and Twiggy. Notable directing credits include NYC: Angry Young Man by Ben Woolf at Urban Stages (American Premiere), The Furies by Neil LaBute, 59 E.59th Street. Regional: All My Sons with Alec Baldwin and Laurie Metcalf at the John Drew Theatre in East Hampton, NY. Gross Points, by Ira Lewis with Alec Baldwin at Bay Street Theater (World Premiere), Ben Woolf's Angry Young Man at the John Drew Theatre. Also at the John Drew: 'ART', The Night Alive, Uncle Vanya, The Cripple of Inishmaan, RED. Opera: Acis and Galatea at the Catskill Mountain Foundation. He has performed as an actor Off-Broadway and in regional theaters across the country, including Lincoln Center Theatre, Circle in the Square, Soho Rep, The Actor's Studio, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Capitol Rep, ALLIANCE THEATRE of Atlanta, and the Arizona Theatre Company. He is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, NYC. Stephen Hamilton currently serves as Director of Southampton Theatre Conference, Stony Brook Southampton, and coaches privately from his studio in Sag Harbor. He and his wife, author/educator Emma Walton Hamilton, live year-round in Sag Harbor. They have two children: Sam and Hope.

The Prompter follows veteran actress Irene Young, who, after a forty-year absence, is returning to the Broadway stage. But now, she can't do it alone; so, the production hires a young actor to be her prompter. But, this isn't her story, it's his. Based on real events, The Prompter is a funny, heartfelt, untold, behind-the-scenes looks at Broadway through the eyes of a young dreamer.

Wade Dooley (Playwright) is a writer/actor living in Jackson Heights, Queens. Some favorite writing credits include Broadway Bares: Rock Hard, On Demand, and Strip U with co-writer Hunter Bell, Stars in the Alley with host Tituss Burgess, The Diary of a Dancer (Best Solo Show 2010 DC Fringe Fest). Wade is an alumnus of Running Deer Theatre Lab, Goodspeed's Johnny Mercer Writers Colony, Finger Lake's Musical Theatre Festival's The PiTCH. As an actor, some favorite credits include Film: The Last Five Years. Theatre: NEWSical The Musical, The Awesome 80s Prom, La Cage Aux Folles, The Roar of the Greasepaint, and the Smell of the Crowd. Tour: Jersey Boys, The Trip to Bountiful, The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Wade is represented by Ben Izzo at Abrams Artists Agency. He is a graduate of Bradley University.

Scott Schwartz (Director) is the Artistic Director of Bay Street Theater. Most recently, he directed the world premiere of the new musical The Prince of Egypt in both California and at Fredericia Teater in Denmark. As a director, he has worked on and off-Broadway, in major regional theaters across the country, and in the UK and Japan. On Broadway, he directed Golda's Balcony and Jane Eyre (co-directed with John Caird). Off-Broadway, he directed Murder for Two, Bat Boy: The Musical (Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards, Outstanding Off Broadway Musical; Drama Desk Award nomination, Outstanding Director of a Musical), tick, tick...BOOM! (OCC, Outstanding Off Broadway Musical; Drama Desk nomination, Outstanding Director of a Musical), Gigantic (Vineyard), The Foreigner (Roundabout), Rooms: A Rock Romance, Kafka's The Castle (OCC nomination, Outstanding Director of a Play), and No Way to Treat a Lady. At New York City Opera he directed Séance on a Wet Afternoon. The regional theaters he has worked at include ACT, Alley, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Dallas Theatre Center, Denver Center, The Geffen, Goodspeed Opera House, La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe, Pasadena Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Signature, Theatre Under the Stars, and Westport Country Playhouse among others. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and a graduate of Harvard University.

Eight Nights tells the story of the lives that inhabit an apartment from 1949 to 2016. A young Jewish Holocaust survivor finally free to start anew in the United States confronts the past that haunts her. How much can she move forward without forgetting those she loved? Is history always doomed to repeat itself? Or do you need to voice the darkness to move into the light?

Native Long Islander Jennifer Maisel is a playwright and screenwriter. Jennifer's plays include The Last Seder (Off-Broadway with Gaby Hoffman), Out of Orbit (2016 Kilroy List for best unproduced plays by women and trans writers, Woodward Newman Award for Drama, Stanley award for drama), @thespeedofJake (2016 Pen West Literary Award finalist) and Goody f-ing Two Shoes (Humana Festival). Her critically-acclaimed Pen West Literary finalist There or Here had its London premiere in January 2018, and she was one of seven playwrights commissioned by Playwrights' Arena and Center Theatre Group to collaborate on The Hotel Play. Development: Sundance Theatre Lab, PlayLabs, MADLabs, PlayPenn, Berkshire Playwrights Lab, the Nautilus Composer/Lyricist Collaboration workshop and the 2017-18 Humanitas Play LA workshop. Honors: EST/Alfred P. Sloan Rewrite Commission for plays about Science and Technology, Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays, SCR's California Playwrights Competition, the Stanley Award for Drama. @thespeedofJake premiered with Playwrights' Arena in Los Angeles. Out of Orbit premieres at Williamston Theatre and Bloomington Playwrights Project in 2018. Eight Nights was workshopped at Berkshire Playwrights Lab and Antaeus Theatre company. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the WGA, Ensemble Studio Theatre -LA project, the Antaeus Playwrights Lab and Playwrights Union. She is currently working on a new play as one of five playwrights invited into the prestigious Humanitas PlayLA Workshop. Her work in film and television includes movies for major networks, series, original pilots and independent films.

Will Pomerantz (Director) has directed and developed new plays and musicals with such theatres as The Guthrie, American Repertory Theatre, 2nd Stage, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theatre, Hartford Stage, New York Theater Workshop, The Signature Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum and The Kennedy Center. He has directed world premieres by such playwrights as John Guare, David Auburn, Neil LaBute, Craig Lucas, Kia Corthron, and David Lindsay-Abaire. His productions have won Eliot Norton and Independent Reviewers of New England Awards, a Lucille Lortel Award, Broadway World Awards, and a Drama Desk nomination. Will is Associate Artistic Director for Bay Street Theater, where he previously directed The Last Night of Ballyhoo, and will be directing this summer's mainstage production of Evita.

All readings in Title Wave at Bay Street: The 5th Annual New Works Festival are free, but tickets are required, as these events sell out. Please note that all tickets will be deemed invalid for entry 10 minutes prior to each reading, and any empty seats will be released to waiting customers, so please arrive early. Tickets are available now at baystreet.org and through the Box Office at 631-725-9500.

The Box Office is currently open Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 5 pm. Tickets can be purchased by calling 631-725-9500 or by logging on to baystreet.org

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is a year-round, not-for-profit professional theater and community cultural center which endeavors to innovate, educate, and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. We serve as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource, and a home for a community of artists.

Photo: The Kilbanes, writers of Medea. Photo by Emily Sevin

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