Mile Square Theatre Presents Annual 7TH INNING STRETCH

Mile Square Theatre, Hudson County's leading professional theatre, presents its annual 10-minute play festival, 7th Inning Stretch: 7 10-minute plays about baseball .

In celebration of Hoboken's historical claim as the birthplace of baseball, since 2003 MST has commissioned some of America's most celebrated playwrights to create short work on the theme of baseball. This year's lineup of writers has eagerly accepted the assignment and will be hitting it out of the park on May 12, 13, and 14 when this annual event is presented at Mile Square Theatre's new performance venue.

This year's writers include Raquel Almazon (Signature Theatre, La Mama, Intar), Bob Clyman (Alley Theatre, 59E59), Megan Hart (O'Neill Finalist), Steven Haworth (LA Weekly Award, Ovation nominee), Erin Mallon (InViolet Theatre), and Joe Sutton (Pulitzer Nominee).

Chris O'Connor, MST Artistic Director and producer of the festival, says, "Once again, we have an accomplished and diverse list of playwrights for the Stretch. In reading the plays they submitted, I'm struck by the imagination and skill they bring to their work. I find them moving, funny, and downright entertaining. 10-minute play writing is to playwriting as shorts stories is to prose. This event never fails to dazzle our audience, and the most common remark I hear from our regulars is, 'I can't wait for this year's Stretch!' They will not be disappointed."

7th Inning Stretch, presented by Mile Square Theatre

1400 Clinton Street, Hoboken

May 12 @ 8pm

May 13 @ 6:30pm: The Triple Play Party! Join the actors and the board for an evening of food, drink, and incredible auction items!

May 14 @ 3pm

Tickets available at www.milesquaretheatre.org, or by calling 201-683-7014.

Tickets are $30 • $18 students and seniors.

Triple Play Party: $75

Discount Parking available at The Harlow @ 14th and Willow, and at Little Man Parking at 1300 Jefferson Street.

For more information on Mile Square Theatre, please visit www.milesquaretheatre.org.

7th Inning Stretch Sponsors: Breakline, Castle Point Publishing, Freeholder Anthony L. Romano, Haven Savings Bank, HoboKen Brownstone, Hoboken Historical Museum, Hoboken Orthodontics, Louise and Jerry's, The Munshine Group

MST Season Sponsorships: Academy Bus, CSBK, Bijou Properties, Ironstate, Jet.com, The Kocis Family, The Rockefeller Group

Mile Square Theatre is supported by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

This program is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey Council on the Arts/Department of state, a partner agency of the National endowment for the arts and by funds from the national endowment for the arts, administered by the Hudson county office of cultural & heritage affairs, Thomas A. Degise, County Executive, and the Board of Chosen Freeholders.

Member of The New Jersey Theatre Alliance.

PLAYWRIGHT BIOS

Raquel Almazan is an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and activist, holds a B.F.A. in Theatre from U of F. /M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University. Her eclectic career as artist-activist spans original multi-media solo performances, playwriting, new work development and dramaturgy. She is a practitioner of Butoh Dance and the creator/teacher of arts programs for youth/adults, several of which focus on social justice. Her work has been featured in New York City-including Off-Broadway, throughout the United States and internationally in Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Colombia, Guatemala and Sweden; including several of her plays within her lifelong project on writing bi-lingual plays in dedication to each Latin American country (Latin is America play cycle). Selected plays include: La Paloma Prisoner (The Signature Theatre, La Mama, The Lark table read, INTAR and LAByrinth Theatre Company, Womens Playwriting International Conference, Stockholm). La Migra Taco Truck (off broadway Theatre Row). The Hopefulness (Theatre Row Reading-Rising Circle Theatre Company- Recipient of the Kate NeAl Kinley Playwriting Fellowship). Porning the Planet (Dixon Place). Ur -Faust (dramaturgy/performer) that toured to Hyterio Theatre in Athens, Greece. Professional Development residencies with the Eugene O'Neill Center Playwrights Conference and The Playwrights' Center. Recipient of Kennedy Center's Latinidad Award for her playCAFÉ. Artistic Director of La Lucha Arts, dedicated to producing her new works. Member of Dramatists Guild and League of Professional Theatre Women, SAG-AFTRA and HOLA. www.raquelalmazan.com

Bob Clyman's plays have been produced Off-Broadway and at regional theatres, such as the Alley Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, San Jose Repertory Theatre, George Street Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Colony Studio Theatre in Los Angeles, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, and L.A. Theatre Works, in addition to touring Scotland. His play Secret Order was initially commissioned and produced by The Ensemble Studio Theatre under the auspices of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It was subsequently produced at 59E59 Theatre in New York, where it was nominated for an Outer Circle Critics Award for the best script in 2008, and has since been produced at many regional theatres. His plays Tranced and The Exceptionals were both supported by Edgerton Foundation New American Play Awards. Tranced has been produced by San Jose Repertory Theatre, Laguna Playhouse and Merrimack Repertory Theatre, among others. The Expectionals was produced by the Contemporary American Theatre Festival and Merrimack Repertory Theatre, where it was nominated for both Best Play and Best New Play of 2012 by The Independent Reviewers of New England. His most recent play The Good Bet, was chosen for The Ashland New Play Festival in 2014. He has been awarded a number of national prizes, including a Eugene O'Neill Summer Conference Fellowship, Geraldine Dodge Fellowship, Playwrights First Award, New Jersey State Arts Council Award, Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship, Berilla-Kerr Foundation Award, Djerassi Foundation Fellowship, Shenandoah Valley Playwrights Fellowship, and Theater in the Works Fellowship.

Megan Hart is a writer, actor, and social worker. She is the author of three full-length plays, including: This is Fiction, Gated, and heyhowareya. This is Fiction was produced in 2012 by InViolet Theater at the Cherry Lane Studio Theater, and will receive a Spanish language production in Mexico City in 2017. Gated was a finalist for the O'Neill in 2015 and received an Honorable Mention on the 2016 Kilroys List. She is the author of numerous short works which have been workshopped and produced throughout NYC. Megan is a founding member of InViolet Theater Company, with whom as an actor she has originated multiple roles.

Steven Haworth wrote [home] or The Quest for the Lost Tablet of Ur for Zoo District in Los Angeles that received five LA Weekly Award, a Garland, and Ovation nominations. He freely adapted Mikail Bulgakov's Flight for the Open Fist Theatre also in Los Angeles. In New York Little Fishes was produced off-Broadway by Abingdon Theatre, Dark Age by Project III Ensemble Theatre and The White Cave by Jesco Productions. HIs short play Four New Years in Japan was in the Act One;One Act Festival this past January. Two Tribes was performed in the Carnegie Mellon Showcase of New Plays. In New Zealand he was one of four playwrights contributing to the Big Kahuna project directed by Christine Sang. His play Fernando was the winner of the Ashland New Play Festival and the First Look Festival in Los Angeles. The Other Genius was a winner Long Beach Playhouse New Works Festival this year and the 2015 NEWvember New Plays Festival. Blue/Whitney was a winner of Stage Left Theatre's 10th Leapfest New Play Festival in Chicago, the Panndora New Play Festival in Long Beach, CA, a semi-finalist for the National Playwrights Conference, and a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Steven has seen his plays developed by A.S.K. Theatreworks, Echo Theatre, E.S.T. Los Angeles, E.S.T. New York, Abingdon Theatre, Circle Rep, Circle West, the Lark Play Development Center, Playwrights Horizons, Zoo District, Open Fist, Soho Think Tank, and the Carnegie Mellon Showcase of New Plays. Steven was also a founding member and Associate Artistic Director of the Project III Ensemble Theatre in residence at the Ohio Theatre, Soho, NYC, where he wrote Dark Age, directed The Grand Ceremonial, by Fernando Arabal and performed in many productions. As an actor he has performed in numerous productions in New York, Los Angeles and regional theatre. He is a recipient of the CMU WCDAC Michael Goldberg award. MFA in playwriting from Carnegie Mellon University. StevenHaworth.com

Erin Mallon is a writer, actor and voice artist in NYC. Her plays have been presented with Urban Stages, New Georges, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, The Collective, Cherry Picking, Great Plains Theater Conference and Project Y Theater. Erin's play Branched (dir. Robert Ross Parker) premiered with InViolet Theater at HERE Arts Center in NYC and is in print with Original Works Publishing. Her new play, The Net Will Appear is an Honorable Mention on the 2016 Kilroys List and will have its World Premiere this fall at Mile Square Theatre. Other full-length plays include: Good Riddance, Hand Me Down (a commission for Ethical Culture Fieldston School), Stunning Displays of Prowess and The Other White Meat. Acting credits include Buran Theatre, The Brick, Incubator Arts Project, Sleeping Weazel, Ensemble Studio Theatre and more. Erin is the narrator of 175 audiobooks, a member of InViolet Theater and The Collective and is founder and co-curator of The Brooklyn Generator, a playwriting engine that creates "plays in less-than-30-days." http://www.erinmallon.net/

Joe Sutton's plays include Voir Dire (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the Best Play Award of the American Theatre Critics Association), As It Is In Heaven, The Third Army, and Restoring the Sun. Theatres producing Joe's plays include New York Theater Workshop, Long Wharf, Arena Stage, BAM, the Cleveland Play House, Primary Stages and The Old Globe in San Diego. Not long ago Joe's play Complicit premiered at London's Old Vic with Artistic Director Kevin Spacey directing. More recently, Joe's newest play Orwell In America opened at Vermont's Northern Stage before continuing with a sold-out run at New York's 59E59. In addition to his theatre work, Joe has developed a pilot for the USA Network called Scales of Justice. When not in rehearsal, Joe teaches playwriting at Dartmouth College. He is a recipient of numerous awards and honors, among them fellowships from NYFA, the NEA, and NJ Arts.

Chris O'Connor (MST Artistic Director/Producer)

Chris is Founding Artistic Director of Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, NJ where he conceived and produces the annual 10-minute play festival 7th Inning Stretch. He has directed at theatres and universities all over America and his recent work at Mile Square Theatre includes Harold Pinter's Betrayal, Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, and the world premiere of Long Gone Daddy by Joseph Gallo. His plays for young people have been produced at Seattle Children's Theatre and his short play The Mascots is published in Smith & Kraus's 2011 Best 10-Minute Plays and his play Miss Ring Has Lost Her Phone was a finalist in the 2016 City Theatre National Short Play Competition. As an actor, Chris has performed in such theatres as Seattle's A Contemporary Theatre, The Culture Project, Soho Rep, The Ahmanson, Gloucester Stage, Provisional Theatre of Los Angeles, The Bathhouse Theatre, Seattle Children's Theatre, City Theatre in Pittsburgh, where he originated the role of Peter in Craig Wright's The Pavilion, and most recently at Maltz Jupiter Theatre in Billy Elliot. Recent TV credits include Magic City and Burn Notice. He is Assistant Professor at Molloy College in New York. BFA, Carnegie-Mellon University and MFA, Rutgers University.

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