TheatreWorks Hosts Seventh Annual Writer's Retreat; Last Day 1/24

As part of its continued commitment to developing New Works, TheatreWorks, the nationally-acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, is hosting its seventh annual Writers' Retreat with the last day being January 24.

One of the nation's leaders in cultivating and producing new musicals, TheatreWorks will provide collaborating teams of acclaimed up-and-coming and established composers and playwrights the opportunity to develop New Works, uninterrupted by the hassles and distractions of their daily lives. The company will supply performers to help composers can try out new arrangements, and a musical director to help guide the creative process. An invitation-only presentation will feature selections from each work on January 24 in Mountain View. For more information about TheatreWorks and its innovative New Works programs, please visit theatreworks.org.

This year's retreat participants range from Emmy nominated television writers to stage veterans, rock musicians, and emerging playwrights, and include:

Molly's Delicious
Lyrics by Nathan Tysen
Music by Chris Miller
Book by Craig Wright

Lyricist Nathan Tysen, musician Chris Miller, and writer Craig Wright will explore the beginnings of a musical collaboration on Wright's play Molly's Delicious. Tysen and Miller's musical Burnt Part Boys, a presentation of TheatreWorks' 2007 New Works Festival, will premiere Off-Broadway this spring at Playwrights Horizons and the Vineyard Theatre. They are currently working on a new musical commissioned by Lincoln Center TheatrE. Wright (with Larry Gelbart) co-authored the play Better Late, which opened at Northlight Theatre in Chicago. He received an Emmy nomination for the HBO series Six Feet Under, was a writer and producer for the ABC series Lost, and Brothers & Sisters. He is writer and Executive Producer on the hit ABC show Dirty Sexy Money starring Peter Krause, Donald Sutherland, and Jill Clayburgh.

The Spring Standards and Darcy Fowler

The Spring Standards will be working with playwright Darcy Fowler in collaborating on their first musical. The Spring Standards is a folk-rock band based in New York City. Bandmembers Heather Robb, James Cleare, and James Smith are all songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, known for using their strengths as a trio to create a sound that listeners might expect from a band twice their size. With an emphasis on 3-part harmony and a variety of instrumental switching, their range and energy onstage make each live show a unique event. They have toured nationwide at major venues and have been featured as guests on Conan O'Brien. Readings of Fowler's first play, The Bird and the Two Ton Weight, have been presented at The Bushwick Open Studios and Arts Festival 2007, Lubin House, Syracuse University's base in New York City, and the Ars Nova OUT LOUD reading series.

Brian Lowdermilk and Kait Kerrigan

Kait Kerrigan (words) and Brian Lowdermilk (music) return to TheatreWorks, where they will collaborate on a new musical that reinterprets the story of Henry IV set during "the Troubles" with the Irish Republican Army in Ireland. Lowdermilk and Kerrigan were featured in TheatreWorks 2009 Festival of New Works with their song cycle Tales from the Bad Years. They made their off-Broadway debut with their adaptation of Henry and Mudge for TheatreworksUSA in 2006. They most recently completed a developmental production of their original musical The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown, which was presented at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Their work has been developed at theaters and festivals across the country, including La Jolla Playhouse, Perry-Mansfield New Works Festival, ASCAP/Disney Workshop, Manhattan Theatre Club, York Theatre, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Penn State New Musical Festival, and Primary Stages. They are also the authors of The Freshman Experiment, a musical written on the internet based on the lives of two bloggers. Between them, they have received the 2009 Kleban Award, 2006 Jonathan Larson Award, a 2004-2005 Dramatists Guild Fellowship, a Richard Rodgers Award, and others.

Matthew Lopez

Matthew Lopez is working on the book for the upcoming Broadway-bound musical adaptation of the movie, Mad Hot Ballroom, to be directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell. His play The Whipping Man will receive its West Coast Premiere at The Old Globe in San Diego in May, 2010, directed by Giovanna Sardelli. The play premiered at Luna Stage in Montclair, NJ in 2006 and was produced by Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, MN in 2009. His play Tio Pepe was presented in 2008 at The Public Theater as part of Summer Play Festival. Lopez's work has been heard and seen at Manhattan Theatre Club, The McCarter Theatre, The New Group, The Lark Play Development Center, Backhouse Productions and Monarch Theatre Company. Other plays include Zoey's Perfect Wedding, Reverberation, Noble Street, Between Us and Phemmi Klompers: Agent to the Stars. He is currently developing new musicals with composers Ryan Scott Oliver and Mark Allen. He is a member of the Ars Nova Play Group.

Kin
By Bathsheba Doran

Bathsheba Doran comes to TheatreWorks to work on a new draft of her play, Kin, which was commissioned by Playwrights Horizons. Her first play Feminine Wash was produced at the Edinburgh Fringe festival while she was a student at Cambridge University in England. She worked as a television comedy writer before coming to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship. Doran received her M.F.A from Columbia University and went on to become a playwriting fellow at Juilliard. Doran's work has been developed by the O'Neill Playwriting Center, Lincoln Center and Sundance Theater Lab among others. She is a 2009 recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, a Cherry Lane Mentor Project fellow as well as the recipient of three Lecomte du Nouy Lincoln Center playwriting awards, and a Susan Blackburn Award finalist. She is currently under commission from Atlantic Theater and Playwrights Horizons in New York and Schtanhaus in London. Plays include The Parents' Evening, Ben and The Magic Paintbrush, Living Room in Africa, produced Off-Broadway by the award-winning Edge Theater, Nest, commissioned and produced by Signature Theater in Washington D.C., and adaptations of Maeterlinck's The Blind at Classic Stage Company, and Great Expectations starring Kathleen Chalfant at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

David Kirshenbaum

David Kirshenbaum will participate in the TheatreWorks Writers Retreat as both a composer and a playwright. As a composer, he will be working on new songs for the upcoming production of his musical Party Come Here, originally developed at TheatreWorks' Festival of New Works. As a playwright, he is working on a new draft of both a play and a screenplay. TheatreWorks has developed many of David's musicals, including Vanities, which went on to an off-Broadway run at Second Stage, and Summer of '42 which has played off-Broadway and all over the country. Other works include the holiday musical Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (book by Myles McDonnell), the musical Off and Running, and the musical review Bits and Pieces. Additional projects Sing Me a Happy Song, a revue in collaboration with songwriter Georgia Stitt, and Hero At Large, based on the 1980 movie starring John Ritter. Kirshenbaum received a grant from the Jonathan Larson Foundation for his work on Summer of '42, and a grant from the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, which established a residency for him at the Goodspeed Opera House.

All Writers Retreat participants will attend the opening night of TheatreWorks' production of the world premiere musical DADDY LONG LEGS, written by John Caird, the Tony Award-winning co-director and creator of the Broadway blockbuster Les Miserables, with music by Paul Gordon of TheatreWorks' triumphant hit Emma, directed by John Caird, on January 23, 2010 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

TheatreWorks is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary season. With approximately 9,000 subscribers and 100,000 patrons per year, TheatreWorks has captured a national reputation for artistic innovation and integrity, often presenting Bay Area theatregoers with their first look at acclaimed musicals, comedies, and dramas, directed by award-winning local and guest directors, and performed by professional actors cast from across the country.

For more information, visit http://www.theatreworks.org/

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