The Playwrights Realm to Kick Off 2014 INK'D READING FESTIVAL, 5/12

The Playwrights Realm will present the annual INK'D Reading Festival from May 12 through May 15 at The Studio Theatre at Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street). The 2014 festival features the plays of Elizabeth Irwin (My Mañana Comes), Lila Rose Kaplan (123), Jason Gray Platt (The There There) and Amelia Roper (Lottie in the Late Afternoon). As previously announced, My Mañana Comes will receive a full production at The Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street) from August 26 to September 20, 2014.

The Realm's Writing Fellows program brings together four early-career playwrights and provides them with the creative and professional development resources for developing a script and building a career. The program culminates with the INK'D Reading Festival: highly-produced staged readings of each of the Writing Fellows' plays. The Fellows develop their plays in two workshops over the course of their fellowship period. In both workshops, Fellows works with directors and actors to explore and investigate their plays. In the second workshop, Fellows are given the opportunity to collaborate with both designers and a "design dramaturg," a design advisor who helps illuminate the visual and aural worlds of the pieces. Some of these design elements then come to fruition as part of the INK'D Reading Festival.

Each reading is immediately followed by a reception. Tickets are free and can be reserved at the link below: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/34234.

The schedule is as follows. All readings begin at 7:30 pm:

MONDAY, MAY 12

The There There

Written by Jason Gray Platt

Directed by G.T. Upchurch

Scenic Design: Carolyn Mraz

Sound Design by Daniel Kluger

Featuring Margaret Colin, Michael Countryman, Tobias Segal, and Phoebe Strole

Summary: K and M meet in college and, over the next forty-five years, they collide over and over. What draws these two people together? Is it the volume of their shared experiences? Or is it the volume of those experiences immortalized on digital media? The There There explores mourning in an age when the line between memory and technology is increasingly fine.

TUESDAY, MAY 13

123

Written by Lila Rose Kaplan

Scenic Design by Carolyn Mraz

Choreography by Wendy Seyb

Directed by Laura Savia

Featuring Lucy DeVito, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Sue Jean Kim, and Bobby Moreno

Summary: When their radical parents are imprisoned, sisters 1, 2 and 3 are sent to live with different foster families. 1 loses herself in history, 2 dances, and 3 videos all of it and more. Family tensions mount when Mom gets out of jail. 123 is a dark, funny drama about a rift between sisters and what it takes to grow up.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14

Lottie in the Late Afternoon

Written by Amelia Roper

Directed by Liz Carlson

Scenic Design by Carolyn Mraz

Lighting Design by Nick Solyom

Featuring Eric Clem, Miriam Hyman, Jessica Love, Sarah Sokolovic

Summary: Lottie is trying to be a good person. Lottie is trying to be a good friend. Lottie is trying to cook good food, buy nice gifts, say all the right things and read all the important books. Because she's on vacation! And everyone loves vacations! And everyone loves Lottie! She's so fun! All the time! A play about being miserable on vacation.

THURSDAY, MAY 15

My Mañana Comes

Written by Elizabeth Irwin

Directed by José Zayas

Scenic Design by Carolyn Mraz

Sound Design by David M. Lawson

Featuring Carlo Alban, J.J. Perez, Brian Quijada, and Stephen Tyrone Williams

Summary: Plates in, plates out, we need ice, table four needs bread, your tuna tartare is up: this is the life of the back of house at a restaurant. It's not a bad way for four young New Yorkers to spend their days, make their livings, and cling to their dreams. Until management starts to get stingy. But you can count on your co-workers, right? Right? Right?

The Playwrights Realm, helmed by Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Managing Director Alexander Orbovich, is devoted to supporting emerging playwrights along the journey of playwriting, helping them to hone their craft, fully realize their vision and build meaningful artistic careers. To serve this mission, The Playwrights Realm has produced one Off-Broadway play each year since its founding in 2007, giving ample time and support to every playwright who has joined the Realm. Previous productions by The Playwrights Realm include this season's The Hatmaker's Wife by Lauren Yee, Red-Handed Otter by Ethan Lipton (2012), Crane Story by Jen Silverman (2011), Gonzalo Rodriguez Risco's Dramatis Personae (2010), Christopher Wall's Dreams of the Washer King (2010), Anna Ziegler's Dov and Ali (2009) and Anton Dudley's Substitution (2008). The Playwrights Realm is dedicated to providing comprehensive support to playwrights throughout their creative processes and careers and supplements it's Off Broadway productions with the Page One Residency, Alumni Playwrights Program, Writing Fellows Residency, and New Play Development Pipeline.

For more information, visit www.PlaywrightsRealm.org.

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