Theatre @ Boston Court Announces PLAY/ground Festival, 11/9-10

The Theatre @ Boston Court announces PLAY/ground, the annual New Play Festival November 9-10, 2013 at Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, CA. Literary Managers Aaron Henne and Emilie Beck, in concert with Artistic Directors Jessica Kubzansky and Michael Michetti, have selected four plays to be presented as staged readings in the Marjorie Branson Performance Space.

The Theatre @ Boston Court's play festival presents plays that are in keeping with Boston Court's mission, which urges artists to fearlessly and passionately pursue their unique voice and vision. Play selection encompasses a wide variety of genres, with a special emphasis on nurturing playwrights and new play development, which are inherently theatrical, textually rich, and visually arresting.

This year's festival includes The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll, by Lily Blau; Habeas Corpus, by Emilie Beck; My Barking Dog, by Eric Coble; and Dark Room, by George Brant.

Saturday, November 9 at 11am: The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll, by Lily Blau.Using a highly visual and poetic approach, The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll tells a dark version of the story behind Alice in Wonderland. Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, experienced a charged and ambiguous relationship with Alice Lidell, his 11-year-old muse. As the real world merges with the story he creates, life and art push together at the constrictions of society, and the storyteller becomes invisibly woven into his own tale.

Saturday, November 9 at 2:30pm: Habeas Corpus, by Emilie Beck. A mother who couldn't protect her sons; a teacher who couldn't save her students; a young woman who can't let herself be loved; a prisoner on Death Row who can't let himself be saved; the warden who finds friendship in the darkest rooms: these stories connect and intersect, exploring the ways in which we are emotionally imprisoned, and how much we are affected by the limitations of those who love us most. At its heart, Habeas Corpus illuminates how perpetrators are also victims, and the saviors are also damned.

Sunday, November 10 at 11am: My Barking Dog, by Eric Coble. Two lonely apartment dwellers' lives take a turn for the bizarre when a starving coyote begins frequenting their fire escape. My Barking Dog examines the sometimes indistinguishable line between human and animal behavior. Thrilling twists and viscerally poetic language combine to create a unique look at those who are striving for connection in a disjointed world.

Sunday, November 10 at 1:30pm: Dark Room, by George Brant. Dark Room is a dream-like journey into the haunting photographs of Francesca Woodman, a gifted artist who created a fascinating body of work before taking her life at the age of 22. A highly physical and lyrical investigation of creative impulses, the legacies of desire, and the fragmented nature of that which we leave behind.

Lily Blau was born and raised outside Boston, and began her career in New York with a BFA from NYU Tisch. Since college, she has written for The Huffington Post and Sirens Magazine, as well as for multiple web series, one of which, The Adventures of Femme and Bro, can be seen on YouTube. Her short play, The Girls Play won best script at New York's Vignette's Festival. She is currently developing another full-length play (with director Alexis Jacknow) about Gustav Klimt, and based on the non-fiction book, The Lady in Gold. Lily also works as an actor in TV, film, theatre, and voiceover.

Emilie Beck's play Sovereign Body is scheduled for production at The Road Theatre in Los Angeles in March, 2014. Sovereign Body was a finalist for NNPN's 2011 Smith Prize. Her play Number of People had its world premiere at the Piven Theatre in Chicago, in spring of 2010. In 2003 Emilie wrote and directed And Let the Skies Fall at the El Portal Circle Theatre, nominated for six Garland Awards, including Best Playwriting and Best Director. She is co-Literary Manager at The Theatre @ Boston Court, where she directed David Wiener's Cassiopeia, nominated for three Ovation Awards. She won 2010 LA Weekly Awards for Best Director and Best Production for Block Nine at the Elephant Theatre, and directed Because They Have No Words in LA (Ovation nominations) and Chicago (Jeff Award). Emilie's work has been developed at Hartford Stage, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Pasadena Playhouse, Piven Theatre, The Elephant Theatre, The Road Theatre, and others. At Boston Court, she has served as Dramaturg for The Children, Heavier Than,Alcestis, and R II.

Eric Coble was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and raised on the Navajo and Ute reservations in New Mexico and Colorado. His scripts include The Velocity of Autumn, Bright Ideas, The Dead Guy, My Barking Dog, A Girl's Guide to Coffee, and The Giver, and have been produced Off- Broadway, in all fifty states of the U.S., and on several continents, including productions at Manhattan Class Company, The Kennedy Center, Playwrights Horizons, Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company, Arena Stage, New York and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, ALLIANCE THEATRE, The Cleveland Play House, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory, Asolo Repertory, Indiana Repertory, Coterie Theatre, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Stages Repertory, and The Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Awards include the AATE Distinguished Play Award for Best Adaptation, an Emmy nomination, the AT&T Onstage Award, National Theatre Conference Playwriting Award, an NEA Playwright in Residence Grant, a TCG Extended Collaboration Grant, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and four Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants.

George Brant's plays include Elephant's Graveyard, Grounded, The Mourners' Bench, Any Other Name, Salvage, Grizzly Mama, Three Voyages of the Lobotomobile, Defiant, Dark Room, One Hand Clapping, and The Royal Historian of Oz. A Core Writer at the Playwright's Center, his scripts have been produced internationally by Trinity Repertory Company, City Theatre, Cleveland Play House, the Gate Theatre of London, Page 73, the Traverse Theatre, and Premiere Stages, among others. He has received the Kennedy Center's David Cohen National Playwriting Award, the Smith Prize, the Keene Prize for Literature and an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for 2012. He has been awarded writing fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the McCarter Theatre Center, Blue Mountain Center, and the Michener Center for Writers. He is published by Samuel French, Oberon Books and Smith & Kraus.

The free readings are open to the public and reservations can be made by calling (626) 683-6883. The audience is invited to attend artist receptions following the 2:30pm reading on November 9 and the 1:30pm reading on November 10.

The Theatre @ Boston Court is supported in part by the City of Pasadena, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, The Shubert Foundation, The American Theatre Wing, Edgerton Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Founding Director Z. Clark Branson, and the generous contributions of Boston Court supporters and contributors.

The Theatre @ Boston Court is the award-winning resident theatre company at Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, CA. Michael Seel, Executive Director; Jessica Kubzansky and Michael Michetti, Co-Artistic Directors; Hillary Metcalf, Managing Director.

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