Southern Rep Announces Winners of New Play Riot Contest

Artistic Director Aimée Hayes is proud to announce the winners of the SOUTHERN REP NEW PLAY RIOT, the 10-minute play contest held along side the SOUTHERN REP NEW PLAY BACCHANAL, a three-week long festival of workshops, readings, and other events. Continuing its artistic mission of finding and developing new theatrical works, the competition-based NEW PLAY RIOT was created to showcase some of the Gulf Coast's most exciting playwrights, both established and emerging. Open to any native or resident of the Gulf Coast South, including Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, or Texas, the NEW PLAY RIOT offered playwrights the opportunity to compete in both the STAGE RIOT and RADIO RIOT categories for plays suited specifically for stage or radio production. Winners and runners up for both categories will be presented as staged readings on January 20th and 27th at 8pm within the WORKSHOPS & READINGS portion of the SOUTHERN REP NEW PLAY BACCHANAL.

"Our Reading Committee had a blast reading the more than 80 submissions to the Riot. It shows that the southern playwright talent pool is deep and diverse! " said Artistic Director Aimée Hayes. "In beginning this dialogue with these writers we open up opportunities for developing exciting work in the future as well."

In addition to its staged reading during the BACCHANAL, the winning play of the STAGE RIOT will be produced as the curtain-raiser to the final show of Southern Rep's 2009-2010 season, THE PIANO TEACHER, running May 19th - June 13, 2010. The playwright will receive an honorarium of $250 as well as travel to opening night of THE PIANO TEACHER on May 22nd, 2010. The winning play of the RADIO RIOT will be broadcast on 89.9 WWNO/KTLN, New Orleans' local classical music radio station and NPR affiliate, on a date to be announced. The playwright will receive an honorarium of $150. Two STAGE RIOT runners up and one RADIO RIOT runner up will receive honorariums of $50 each.

STAGE RIOT

WINNER: ROCKS AND SHADOWS by Shawn Hirabayashi. Mr. Hirabayashi received the greater part of his training in dramatic writing from Milan Stitt at the Yale School of Drama (MFA Playwriting 1992). He has had 16 plays produced in New York City by Vital Theatre Company, Starfish Theatreworks, One Dream, Circle Rep Lab, Nada, Sundog Theatre, Atlantic Theatre Company Theatre School, Circle East, and Ripple Productions. He has had readings at various theatres including Circle Repertory Company, New York Theatre Workshop, and East West Players (L.A.). Shawn recently received the 2008 Wild Card Productions Playwright's Commission in Memory of Frank Pisco. For two weeks in August 2002, Shawn was a resident playwright at New River Dramatists (then known as the Playwright Project - M.Z. Ribalow, Artistic Director). In 1997, he was the recipient of a Berrilla Kerr Award. The production by Vital Theatre Company of his play FUNNY was presented an award, Best of the 2002-2003 Season, by Off-Off Broadway Review. He received commissions from Starfish Theatreworks in 1999 and 2000. He was in The Circle Repertory Playwrights Project (1992-94) and participated in several Circle Repertory Writers' Retreats (with Lanford Wilson and Paula Vogel among others). Shawn is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Starfish Theatreworks, and Circle East. He was the Literary Manager at Vital from September 2002 to August 2003, and an Artistic Associate until March 2005. He was a member playwright of Circle Repetory Lab. Along with his MFA, Shawn has a B.A. in English from the University of California at Davis (1987). He taught English in the Peace Corps in Morocco (1986-88). Born in New Paltz, New York, Shawn is French and Japanese-American and as a "foreign service brat" lived in Ecuador, Brazil, Ethiopia and Zaire (Congo) before he graduated high school. He has studied t'ai chi with Maggie Newman since 1993.

FIRST RUNNER UP: TWO HUNDRED FEET AND COUNTING by Marco Antonio Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez has had plays produced at City Theatre, The Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga, Florida Stage's 1st Stage New Works Festival, FringeNYC, The Juilliard School, The Kennedy Center, The Mad Cat Theatre Company, The Yellow Tree Theatre, and Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays, where he has twice received the Heideman Award for Best Ten-Minute Play - in 2006 for I AM NOT BATMAN, and again in 2009 for 3:59AM: A DRAG RACE FOR TWO ACTORS. His collection of plays for young audiences titled Mermaids, Monsters, and the World Painted Purple was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award in 2008. Other honors include the Bryan Award for Drama from The Fellowship of Southern Writers, the Latino Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center's ACT Festival, and the Le Comte Du Nouy prize from Lincoln Center. A Miami native, he's currently a Playwriting fellow at The Juilliard School.

SECOND RUNNER UP: THE CRAFT OF THE GODDESS by Ty Adams. Mr. Adams began his playwriting career in New Orleans with THE CAMEL SHEPHERDS, his first play, winning the 1985 Grand Prize at the Contemporary Arts Center's Festival of New Plays. He then moved to New York and studied with Cassandra Medley at the Ensemble Studio Theater. He later joined Circle Repertory Theater Company and developed his plays in Circle Rep's Lab and at their writers' retreats at Lanford Wilson's home in Sag Harbor, NY. Ty's New York productions include BASEBALL IN ZANZIBAR at The Irish Arts Center; TOUCH at The New American Theatre; GIFT OF THE SPICE PEOPLE and THE GREAT KHAN at The Director's Company; BRAINLESS IDIOT at Alice's Fourth Floor; HOW TO ROAST A PEPPER at The West Bank Cafe; THE FINGER HOLE at Manhattan Theatre Source; THE BACKWARD MAN, ICE FISHING PROSTITUTE and MORPHS at Vital Theatre Company. Radio includes SAVE ME, a noir murder mystery broadcast for three years by NPR. Commissions include adapting the book Conecuh People by Wade Hall, to the stage. Ty's screenplay The Falcon was commissioned by French film director Raschid Kerdouche. Opera includes his play MERMAID'S BLOOD, adapted by the Japanese composer Michyo Tanaka. Ty has taught playwriting at Southampton College (NYSSSA Program) and for the Citizen Watch Institute, a non-profit organization helping deprived urban kids. He is presently on-hold with a film he wrote called Getting Lost, a Docu-Drama about a man's struggle with cancer. He now lives in Woodstock, New York but considers himself a Tribal member of the Who Dat Nation.

RADIO RIOT

WINNER: Mooning Lon Chaney, also by Ty Adams.

RUNNER UP: RAIN FALLS ON FALSTAFF by Bradley Troll. Mr. Troll is a playwright and teacher living in New Orleans, LA. He holds a Bachelors in Mass Communication and a Master of Arts in English from McNeese State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting from the University of New Orleans. He has has short plays produced in Texas, Arkansas, and locally at Le Chat Noir and the University of New Orleans. In 2009, Bradley won the National Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Critic's Institute Competition for theatre criticism. Mr. Troll now co-runs Theatrebelowsealevel.com and teaches Gifted English in St. James Parish.

TICKET INFORMATION:

Performances of the PLAY RIOTS will be January 20th and 27th, 2010 at 8pm. Tickets are on sale now for $10 per performance or purchase a BACCHANAL PASS for $20-$25, which grants you access to all BACCHANAL events and workshops. Southern Rep Theatre is located on the 3rd floor of the Shops of Canal Place, where validated parking is available. For more information and to order tickets, call (504) 522-6545, or visit www.southernrep.com.

Southern Rep celebrates 23 years of excellence, developing and producing new plays which provide audiences with professional theatre of the highest artistic quality and achievement and establishing a creative working environment that nurtures theatre professionals. As New Orleans' premiere professional theatre, Southern Rep strives to use the artistry of theatre to enlighten, educate, and entertain audiences, and aims to extend that service through educational and outreach programs.

 

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