INTAR Announces 2011 Hispanic-Playwrights-in-Residence

INTAR (Lou Moreno, Artistic Director/John McCormack, Executive Director) today announced the playwrights for this year's Maria Irene Fornes Hispanic Playwrights in Residency Lab: Julissa Contreras, Fernanda Coppel, Beto O'Byrne and Lisa Ramirez.

These four playwrights have been selected from hundreds of applicants. Each of the writers will be given one workshop and an opportunity for three public presentations of his or her new play. The lab is divided up into three sessions, each focusing on a specific stage of the playwright's process. The first session, moderated by New York playwright Lucy Thurber, focuses on the writing, rewriting, and work-shopping process of a new play. The second will be devoted to pre-production activities, collaborating with directors, designers, and openly engaging in the casting process with casting director Billy Hopkins. The final session will be the production itself, from first rehearsal up to the final presentation/performances. The lab structure is designed to engage the artists in a process analogous to what they will experience as playwrights working with professional theater companies throughout their careers.

Julissa Contreras is an actor/playwright/director, who is a LaGuardia HS alum and current Brooklyn College student. Julissa a also a former member of the Manhattan Class Company's Youth Company where she appeared in In The Moment, Uncensored '08 and Uncensored '10 (which she assistant directed), and had her first full length play, Daniel, presented at the company's FreshPlay festival. Julissa has had her writing presented at RattleStick's Play Jam Festival 2010, and Rebel Verses at Developing Artist Theater.

Fernanda Coppel was born in Mazatlan and raised in San Diego. Her play Chimi-Changas and Zololft was the winner of the Asuncion Queer Latino Festival at Pregones Theater and has had readings at both Atlantic Theater and The Public Theater. Her play Pussy has had readings at NY Theatre Workshop and The Juilliard School. She recently had a workshop production of her play, The Leak at INTAR Theatre. Last summer her short play, That Douche Bag's Play, was produced by The Old Vic (London). She received her MFA from NYU and won the John Holden Playwriting Award. She is currently in her second year of residence in the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellowship at The Juilliard School.

Beto O'Byrne is a theater artist from the pine forests of northern East Texas. He holds a BA in Writing from Northwestern State University and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the University of Southern California. Among his many and varied experiences in the theater profession, he is most proud of his work as Artistic Director of Austin Latino Theater Alliance, where he created the ALTA Performing Arts Showcase and directed La Pastorela. As a playwright, his work has been performed in San Antonio and Austin, as well as Los Angeles. He was a runner up for the National Latino Playwriting Award (Into the Pines, '06), and a participant in the Texas Black and Latino Playwriting Festival.

Lisa Ramirez is an actor and a playwright. Her solo show, Exit Cuckoo (nanny in motherland) was presented Off-Broadway by the Working Theater (directed by Colman Domingo). Other writing credits include Art Of Memory, a dance theatre piece presented by Company SoGoNo at 3-Legged Dog (conceived and directed by Tanya Calamoneri); Invisible Women-Rise, in collaboration with the Foundry Theatre and Domestic Workers United (Ramirez directed); In Mother Words (co-conceived by Susan Rose and Joan Stein). Lisa is currently working on a newly commissioned play about the mostly Latina/immigrant women who live and work up in Sullivan County, New York's poultry plants. The Poultry Play (Working Title) will be produced in New York in the Working Theater's 2011-12 season (Lisa Peterson director). As an actor, Lisa has performed at the Roundabout Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Tectonic Theatre, 3-Legged Dog, Clurman Theatre, INTAR, HERE Arts Center, The Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, and NY Theatre Workshop.

"The most exciting part of returning to INTAR has been nurturing new voices, offering diversity to the American theater as well as finding the diversity within the community our institution has been supporting since 1966," Moreno said.

INTAR, one of the United States' longest running Latino theatres producing in English, works to:

· Nurture the professional development of Latino theater artists.
· Produce bold, innovative, artistically significant plays that reflect diverse perspectives.
· Make accessible the diversity inherent in America's cultural heritage. Through an integrated program of workshops, productions of works in progress, and mainstage productions, INTAR continues to raise standards of the theater arts. INTAR brings to the public vital and energetic voices of both promising and accomplished Latino theater professionals, replacing stereotypes while giving expression to the diversity and depth of today's Latino-American community.

Visit INTAR on the web at www.intartheatre.org.

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