Playwrights Realm Presents New Works by Brickman, Brunstetter & More

The Playwrights Realm presents new works by Mattie Brickman, Christopher Oscar Peña, Bekah Brunstetter and Stefanie Zadravec in INK'D

... directed by Shelley Butler (Assistant Director, 2009 revival GUYS AND DOLLS);
Lou Moreno (Artistic Director, INTAR); David Chapman (Assistant Director, THE PITMEN PAINTERS);
Daniella Topol (Rajiv Joseph's MONSTER AT THE DOOR)

...and featuring the acting talents of Wrenn Schmidt (BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW); Maria Elena Remirez (BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON); Carlo Alban (FLIPZOIDS, "Sesame Street"); Obie winner Ty Jones (ENRON); JorDan Baker (THE NORMAL HEART); Sue Jean Kim (I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR); Tobias Segal (EDGEWISE); etc.

Monday June 6 & 13 at Cherry Lane Studio Theatre -- Tickets FREE and open to the public!!

The Playwrights Realm - the Off-Broadway theater company dedicated to nurturing early career playwrights - will present INK'D, staged readings from the 2010-2011 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellows on Monday, June 6 and Monday, June 13 at the Cherry Lane Studio Theatre. INK'D is free and open to the general public.

On Monday, June 6 at 6:00pm - Mattie Brickman and her play FIVE SECOND CHANCES directed by Shelley Butler. The emerald isle has rarely been as charming, as funny, or as complex as it is in FIVE SECOND CHANCES. The story of a small town struggling with modernity and identity unfolds through a series of mysteries, missed opportunities, and misunderstandings of an Irish accent. A young American girl, Annie, turns her own world upside-down when she starts out to discover her roots and instead unearths a town secret buried long ago.

The cast of FIVE SECOND CHANCES includes: Brian Robert Burns, John Doherty, Nick Delany, Emily Kratter, Bob Kaliban, Peggy Scott and Wrenn Schmidt.

Mattie Brickman is an associate artist of art.party.theater.company and has been the playwright-in-residence at New York Stage & Film and The O'Neill at Yale in Provincetown, MA. Her productions include STARBOX, AMERICAN CATNIP, THE IMAGINARY AUDIENCE, IF FOUND PLEASE RETURN TO CHARLES DARWIN, THE REDUNDANT COLON, CIVIL WAR, Bill Clinton GOES TO THE BATHROOM (OR IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING), and MAX OUT LOUD, a children's musical adapted from books by Maira Kalman. Her work has also been developed at The Lark. As a journalist, Mattie wrote for Money magazine, The Santa Barbara Independent, and The Montecito Journal.

On Monday, June 6 at 8:00pm - Christopher Oscar Peña and excerpts from his play ICARUS BURNS directed by Lou Moreno. In the social landscape of the 2008 American presidential election, hope and change are giving rise to dreams. Immigrants, homosexuals, children, and families hoping to thrive are struggling to survive. But the higher they fly, the harder they fall. A story that criss-crosses political hot button issues from immigration, to domestic abuse, to gay marriage, ICARUS BURNS is a provocative, imaginative, and touching modern tale. If America is a melting pot, this is the story of how the modern dreams of its people are often the first to burn.

The cast of ICARUS BURNS includes: Maria Elena Ramirez, Jesse Perez, Rey Lucas Pena, Teddy Canez, Andrew Z. Kelsey, Sofia Gomez and Carlo Alban.

Christopher Oscar Peña has developed work at The Public Theater, NYU Graduate Acting, INTAR, the UCSB Summer Theatre Lab, Theatre C, The Studio/ New York, the Ontological Hysteric Incubator and the New York Theatre Workshop. His works include: MAELSTROM, ONE OF US, 5 LETTER WORD (OR HOW ORPHEUS BECAME LEARNED), MNEMONIC, POINT OF REFERENCE, HOW SHOULD I ADDRESS YOU?, ...AND THE RAIN... AND THE RAIN... AND THE RAIN.., and the collaborative piece X+Y=Z. His current projects include the musical (E)VAPORATE: A SCREWED UP REINVENTION OF ORPHEUS & EURYDICE IN THE FORM OF A MADE-UP LOVE SONG with composer Parker Ferguson, the play THE SUICIDE TAPES. He is the co-creator of 80/20, a new web series launching this fall in which he will also be co-starring.

On Monday, June 13, 2011 at 6:00pm - Bekah Brunstetter and her play HEY BROTHER directed by David Chapman. Sibling rivalry can bring out the worst in people (the harshest insults, the loudest farts), but to an only child it sounds like heaven. Isaac and Ben are mismatched brothers living under the same roof: one stable and put-together, the other, a sprawling emotional mess. But, when Isaac brings his new Asian girlfriend home, an ill-advised evening of alcohol and coffee table dancing brings new meaning to the words "share and share alike."

The cast of HEY BROTHER includes: Sue Jean Kim, Adam Farabee and Eric Bryant.

Bekah Brunstetter's plays include: Be a Good Little Widow - which recently ended its Off-Broadway run at Ars Nova, A Long and Happy Life (Upcoming, Naked Angels, 2012), House of Home (Williamstown Theater Festival), Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Lark playwright's week; Finborough Theater) and OOHRAH! (The Atlantic Theater). She was the 2009 Playwright-inResidence at Ars Nova, a member of the Primary Stages' writer's group, a current Playwright Realm fellow, a 2011 resident playwright of the Finborough Theater, London, and an alumni of Ars Nova's Play Group and the Women's Project Writer's Lab. She is currently working on a commission for the Roundabout Underground.

On Monday, June 13, 2011 at 8:00pm - Stefanie Zadravec and her play THE ELECTRIC BABY directed by Daniella Topol. When a car accident kills a young man, a group of fractured souls begin to discover the folklore and magic woven through their life stories. A modern day tale of folk and folktales, a chance encounter, a mysterious woman, and a luminescent baby in the last days of its life are the catalysts for these individuals in rewriting the stories of their lives. THE ELECTRIC BABY is a magical blend of sad endings, strange beginnings, and the unlikely people that move us from one place to the next.

The cast of ELECTRIC BABY includes: Elizabeth Rich, Ty Jones, JorDan Baker, Michael Cullen, Jessica Love and Tobias Segal.

Stefanie Zadravec - a winner of the 2009 Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play for her play Honey Brown EYES, Stefanie has had her work produced and/or developed by The Kennedy Center, Bay Street Theatre, Theater J, Phoenix Theatre, The Women's Project, The Barrow Group, Theater of the First Amendment and Working Theater. She is a member of the 2010-2012 Women's Project Lab and an incoming member of New Dramatists. In addition to Honey Brown EYES (which was also published in American Theatre Magazine), her works include: SAVE ME (winner of the Baltimore Playwrights Festival "Carol Weinberg Award" for Best New Play, and Phoenix Theatre's National Playwriting Award); THE FEAR PROJECT (The Barrow Group); and 167 TONGUES (in collaboration with Theater 167). She received the Dramatists Guild Fellowship and a Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers Conference. THE ELECTRIC BABY was a 2011 O'Neill Conference finalist and received Women in the Arts & Media's 2011 Collaboration Award. It will be workshopped this summer at PlayPenn and produced by Quantum Theater in Spring 2012.

The Playwrights Realm is a nonprofit Off-Broadway Theater Company dedicated to nurturing the next generation of exciting theatrical voices by providing sustained support to early-career playwrights. Their past productions include: this season's DRAMATIS PERSONAE by Gonzalo Rodriguez Risco, DREAMS OF THE WASHER KING by Christopher Wall, DOV AND ALI by Anna Ziegler and SUBSTITUTION by Anton Dudley. The Playwrights Realm is led by Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Stephanie Ybarra.

Tickets for INK'D - which is presented on Monday, June 6 and 13 at 6:00pm and 8:00pm - are free and open to the public. To secure tickets, please visit www.playwrightsrealm.org or call212-255-3089.

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