Theatricum Announces Izzy Award & Free Spring Readings

The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum's nine-year old development series for playwrights, "Botanicum Seedlings," announces the recipient of the first annual "Izzy" award. The winning play, How to Shoot a Bull Moose by New York playwright Jonathan Goldberg, was presented as part of last season's spring playreadings. The selections for the upcoming 2010 spring readings include Sara-Ashley Bischoff's The Rose Gardener on Sunday, June 6; Save Love Canal by Molly Best Tinsley on Sunday, June 13; and Velina Hasu Houston's Territory of Dreams on Sunday, June 20. All readings begin at 11 am, and admission is free.

The Izzy was established in honor of Theatricum's late dramaturg, Israel Baran, who passed away in 2007. To honor Israel's keen mind, sharp tongue, and ear for language (despite the fact that he was maddeningly deaf), the Izzy was established to recognize the Seedlings play that "speaks to us the loudest." The award is accompanied by a check for $250.

"Presenting Bull Moose at Theatricum was a tremendous opportunity that helped me see the play in new ways that were vital to its development," says Goldberg. "I am very excited about this award."

"Israel was an elderly man, devoted to words, who showed up one day at Theatricum and helped us formulate our new play program," explains Theatricum artistic director Ellen Geer. "Seedlings is a haven where playwrights can try things out, make mistakes and take glorious leaps in their writing. Israel read and critiqued any play that was sent to Theatricum and was always helpful to writers. We miss him."

The upcoming 2010 Botanicum Seedlings spring playreadings open on June 6 with The Rose Gardener, written by Sara-Ashley Bischoff and directed by award-winning, Los Angeles-based director Ann-Giselle Spiegler. Set in a picture-perfect home in an affluent American suburb, The Rose Gardner follows a privileged couple's struggle to cultivate happiness within their marriage. When tragedy strikes, Aaron has a surgeon's precise tools for coping; Carol tends her garden, searching for the answer to the question: "How do people survive this?" Time takes its own fractured course, threatening to destroy the beauty that surrounds them. The Rose Gardener was a 2009 semi-finalist in the International Stanley Drama Award Contest. Sara-Ashley Bischoff is a writer, director and choreographer living in New York. A recent graduate from Princeton University where she studied with Charles Mee and Dael Orlandersmith, Bischoff's play The Tug of the Moon was recently published in The Ampersand. Her novel, Whale Song, was written under the guidance of Joyce Carol Oates.

On June 13 is Molly Best Tinsley's Save Love Canal, a drama with dark, comic undertones about growing up and growing apart, and all that comes after. Katherine James, artistic director of Free Association Theatre and frequent Seedlings collaborator, directs. Save Love Canal begins with a surreal phone call: a single mother learns about the sudden death of her estranged twin brother. Some very real ghosts from her past compel her revisit her childhood as a "military brat" and reexamine her relationship with her brilliant, rebellious sibling. But memories can be deceiving, particularly when pursuing that urban legend called "closure." Living in Ashland, Oregon, Molly Best Tinsley is the author of the award-winning collection of short fiction, Throwing Knifes. Her stories have appeared in such periodicals as New England Review, Shenandoah, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. She is also coauthor of The Creative Process and the recently released "feminist thriller," Satan's Chamber. Her plays include The Lust Factor (part of Portland's Fertile Ground Festival) and her full-length, Fission. For years she taught creative writing and literature at the Naval Academy, and she is the first professor emerita in the institution's history.

The readings conclude on June 20 with Territory of Dreams by internationally-acclaimed playwright Velina Hasu Houston, directed by Luis Alfaro, an award-winning writer-performer-producer-director and recipient of a McArthur "genius" grant. A play about origins, paths, and staking claims, Territory of Dreams is a humorous and touching new work that's not afraid to go to uncomfortable places. At its center are four women from diverse racial and economic backgrounds who find themselves caught up in business of prejudice. They must each cross a personal divide to embrace their roles as mothers, daughters, friends, and partners. Velina Hasu Houston is the author of over twenty full-length plays, including fifteen playwriting commissions from distinguished institutions across the country such as the Los Angeles Opera and the Silk Road Theatre Project in association with the Goodman Theatre. Her popular play Tea and other works have been produced throughout the U.S. and Asia. Based in Los Angeles, Houston is resident playwright at USC's School of Theatre, where she founded the MFA in Dramatic Writing Program.

Initiated in the fall of 2002, the Botanicum Seedlings series acts as an adjunct to Theatricum Botanicum's Summer Repertory Season, commencing each year before the summer activities are underway, continuing with spring playreadings as the season opens, then culminating after the season winds down with a fall workshop production or playreadings. Theatricum playwright-in-residence Jennie Webb runs the series with Seedlings literary manager Julie Retzlaff.

The Botanicum Seedlings Spring Playreadings take place Sundays at 11 am on June 6, 13 and 20. Admission to the playreadings is free and open to the public; donations to support this series will be gratefully accepted. The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum is located at 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Topanga, midway between Malibu and the San Fernando Valley. For further information, the public should call (310) 455-3723 or visit www.theatricum.com. The theater is outdoors; in case of inclement weather, please call for alternate performance times.

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