LAKE UNTERSEE, SKIN DEEP SEA and More Set for Workhaus Playwrights Collective's 8th Season

Workhaus Playwrights Collective announces its 8th season featuring world premiere productions of LAKE UNTERSEE, by Joe Waechter (September, 2014), SKIN DEEP SEA, by Stanton Wood (February, 2015), and THE REAGAN YEARS, by Dominic Orlando (April, 2015).

Award-winning Workhaus Playwrights Collective is a nationally recognized Minneapolis-based ensemble of playwrights committed to producing risky, text-based scripts. Workhaus Collective embraces a radical producing model in which each playwright assumes artistic leadership for his/her own production. Ensemble members include: Trista Baldwin, Alan Berks, Jeannine Coulombe, Christina Ham, Carson Kreitzer, Dominic Orlando, Joe Waechter, and Stanton Wood.

LAKE UNTERSEE (September 12 - 27th, 2014 at the Illusion Theater) by Joe Waechter directed by Jeremy Cohen

Rocky, a troubled teenager, longs to leave his divorced parents and their dysfunctional relationships behind. Stuck between his mother, a has-been novelist, and his equally oblivious father, Rocky begins to receive love letters written in snow. With nowhere else to turn, he embarks on the adventure of a lifetime to Antarctica's Lake Untersee, where the love of his life is trapped beneath layers and layers of ancient ice.

Joe Waechter's plays include PROFILES, Good Ol' Boys, The Hidden People, and Howard Gap Road (an opera for headphones). His work has been developed or produced by Playwrights Horizons, The Guthrie, Red Eye, Ars Nova, McCarter, Trinity Repertory, The Kennedy Center, PlayPenn, The Hangar, Portland Stage, Source, and Inkwell. Awards include a McKnight Advancement Grant and two Jerome Fellowships at the Playwrights' Center, where he is currently a Core Writer; the AracaWorks Graduate Playwriting Award; and the Clauder Competition Gold Prize. MFA Playwriting, Brown University. www.joewaechter.com

Jeremy B. Cohen (Director) is Artistic Director at the Playwrights' Center. Prior to that, he served as the Associate Artistic Director at Hartford Stage, the Founding Artistic Director of Naked Eye Theatre Company (Chicago), and is a freelance director around the US. Recent Off- Broadway/Regional credits include: My Mother Has Four Noses (The Duke), World Premiere of Aditi Kapil's Brahman/i (Mixed Blood), and Wild with Happy (Centerstage). Other US directing credits include at: Steppenwolf Theatre, Goodman Theatre and Victory Gardens (Chicago), Woolly Mammoth and Theatre J (DC), Denver Center, Centerstage (Baltimore), Alliance Theatre (Atlanta), Hartford Stage, LaJolla Playhouse, The Alley Theatre (Houston), Actor's Theatre of Louisville, Rep Theatre of St Louis, Kansas City Rep, George Street Playhouse, and Pasadena Playhouse. Cohen has also directed/developed inaugural work by Lee Blessing, Adam Bock, Michael Elyanow, Basil Kreimendahl, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Michele Lowe, Dan O'Brien, Adam Rapp, Theresa Rebeck, Hana Sharif, Mat Smart, Victoria Stewart and Naomi Wallace.

Additional cast and creative team are to be announced.

LAKE UNTERSEE will run Thursday - Sunday September 12 - 27, 2014 at the Illusion Theater (528 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN) at 8PM. Admission is $18. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Tickets go on sale through the Illusion Theater box office in early August at (612) 339-4944. Visit workhauscollective.org for more information.

SKIN DEEP SEA (February 2015, The Playwrights Center) By Stanton Wood

SKIN DEEP SEA combines the Victorian futurism of Steampunk with the magic of the fairy tale and the uniquely American knack for ruthless self-invention. Featuring puppetry, swashbuckling fight scenes, the dramatic use of music, and echoes of our recent "one-percent" class conflicts, this is an unusual love story about a two-headed witch, a pirate airship captain cursed with bad luck, a Cuban war hero in search of a meaningful cause, and the two feuding daughters of robber baron Penelope Cooke, the fifth richest person in America (and ruthlessly intent on being the first).

Stanton Wood is a resident artist and founding member of the award-winning Rabbit Hole Ensemble in New York, with whom he has created The Tale of Frankenstein's Daughter, Candide Americana, Big Thick Rod, and The Night of Nosferatu, which received 6 New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations (including Outstanding Full Length Script). His work has been commissioned, developed and/or produced with the support of adobe theatre company, Urban Stages, Manhattan Class Company, Playwrights Horizons, The Hangar Theatre, Primary Stages, and New York Theatre Workshop, among others. Website.

Skin Deep Sea will be presented in association with the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis in February of 2015. Additional cast and creative team are to be announced.

THE REAGAN YEARS (April 2015, The Playwrights Center) By Dominic Orlando

In THE REAGAN YEARS, Dominic Orlando uses a driving thriller plot to examine how cultural values actually "trickle down" to our young adults. The story follows four friends on the eve of their college graduation, as an attempt to "keep the party going" runs spectacularly off the rails, exposing fault lines in their friendships and calling into question not only their dreams for the future, but the very value system that makes those dreams possible. The Reagan Years will be presented in association with the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis in April of 2015.

Dominic Orlando is a former Core Writer and two-time Jerome Fellow and McKnight Fellow at The Playwrights' Center. He is currently working on the screenplay adaptation of his play Danny Casolaro Died for You, optioned by Caliber Media and Aviation Films. "Danny" will have its Midwest Premiere at TimeLine Theatre in Chicago this Fall. In The Twin Cities Dominic has worked with Theatre De la June Lune, The History Theatre, The Jungle, The Guthrie, OffLeash Area, Theatre Forever, The Red Eye, Teatro Del Pueblo and Bedlam. Nationally, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, HERE, Arts Emerson, The Aurora Theater, Kitchen Dog, Crowded Fire, The Playwrights' Foundation and Lincoln Center.

The Reagan Years will be presented in association with the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis in April of 2015. Additional Cast and creative team are to be announced.

ABOUT WORKAUS PLAYWRIGHTS COLLECTIVE - WORKHAUS COLLECTIVE (Trista Baldwin, Alan Berks, Jeannine Coulombe, Christina Ham, Carson Kreitzer, Dominic Orlando, Joe Waechter, and Stanton Wood) is an ensemble of nationally known Minneapolis-based playwrights who have been producing innovative and highly theatrical work in the Twin Cities since 2006 as the company-in-residence at the Playwrights' Center. Workhaus Collective has a model unlike any other theater company-for each production, the playwright assumes Artistic Directorship of his or her own production, while other Collective members take on the role of production staff. Workhaus members have 6 Mcknight Advancement grants, 8 Jerome fellowships, 2 McDowell Colony residencies, 2 New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations, and a Drama Desk nomination among them. They've been resident at New Dramatists, the Lark Playwriting Center, Saison, Tofte, and the Arctic Circle. Their work has been developed, commissioned and produced by such companies as Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Public Theatre, The Royal Court Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, Portland Center Stage, Clubbed Thumb, The Flea, The Women's Project, Urban Stages, New Georges, Mabou Mines, HERE Arts Center, the Humana Festival of New Plays, BAM"s Next Wave Festival, Upright Citizens Brigade, and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The company has produced 17 world premieres, among them Cory Hinkle's Little Eyes in the Dowling Studio at The Guthrie Theater, Victoria Stewart's 800 Words: The Transmigration of Philip K. Dick (the recipient of an Ivey Award for actress Lucerne Siefert), and Deborah Stein's Chimera, (re-mounted at HERE Arts Center in New York City where it was nominated for a Drama Desk Award). www.workhauscollective.org.

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