Tony Nominee Sam Buntrock To Direct Manning's SLEEPING ROUGH for Page 73 Productions

Sam Buntrock, who received a 2008 Tony Award nomination for directing the award-winning revival of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE will helm the World-Premiere of SLEEPING ROUGH, the first professional production in New York by playwright Kara Manning (recipient of the 2007 Princess Grace Playwriting Award) and presented Off-Broadway by Page 73 Productions from April 3 - 27 at the Wild Project (195 East 3rd Street) in Manhattan, it has been announced by Page 73 Executive Directors Liz Jones and Asher Richelli. An official opening night for SLEEPING ROUGH will be announced at a later date.

“We are so excited to have the opportunity to present Kara Manning's first professional premiere in New York, and are equally thrilled to have Sam Buntrock helm this exceptional new play,” said Page 73 Executive Directors Liz Jones and Asher Richelli. “We've long been fans of Kara's work. Sleeping Rough is a remarkable piece and Kara is a writer whose voice deserves to be heard.”

An American woman, unable to forgive her country for a grave offense, ignores the entreaties of her daughter and ex-husband and flees to London to graffiti her anguish across the city of her youth. It's December 2008, and as America broadcasts news of financial crisis and political change, a fractured family roams the London streets trying to understand what sparked a fatal decision.

Casting and design team for SLEEPING ROUGH are TBA.

Kara Manning’s plays include SLEEPING ROUGH, MIND THE GAP, KILLING SWANS, PROPOSED CLOSURE (TOTALSHAMBLES) and afterdark. Her plays have been performed or developed via The Royal Court Theatre, Out of Joint, Hampstead Theatre, the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Manhattan Theater Club, Atlantic Theater, Playwrights Horizons, MCC Theater, Page 73 Productions, Women’s Project, NYTW, High Tide Festival Productions, LAByrinth Theater, New Dramatists, the Lark Play Development Center, and the Bloomington Playwrights Project. SLEEPING ROUGH was also developed at Theatreworks Silicon Valley as part of its 2012 New Works Festival. Kara is the 2007 recipient of the Princess Grace Award in playwriting. She is a MacDowell Colony fellow and a recipient of a 2010-2011 Princess Grace Special Projects grant and a 2011 EST/Sloan Foundation commission. She was a finalist for the inaugural 2012-2014 Jerome New York Fellowship and shortlisted for the 2011 BBC Writers Academy. She is a member of MCC Theater’s Playwrights Coalition and the Dramatists Guild and an alumnus of the Royal Court’s International Residency and Women’s Project Playwrights Lab. She has served as an assistant director at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre (Fringe Festival) and research assistant to Anne Bogart and the Siti Company. Kara is presently an editor/writer/on-air interviewer for WFUV/The Alternate Side and literary manager of the Irish Repertory Theatre; she is formerly an MTV News reporter, staff writer for Rolling Stone magazine and producer of Vin Scelsa's IDIOT'S DELIGHT. She wrote liner notes for the Grammy-nominated Rhino box set RESPECT: A CENTURY OF WOMEN IN MUSIC. Graduate of Columbia University's M.F.A. program in playwriting.

Sam Buntrock (Director) was nominated for an Olivier, Tony and Drama Desk Award for his direction of the revival of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. Other select credits include: the world premiere of ARE YOU THERE, MCPHEE? by John Guare and TAKE FLIGHT (McCarter), MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Two River), A MAZE (New York Stage & Film), CRADLE AND ALL (MTC), CRADLE TO RAVE (UK National Tour), GOD COLLAR (Edinburgh, UK National Tour, and West End), the first London revival of ASSASSINS (New End), GET A LIFE, and HELP YOURSELF (both Edinburgh and UK tour). Sam trained at Bristol University and as Resident Assistant Director at the Donmar Warehouse.

PAGE 73 Productions – under the leadership of Executive Directors Liz Jones and Asher Richelli and Associate Director Michael Walkup – develops and produces the work of early-career playwrights who have yet to have their work professionally produced in New York. Page 73 produces at least one New York or world premiere by an early-career playwright each year that represents that playwright’s first professional production in New York. In addition to its annual productions, the company also hosts production-oriented development opportunities that help usher the works of early-career playwrights from first draft to final script. Programs include the P73 Playwriting Fellowship, a year-long program supporting one playwright’s creative and career development; PAGE 2, an extensive developmental workshop; INTERSTATE 73, an annual writers group for 8 early-career playwrights; and a weeklong summer residency on the Yale University campus for 4 early-career writers.

Page 73 produced the world premieres of ELLIOT, A SOLDIER'S FUGUE by Quiara Alegría Hudes, directed by Davis McCallum (2007 Pulitzer finalist and prequel to Quiara’s 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning play WATER BY THE SPOONFUL), SIXTY MILES TO SILVER LAKE by Dan LeFranc directed by Anne Kauffman and co-produced with Soho Rep (2010 New York Times Playwriting Award); CREATURE by Heidi Schreck, directed by Leigh Silverman and co-produced with New Georges; JACK'S PRECIOUS MOMENT by Samuel D. Hunter directed by Kip Fagan and EDGEWISE by Eliza Clark directed by Trip Cullman and co-produced with The Play Company, as well as the New York premieres of 1001 by Jason Grote, directed by Ethan McSweeney (Time Out New York - Top 10) and LIDLESS by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, directed by Tea Alagic. The company received from the League of Professional Theatre Women their 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for “innovative and creative work dedicated to the emerging dramatist”.

Performance schedule for SLEEPING ROUGH is TBA, and tickets will range from $25 to $35.

For more information about Page 73 Productions, please visit www.page73.org.

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