EST's Youngblood Launches UNFILTERED with Brendan Hill's SH*TLOADS OF MONEY Tonight

Ensemble Studio Theatre and EST's Youngblood are proud to present UNFILTERED 2015-2016, the annual festival series of brand new, full-length plays from emerging playwrights under the age of thirty. This year's Youngblood graduates are also the first beneficiaries of the new exit commission grant, donated this year by Tony-nominated playwright Robert Askins.

UNFILTERED 2015-2016 begins tonight, November 12, 2015 and will take place over a series of dates through April 23, 2016 at EST's Mainstage Theatre (549 W. 52nd Street, New York, NY 10019). This year's UNFILTERED playwrights are Brendan Hill, Abby Rosebrock, Ana Nogueira, Paul Cameron Hardy, Mariah MacCarthy, Patrick Link and Eric March.

"Unfiltered gives the promising plays coming out of our Youngblood program fully designed and rehearsed workshop performances," says Artistic Director William Carden. "It is where we have seen some of our most exciting work come to life for the first time. Eric Dufault's award-winning Year of the Rooster was first seen as part of Unfiltered. This type of workshop is a key component in the way we are developing new work and including Unfiltered we will be presenting ten of them in the course of this season."

UNFILTERED 2015-2016 begins with Shitloads of Money, written by Brendan Hill and directed by Matt Dickson. Las Vegas, the land of excess, proves to be unluckily lucky for one young couple who wins big. Under the gaze of Lady Luck, mayhem, big media and murder run rampant. Shitloads of Money will be performed on Thursday, November 12 through Saturday, November 14 and will feature Bradley W. Anderson, Denny Dale Bess, Sasha Diamond, Jessica Frances Dukes, Megan Hill, Andy Lucien, Jay Patterson, Patricia Randell, and Mike Smith Rivera.

Dido of Idaho, written by Abby Rosebrock and directed by Mikhaela Mahony, explores what happens when an alcoholic musicologist competes with a former Miss Idaho for the love of a married English professor. Dido of Idaho will be performed Thursday, November 19 through Sunday, November 22 and will feature Curran Connor, Julie Fitzpatrick, Layla Khoshnoudi, Dawn McGee and Abby Rosebrock.

The final UNFILTERED play of 2015 will be Empathitrax. Written by Ana Nogueira and directed by John Giampietro, the play looks into the near future where a young couple is having some relationship problems. A perky delivery boy arrives with a pill that may offer a solution to all their romantic woes. But all solutions come with their own side effects. Empathitrax will run Wednesday, December 9 through Saturday, December 12.

UNFILTERED 2015-2016 will continue in 2016 with Mope by Paul Cameron Hardy, Honors Students by Mariah MacCarthy, and The Triple Threat, a musical comedy by Patrick Link and Eric March. Casting and additional details will be announced at a later date.

In a continued effort to invest in their playwrights, EST's Youngblood program will be awarding commission grants to all members as they turn 30 and graduate from the program. This year's Youngblood exit commissions were awarded to graduates Lucy Gillespie, Paul Cameron Hardy, Patrick Link, Martyna Majok, Anna Moench, Ana Nogueira, Jen Silverman, and Emily Chadick Weiss.

For the first year of exit commissions, Tony-nominated playwright and Youngblood alumnus Robert Askins (Hand to God) donated the funds to make these awards possible. Askins announced the awards last spring at the monthly Youngblood Brunch, as he spoke about finding his own artistic voice participating in the program.

As artists graduate, the Youngblood program welcomes new playwrights into their midst. This year's 2015 new Youngblood members are Brittany K. Allen, Cary Gitter, Amanda Keating, Sylvia Khoury, Claire Kiechel, Andrew Massey, Catya McMullen, Ming Peiffer, Christina Quintana, Rebecca Schlossberg, and Kristin Slaney.

Tickets for UNFILTERED 2015-2016 are now on sale. Tickets range from $15 to $20 and can be purchased in advance at www.ESTnyc.org or by calling (866) 811-4111. The performance schedule for Shitloads of Money is as follows: Nov 12-14, Thursday - Saturday at 7pm, Saturday at 2pm. The performance schedule for Dido of Idaho is as follows: Nov 19-22, Thursday - Saturday at 7pm, Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 5pm. The performance schedule for Empathitrax is as follows: Dec 9-13, Wednesday - Saturday at 7pm, Saturday at 2pm.

Ensemble Studio Theatre -- commonly known as EST -- was founded in 1968 by Curt Dempster on the belief that extraordinary support yields extraordinary work. We are a dynamic and expanding family of member artists committed to the discovery and nurturing of new voices and the continued support and growth of artists throughout their creative lives. Through our unique collaborative process we develop and produce original, provocative, and authentic new plays that engage and challenge our audience and audiences across the country.

Now with nearly 600 ensemble artists, EST has been under the artistic direction of William Carden since 2007. The company received two 2013 Drama Desk Award nominations for Finks by Joe Gilford and one 2014 Drama Desk nomination for Bobby Moreno in Year Of The Rooster by Eric Dufault, who won the 2014 NY Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award for a new playwright debut. Hand To God, originated at EST, was nominated for five Tony Awards for its Broadway run. EST received a special Drama Desk Award for its "unwavering commitment to producing new works" in May of 2015.

Youngblood is Ensemble Studio Theatre's OBIE-winning collective of emerging professional playwrights under the age of 30. Founded in 1993, Youngblood serves as a creative home for the next generation of theater artists. Youngblood provides artistic guidance, peer support, regular feedback and a fertile production environment which allows our member playwrights to hone their skills and explore their craft. We also provide exposure to the public and the press, professional outreach to the industry, and opportunities for production and publication.

Plays by current and former Youngblood playwrights have been performed at The Royal Court Theatre, Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Mark Taper Forum, the Vineyard Theater, the Atlantic Theater Company and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, including award winners such as Annie Baker's The Aliens and Amy Herzog's 4000 Miles, and have been adapted by film and television companies, including alumni Lucy Alibar's Juicy and Delicious which was adapted into the Cannes Caméra d'Or-winning film Beasts of The Southern Wild.

BIOS:

BRENDAN HILL (Playwright, Shitloads of Money) writes plays in a windowless room in Brooklyn. He is a current member of EST's Youngblood, and has worked with Manual Cinema, Strange Men Theatre Co, The Glass Bandits, the claque, Heartpunch and No. 11 Productions to have his work staged in places such as the Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Flea, The Paley Center for Media, @seaport, Space on White, The Greenhouse, Under St. Marks and in both Chicago and Paris.

ABBY ROSEBROCK (Playwright, Dido of Idaho) is a writer and actress from South Carolina. Her plays have been produced or read at Cherry Lane, Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Dixon Place, The Brick, IRT, The Flea, INTAR, and more. She has been named a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference (Singles in Agriculture) and been published in best-of anthologies by Smith & Kraus and Applause (Different Animals). Abby is a member of Playground at The Lark Play Development Center, The Tank's TV- and new media-writers' collective, and the Obie Award-winning playwrights' collective EST/Youngblood. She graduated from Columbia University, where she taught writing on a literature fellowship and completed a doctorate in English. Her webseries My #Ex Is Trending, co-created with Layla Khoshnoudi, appears on Control Top TV. www.abbyrosebrock.com

ANA NOGUEIRA (Playwright, Empathitrax) Ana Nogueira is an actress and playwright living in New York City. She is a recent alumni of Youngblood and a recipient of a 2015 Sloan Grant for her play about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and epigenetics. Her plays have been developed at Second Stage, SPACE on Ryder Farm and The Hangar Theater.

PAUL CAMERON HARDY (Playwright, Mope) Paul Cameron Hardy has had work up with The New Ohio, EST, Dixon Place, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Flea, On the Square, Glass Bandits, Chochiqq Backyard Theatre Festival, Page 22 and MTW. Former member of playwriting groups Youngblood (EST) and heartpunch. Founding member of the mixed media collective Big Handsome Guts. He is a recipient of a Fluevog Artist Grant. MFA (in progress) with Mac Wellman, Erin Courtney, and Anne Washburn at Brooklyn College.

MARIAH MACCARTHY (Playwright, Honors Students)'s work has been presented and developed at Rattlestick, Primary Stages, EST/Youngblood, Culture Project, New Dramatists, La MaMa, HERE Arts Center, Theater for the New City, Jimmy's No. 43, Players Theatre, site-specifically around New York, and in Austin, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, San Diego, Baltimore, and Fringe NYC. Plays include Mrs. Mayfield's Fifth-Grade Class of '93 20-Year Reunion, Magic Trick, The Foreplay Play (two NY Innovative Theatre Award nominations: Outstanding Production and Outstanding Full-Length Script), Lysistrata Rape Play (developed at The Theatre Project and Filling the Well), Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story (winner of 20 Looking Glass Forum Awards and FringeNYC "Outstanding Performance"), The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret, and A Man of His Word (winner, California Young Playwrights Contest), as well as the short plays "You'll Have to Wait," "The Avenging of Kruppcake," "A Drop of Cream," "Go Away Come Here," "All About a Boy" (Best of Week, FronteraFest 2013), "You'll Thank Me Later," "l'esprit de l'escalier," "Three Sisters New York," "Dismemberment," and multiple plays in the NY and NJ One-Minute Play Festivals. Winner of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award, Lotos Foundation Prize winner, 2012 nytheatre.com "Person of the Year," Executive Artistic Director and founder of Caps Lock Theatre, curator of Pussyfest and Sex With Robots, Filling the Well resident artist, San Diego native, Skidmore graduate, and a member of Youngblood, the Propulsion Lab, and Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

PATRICK LINK (Playwright, The Triple Threat) has written four musicals with Eric March including Christmas in Queens (Unfiltered 2013) and The Bone Wars (EST/Sloan). Other plays includes Headstrong (EST 2012, Dir. William Carden; LA Theatre Works), Sweet Forgotten Flavor (Princess Grace Award Semifinalist, Unfiltered 2011, Dir. RJ Tolan), and The Majestic Players Storm Kansas City (Alfred University, Dir. Abigail Zealey Bess). He is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, a Youngblood alum (2008-2015), and a resident of Hell's Kitchen.

ERIC MARCH (Playwright, The Triple Threat) is a pianist, composer and playwright whose work has been performed at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, the New York International Fringe Festival and many tiny bars. After graduating college in 2007, he wrote funny headlines for The Onion for two years, then quit to write Facebook updates for a living. He is a member of the BMI Musical Theater Writing Workshop, where he has received developmental readings of three short musicals: 312 13th St., Battlestar: The Musical, and Absurdistan. He plays the piano for MAC Award-winning improv group Broadway's Next Hit Musical and travels to far off, occasionally awesome places with theChicago City Limits National Touring Company.

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