Word(s)PLAY! 2010 New Play Festival Held at Penumbra, 7/10, 7/17 and 7/24

Penumbra Theatre Company, the nation's preeminent African American theatre, proudly announced today the second annual Word(s)PLAY!, a forum designed to develop new plays by African American Playwrights. Word(s)PLAY! will introduce three new plays to the Twin Cities July 10, 17, and 24, 2010 at 7:30 PM.

This three day event will offer a staged reading of each play followed by an open talk back with the playwright, director, artists, and audience. This year's lineup includes Blacktop Sky by Christina Anderson, Voices from Harper's Ferry by Dominic Taylor, and Dance, Salome, Dance by Tanya Fernando.

Word(s)PLAY!

July 10, 7:30 PM: Blacktop Sky by Christina Anderson
Directed by Dominic Taylor

July 17, 7:30 PM: Voices from Harper's Ferry by Dominic Taylor
Directed by Dominic Taylor

July 24, 7:30 PM: Dance, Salome, Dance by Tanya Fernando
Directed by Lou Bellamy

The plays will be read by a company of professional actors that includes: Ansa Akyea, Antonio Banks, Jr., Michael Terrell Brown, T. Mychael Rambo, Dennis W. Spears, and Deja Stowers.

Reservations can be made through the Penumbra Theatre Box Office: 651-224-3180 or online at www.penumbratheatre.org. The event is free and open to the public.

Penumbra's associate artistic director and curator of Word(s)PLAY!, Dominic Taylor said, "We have proudly witnessed plays from last year's festival move on to stages around the country. Penumbra's 2010-2011 season includes Julius by Design by Kara Lee Corthorn, the first of these plays to be produced on our main stage. Through our new play development program, we ensure that honest and uncompromising stories that preserve African American identity, culture and history are written and told."

When Penumbra launched Word(s)PLAY! in 2008, Sydné Mahone was the dramaturge. An associate professor of playwriting and dramatic literature at the University of Iowa, and an established scholar and author, she shared this assessment:

"This is the first major black play development project of the 21st century. It now holds the position of standard bearer, due to the caliber of the playwrights and complexity of the works. This distinguishing mark is a result of the status and reputation of Penumbra, the leadership of Dominic Taylor, and the professionalism of the presentations. The program shows the potential to join the elite play development programs such as Sundance Institute Theatre Lab and the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Unlike these flagship programs, Penumbra has the unique ability to fulfill the promise of play development with the production of new black plays. To illustrate the artistic impact of this program, Marcus Gardley (Yale 2004, Sundance 2005) remarked that it was his first experience at a black theater, that it was fulfilling, revealing and would have a long-lasting impression. It is imperative that our finest writers are at our finest black theaters."

PLAY DESCRIPTIONS

Blacktop Sky by Christina Anderson
Klass, a homeless, young Black man, sets up residence in the courtyard of a housing project where Ida Peters lives. Triggered by a fatal confrontation between a local street vendor and the police, they quickly develop a precarious bond against the backdrop of a restless neighborhood. Inspired by the Greek myth "Leda and the Swan," Blacktop Sky questions the concept of love, violence, and seduction in a new theatrical style.

Voices from Harper's Ferry by Dominic Taylor
In 1872, two Washington, D.C. police officers stumble upon a man that they believe has nowhere to go. This man was Osborne P. Anderson, the sole survivor of Harper's Ferry raid, a Civil War veteran, and one America's unsung heroes. He was one of five free black men who helped John Brown attack the arsenal in an attempt to arm slaves and abolitionists in1859. A drama with music, this play follows Osborne's journey to fight for America.

Dance, Salome, Dance by Tanya Fernando
For the art patron who has everything, ballet companies are offering something novel: the dancers themselves. In this provocative play the patron is white and the principal ballerina is black. Dance, Salome, Dance questions this perplexing entanglement of patronage, commodification, race, and desire.

ARTIST BIOS

Christina Anderson (Playwright) was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. Plays include: Inked Baby, Blacktop Sky, Good Goods, Man in Love, The Cause of the Effect, Sweet Brown Ginger, and Drip. Her work has appeared at A.C.T., About Face Theatre, Crowded Fire, Ars Nova, Mark Taper Forum, The Coterie Theatre, Playwrights Horizons and other theaters all over the country. Awards and honors include Schwarzman Legacy Scholarship awarded by Paula Vogel, Susan Smith Blackburn nomination, Lorraine Hansberry Award (American College Theater Festival), Van Lier Playwriting Fellowship (New Dramatists), Wasserstein Prize nomination (Dramatists Guild), Lucy Lortel Fellowship (Brown University). American Theatre Magazine selecTed Anderson as one of fifteen up-and-coming artists "whose work will be transforming America's stages for decades to come." She is currently an M.F.A. candidate at Yale School of Drama's Playwriting Program.

Tanya Fernando (Playwright) received both her B.A. in History and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago. She also holds an M.A. from NYU in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Performance Studies. Her teaching and research interests bring together a wide variety of disciplines, including history, anthropology, and the literary, visual, and performing arts. The classes she designs are based on themes or concepts, such as primitivism, modernism, or beauty, and seek to elaborate larger theoretical and political issues by using texts from across the humanities and social sciences. She is currently working on a book, Shock Treatments, that traces a genealogy of ‘shock,' one of modernism's significant modes of representation, critique, and cure. She demonstrates how, in the early decades of the twentieth century, modernist shock worked as an organizing aesthetic principle that established a discursive link between theories of race and sexuality, and a range of disciplines, particularly medicine, psychology, and anthropology.

Dominic Taylor (Playwright and Director) is the Associate Artistic Director of Penumbra Theatre. Mr. Taylor has directed a variety of Theatre Projects including the opera Fresh Faust at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, The Negroes Burial Ground at the Kitchen, N.Y.C., Destiny and Uppa Creek at Dixon Place, and Ride The Rhythm in the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival. At the University of Minnesota he has directed The Wiz, Night Train to Bolina, and Execution of Justice. At Penumbra, he directed Black Nativity: A Season for Change in 2009, and he will re-imagine and direct Black Nativity: Now is the Time for 2010. Mr. Taylor's written work includes Wedding Dance and Personal History, both produced at the Kennedy Center by the African Continuum Theatre. Wedding Dance was also produced at The Crossroads Theatre Company and was awarded an AT&T On Stage Grant. His play I Wish You Love will premiere at Penumbra Theatre in the April of 2011 before a move to the Kennedy Center as part of its New Play Initiative. He has also worked with Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, The Public Theatre, The Kitchen, Dixon Place, New York Theatre Workshop, Rites and Reasons Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre among others. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists and a professor at the University of Minnesota.

Lou Bellamy (Director) is the founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre. Under his leadership, Penumbra has produced 23 world premieres, including August Wilson's first professional production, and is proud to have produced more of Mr. Wilson's plays than any theater in the world. Mr. Bellamy is an OBIE Award-winning director, an accomplished actor, and sought-after scholar. He has been a member of the University of Minnesota's faculty for 32 years and is currently appointed to the rank of associate professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. Recent directing credits include Two Old Black Guys Just Sitting Around Talking, Black Pearl Sings!, Radio Golf, Fences, and The Piano Lesson at Penumbra, A Raisin in the Sun and Gem of the Ocean, Penumbra Productions staged at the Guthrie, Two Trains Running at the Signature Theatre in New York, Jitney at Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Arizona Theatre Company, and the staged reading of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Kennedy Center.

Penumbra Theatre
Penumbra was founded in 1976 by Lou Bellamy to make socially responsible art - art that demanded a response, art with intent, art that could create change. At a time when roles for black artists were limited to stereotypes and comical representations, Penumbra produced theater that roared with authenticity through the unrestrained and rich voice of black artists and playwrights. This respect for cultural authenticity became Penumbra's signature style - and demand for it has reached new heights from theatres around the country fostering collaborations, new productions, tours and awards. This season, Penumbra journeyed to the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to stage Radio Golf by August Wilson, directed by Lou Bellamy in the "The Aunt Ester Cycle." The 2010-2011 Season will include travel to The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to stage I Wish You Love by Dominic Taylor, directed by Lou Bellamy and a presentation at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota of Penumbra's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, by August Wilson, directed by Lou Bellamy. For the latest news and updates, visit www.penumbratheatre.org.Penumbra Theatre Company, the nation's preeminent African American theatre, proudly announced today the second annual Word(s)PLAY!, a forum designed to develop new plays by African American Playwrights. Word(s)PLAY! will introduce three new plays to the Twin Cities July 10, 17, and 24, 2010 at 7:30 PM.

This three day event will offer a staged reading of each play followed by an open talk back with the playwright, director, artists, and audience. This year's lineup includes Blacktop Sky by Christina Anderson, Voices from Harper's Ferry by Dominic Taylor, and Dance, Salome, Dance by Tanya Fernando.

Word(s)PLAY!

July 10, 7:30 PM: Blacktop Sky by Christina Anderson
Directed by Dominic Taylor

July 17, 7:30 PM: Voices from Harper's Ferry by Dominic Taylor
Directed by Dominic Taylor

July 24, 7:30 PM: Dance, Salome, Dance by Tanya Fernando
Directed by Lou Bellamy

The plays will be read by a company of professional actors that includes: Ansa Akyea, Antonio Banks, Jr., Michael Terrell Brown, T. Mychael Rambo, Dennis W. Spears, and Deja Stowers.

Reservations can be made through the Penumbra Theatre Box Office: 651-224-3180 or online at www.penumbratheatre.org. The event is free and open to the public.

Penumbra's associate artistic director and curator of Word(s)PLAY!, Dominic Taylor said, "We have proudly witnessed plays from last year's festival move on to stages around the country. Penumbra's 2010-2011 season includes Julius by Design by Kara Lee Corthorn, the first of these plays to be produced on our main stage. Through our new play development program, we ensure that honest and uncompromising stories that preserve African American identity, culture and history are written and told."

When Penumbra launched Word(s)PLAY! in 2008, Sydné Mahone was the dramaturge. An associate professor of playwriting and dramatic literature at the University of Iowa, and an established scholar and author, she shared this assessment:

"This is the first major black play development project of the 21st century. It now holds the position of standard bearer, due to the caliber of the playwrights and complexity of the works. This distinguishing mark is a result of the status and reputation of Penumbra, the leadership of Dominic Taylor, and the professionalism of the presentations. The program shows the potential to join the elite play development programs such as Sundance Institute Theatre Lab and the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Unlike these flagship programs, Penumbra has the unique ability to fulfill the promise of play development with the production of new black plays. To illustrate the artistic impact of this program, Marcus Gardley (Yale 2004, Sundance 2005) remarked that it was his first experience at a black theater, that it was fulfilling, revealing and would have a long-lasting impression. It is imperative that our finest writers are at our finest black theaters."

PLAY DESCRIPTIONS

Blacktop Sky by Christina Anderson
Klass, a homeless, young Black man, sets up residence in the courtyard of a housing project where Ida Peters lives. Triggered by a fatal confrontation between a local street vendor and the police, they quickly develop a precarious bond against the backdrop of a restless neighborhood. Inspired by the Greek myth "Leda and the Swan," Blacktop Sky questions the concept of love, violence, and seduction in a new theatrical style.

Voices from Harper's Ferry by Dominic Taylor
In 1872, two Washington, D.C. police officers stumble upon a man that they believe has nowhere to go. This man was Osborne P. Anderson, the sole survivor of Harper's Ferry raid, a Civil War veteran, and one America's unsung heroes. He was one of five free black men who helped John Brown attack the arsenal in an attempt to arm slaves and abolitionists in1859. A drama with music, this play follows Osborne's journey to fight for America.

Dance, Salome, Dance by Tanya Fernando
For the art patron who has everything, ballet companies are offering something novel: the dancers themselves. In this provocative play the patron is white and the principal ballerina is black. Dance, Salome, Dance questions this perplexing entanglement of patronage, commodification, race, and desire.

ARTIST BIOS

Christina Anderson (Playwright) was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. Plays include: Inked Baby, Blacktop Sky, Good Goods, Man in Love, The Cause of the Effect, Sweet Brown Ginger, and Drip. Her work has appeared at A.C.T., About Face Theatre, Crowded Fire, Ars Nova, Mark Taper Forum, The Coterie Theatre, Playwrights Horizons and other theaters all over the country. Awards and honors include Schwarzman Legacy Scholarship awarded by Paula Vogel, Susan Smith Blackburn nomination, Lorraine Hansberry Award (American College Theater Festival), Van Lier Playwriting Fellowship (New Dramatists), Wasserstein Prize nomination (Dramatists Guild), Lucy Lortel Fellowship (Brown University). American Theatre Magazine selecTed Anderson as one of fifteen up-and-coming artists "whose work will be transforming America's stages for decades to come." She is currently an M.F.A. candidate at Yale School of Drama's Playwriting Program.

Tanya Fernando (Playwright) received both her B.A. in History and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago. She also holds an M.A. from NYU in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Performance Studies. Her teaching and research interests bring together a wide variety of disciplines, including history, anthropology, and the literary, visual, and performing arts. The classes she designs are based on themes or concepts, such as primitivism, modernism, or beauty, and seek to elaborate larger theoretical and political issues by using texts from across the humanities and social sciences. She is currently working on a book, Shock Treatments, that traces a genealogy of ‘shock,' one of modernism's significant modes of representation, critique, and cure. She demonstrates how, in the early decades of the twentieth century, modernist shock worked as an organizing aesthetic principle that established a discursive link between theories of race and sexuality, and a range of disciplines, particularly medicine, psychology, and anthropology.

Dominic Taylor (Playwright and Director) is the Associate Artistic Director of Penumbra Theatre. Mr. Taylor has directed a variety of Theatre Projects including the opera Fresh Faust at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, The Negroes Burial Ground at the Kitchen, N.Y.C., Destiny and Uppa Creek at Dixon Place, and Ride The Rhythm in the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival. At the University of Minnesota he has directed The Wiz, Night Train to Bolina, and Execution of Justice. At Penumbra, he directed Black Nativity: A Season for Change in 2009, and he will re-imagine and direct Black Nativity: Now is the Time for 2010. Mr. Taylor's written work includes Wedding Dance and Personal History, both produced at the Kennedy Center by the African Continuum Theatre. Wedding Dance was also produced at The Crossroads Theatre Company and was awarded an AT&T On Stage Grant. His play I Wish You Love will premiere at Penumbra Theatre in the April of 2011 before a move to the Kennedy Center as part of its New Play Initiative. He has also worked with Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, The Public Theatre, The Kitchen, Dixon Place, New York Theatre Workshop, Rites and Reasons Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre among others. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists and a professor at the University of Minnesota.

Lou Bellamy (Director) is the founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre. Under his leadership, Penumbra has produced 23 world premieres, including August Wilson's first professional production, and is proud to have produced more of Mr. Wilson's plays than any theater in the world. Mr. Bellamy is an OBIE Award-winning director, an accomplished actor, and sought-after scholar. He has been a member of the University of Minnesota's faculty for 32 years and is currently appointed to the rank of associate professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. Recent directing credits include Two Old Black Guys Just Sitting Around Talking, Black Pearl Sings!, Radio Golf, Fences, and The Piano Lesson at Penumbra, A Raisin in the Sun and Gem of the Ocean, Penumbra Productions staged at the Guthrie, Two Trains Running at the Signature Theatre in New York, Jitney at Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Arizona Theatre Company, and the staged reading of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Kennedy Center.

Penumbra Theatre
Penumbra was founded in 1976 by Lou Bellamy to make socially responsible art - art that demanded a response, art with intent, art that could create change. At a time when roles for black artists were limited to stereotypes and comical representations, Penumbra produced theater that roared with authenticity through the unrestrained and rich voice of black artists and playwrights. This respect for cultural authenticity became Penumbra's signature style - and demand for it has reached new heights from theatres around the country fostering collaborations, new productions, tours and awards. This season, Penumbra journeyed to the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to stage Radio Golf by August Wilson, directed by Lou Bellamy in the "The Aunt Ester Cycle." The 2010-2011 Season will include travel to The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to stage I Wish You Love by Dominic Taylor, directed by Lou Bellamy and a presentation at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota of Penumbra's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, by August Wilson, directed by Lou Bellamy. For the latest news and updates, visit www.penumbratheatre.org.

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