7th Annual 7th Inning Stretch Presents Baseball Shorts 3/14

The 7 th Annual 7 th Inning Stretch: 7 10-minute plays about baseball

Playwrights: William Burton Henline (MFA playwriting candidate at Rutgers University)

Rand Higbee (alt. to National Theatre Festival at the Kennedy Center)
Robin Rice Lichtig (Lincoln Center Director's Lab, New Georges)
Jay Rehak (Inspirato Festival in Toronto, Knutsford Theater Festival in England)Donna Spector (Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 2002, Pushcart Prize Nom)
Heather Woodbury (Kennedy Center Grantee, OBIE winner)
Anna Ziegler (The Manhattan Theatre Club, The Sundance Theatre Lab)

Quick Facts: Event Date/Time: 3/14/09, 8 p.m.
Reception to follow
Event Cost: $25; $20 for students/seniors
Event Place: DeBaun Auditorium at 5 th & Hudson in Hoboken

Reception: Free wine and light fare following the event

7 Plays About Baseball To Steal Your Heart This year, Mile Square Theatre's production of its annual fundraiser 7 th Inning Stretch features a selection of seven 10-minute plays from some of America's finest playwrights.

They were specially selected from close to 100 submissions and the playwrights rangefrom famous award-winners to MFA up and comers. From single A to the majors, we'vegot the bases covered.
And Here's the Lineup: Opening Day by William Burton HenlineIt's opening day, and a Nationals fan is on the perfect date -- if he can shake off the ghostof his dead father.William Burton Henline hails from just outside Washington D.C. and is currently an MFA playwrighting candidate at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts.Before attending Mason Gross, William graduated cum laude from Christopher Newport University in Virginia with a double major in theatre and government.

The Last Ballgame by Rand HigbeeWhen an aging radio play-by-play man announces his final game, he calls on all possibleforces to postpone the inevitable.Rand Higbee grew up in Spearfish, South Dakota, and obtained a theatre degree fromSouth Dakota State University and an MFA in Playwriting from the University ofNevada, Las Vegas. While at UNLV, his first full-length play, Sir Isaac's Duel, wasnamed as an alternate to the National American College Theatre Festival held at theKennedy Center. A former high school teacher, Rand has published several one-acts forstudents including Next! which has been performed by nearly 200 schools in the last fiveyears.

His play The Head That Wouldn't Die was presented as first a reading and then a full production at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, and played a four week run atCyrano's Playhouse in Anchorage, Alaska, during the summer of 2008. Rand currentlylives in either Red Wing, Minnesota, or Hager City, Wisconsin...depending on yourpoint of view.Deja Vu All Over Again by Robin Rice Lichtig When Yogi Berra slides into a terrible slump, the Oracle of the Yankees comes to therescue -- with the help of Shakespeare and a looking glass.Robin Rice Lichtig is the author of over 40 plays, produced worldwide. Her full lengthplay, Suki Livingston Opens Like a Parachute, is currently in development and looking for a premiere producer. Her knowledge about baseball hasn't increased since junior highwhen she had a mad crush on a Little League pitcher and read every book on the sportthat she could get her hands on in an effort to appear scintillating.

The End of a Perfect Game by Jay Rehak One pitch from throwing a perfect game in the final game of the World Series, a veteran pitcher starts to fall off the rails. Calling both his catcher and manager to the mound, thehurler struggles with the question, "What's the point?" before he decides whether or notto throw a perfect game . Jay Rehak is a playwright, non-fiction essayist, videographer and teacher. His darkly comedic work has been produced by theaters around the world.

His latest short work, Dr.J's Magic Spray, was voted audience favorite at the 2008 Inspirato Festival in Toronto,Canada and featured at the Knutsford Theater Festival in England. Jay's reflections on teaching can be found in two essay compilations, City Kids, City Teachers (New Press,1996) and Teaching for Social Justice (New Press, 1998).

He is also a published songwriter and has co-written Noah's Ark: The Musical, first produced in Chicago in 1998. His videos can be seen on Youtube, Teachertube, and Kidstube, among othervenues. He is currently completing a full-length comedy entitled Damned Right: AComedy About People Who Know Everything. Jay teaches English in Chicago where helives with his wife, award winning children's singer Susan Salidor and his two daughters.

English Majors by Donna SpectorPaul and Lisa meet through eHarmony.com in an Upper West Side café. Former English majors and devout iconoclasts, they have an astonishing amount in common until they land on the subject of baseball.Donna Spector's plays have appeared Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway, regionallyand in Canada, Ireland, Scotland and Greece.

Her play Golden Ladder(Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 2002 and The Best Stage Scenes of 2002,Smith & Kraus) was produced Off Broadway in 2002, as was her first play, AnotherParadise, in 1986. A member of Dramatists Guild, Poets & Writers, Manhattan Oraclesand the International Centre for Women Playwrights, she received two N.E.H. Greecestudy grants and production grants from the Dodge Foundation and the New YorkCouncil for the Arts. She has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and thePushcart Editors' Book Award and was a winner of the Sunwall Comedy Playwriting Prize and the Masters Poetry Prize.

Her poems, stories, plays, scenes and monologues have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including a prize-winning play, Short-Term Affairs, by Dramatic Publishing. Her agent is Carolyn French at FifiOscard Agency.Mike and the Rabbi by Heather WoodburyWhen a cab driver picks up a Rabbi in the middle of the night he receives an unexpected lesson in feng shui, Kabbalah and the incorrect placement of his Jackie Robinson doll inthe taxi.

Heather Woodbury is an award-winning performer and writer known for hergroundbreaking multi-character solo and ensemble works, which combine theimmediacy of performance art with a novel's length and scope. Her 10-hour,100-character solo play, What Ever: An American Odyssey in Eight Acts(published by Faber/Farrar, Strauss & Giroux) was hailed as a "Whitmanesquevision of America" [Chicago Sun-Times] and cited as "a masterwork of thesolo form" by the NY Times. It was adapted as a radio play hosted by IraGlass. Woodbury has received multiple awards, grants and fellowships for hersubsequent works. Her play Tale of 2Cities: An American Joyride on MultipleTracks won a 2007 OBIE (Outstanding Achievement in Off-Broadway Production)for ensemble performance.

And in 2006 she was awarded the inaugural Spalding Gray Award honoring writer/performers who are "fearless innovators."Ms. Woodbury has taught professional workshops for A.S.K. Theatre Projectsin Los Angeles, Northeastern University in Boston, St. Edward's University in Austin and University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

She has conducted performances and lectures for students at Yale, SMU, Northwestern, UCLA and NYU. She will be Master-Artist-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for theArts in 2009.Ron Swoboda's Wish by Anna Ziegler When Jason's boyfriend of four years dumps him on his birthday, he has no one to turn to except for his twin brother Jacob. Can Jason penetrate Jacob's strange and encyclopedicknowledge of baseball facts to find the brotherly support that he needs?

Anna Ziegler's plays include: Dov and Ali (Theatre 503, London, 2008), BFF (W.E.T.at the DR2 Theatre, 2007), Novel (SPF, 2007), Photograph 51 (winner of the 2008STAGE International Script Competition for the best new play about science and technology, also commissioned by Active Cultures, produced 2008), Life Science(Bulldog Theatrical, 2007), Variations on a Theme (work-shopped July 2008 byChautauqua Theater Company, directed by Ethan McSweeny) , In the Same Room, TheMinotaur, To Be Fair, and Everything You Have. Ziegler's plays have been developed by: The Manhattan Theatre Club, The Sundance Theatre Lab, The Old Vic New Voicesprogram, Primary Stages, The Geva Theatre Center, The McCarter Theatre, The Lark Play Development Center, Ars Nova, Theater J, New Georges (where she is an Affiliated Artist), Clubbed Thumb, The New Harmony Project, Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, ThehotINK Festival, Fire Dep't, Catalyst Theater, Rorschach Theatre, The Playwright'sCenter PlayLabs Festival, The Berkshire Playwrights Lab, The Fireraisers TheatreCompany at The Hampstead Theatre (London) and The Birmingham Rep, and byCompany B at the Belvoir St. Theatre (Sydney, Australia). She has been published inNew Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2007 (Smith and Kraus), Ten-Minute Plays for 2Actors: The Best of 2004 (Smith and Kraus, Inc.) and New American Short Plays 2005(Backstage Books, ed. Craig Lucas). BFF and Life Science are published by DramatistsPlay Service. A graduate of Yale, she holds an MFA from Tisch, NYU

 

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