terraNOVA Collective Announces Groundbreakers Playwrights Group Fall 2010 Session

terraNOVA Collective is delighted to announce the new members of their Groundbreakers Playwrights Group. Groundbreakers is a five month long program in which playwrights work on a specific script with intent to create a completed draft. Over the five months, the playwrights each bring in their scripts for three table readings with professional actors, receiving feedback from other Groundbreakers members and special guests, along with the artistic staff of terraNOVA Collective. Halley Feiffer, Lauren Feldman, Andrew Kramer, Nick Mwaluko, and Leah Nanako Winkler are the five talented playwrights joining this year's group.

"I am thrilled to welcome these five wonderful playwrights to this year's Groundbreakers Playwrights Group," Groundbreakers program director Jessi Hill said. "All of us at terraNOVA are so excited about the work they will do on their plays and look forward to sharing that work with our audiences."

A recipient of funding from The Dramatist Guild, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and The New York State Council on the Arts, Groundbreakers Playwrights Group feeds terraNOVA Collective's past main stage productions, including Baby Steps by James Carter, Buck Fever by Juan C. Sanchez, Masquerade: calypso and home by Roger Bonair-Agard and last season's Blue Before Morning by Kate McGovern, which received seven 2009 Innovative Theatre Award nominations, including Outstanding Full-Length Script.

Groundbreakers is a seasonal program assisting in the development of between five and seven plays. Through its three-tired process of table reads, staged readings and main stage productions, terraNOVA Collective cultivates the best emerging playwrights in the greater New York area.

Halley Feiffer is a New York-based playwright and actress. Her play Easter Candy was produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre as part of the Young Playwrights' Festival XXII; her play Passion Fruit was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; her play Thank You So Much For Stopping will be published in the Vintage Anthology Shorter, Faster, Funnier, to be released Spring 2011. Her play How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them was developed first at Second Stage Theatre in NY, and later at the Lark and the Orchard Project, and was nominated for the Cherry Lane Mentor Project 2011; her play Sidney and Laura was also nominated. She has received readings of her work at The Vineyard Playhouse, The Berkshire Theatre Festival and The Rattlestick Theatre. As an actress she has appeared in numerous films and TV shows, including The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding, Stephanie Daley, The Messenger, Gentlemen Broncos, "Flight of the Conchords", "Ugly Betty", "The Good Wife" and the upcoming HBO miniseries "MildrEd Pierce," as well as the upcoming films Twelve Thirty, Fighting Fish and Last Night. Her off-Broadway credits include suburbia, Election Day, Some Americans Abroad (Second Stage), and Still Life (MCC). BA: Wesleyan University.

LAUREN FELDMAN is an itinerant playwright who hails from Miami, Florida; has lived in 6 different cities this past year; and is now settling into a nook in Brooklyn. Plays include Grace, or the Art of Climbing; The Egg-Layers; a People; Fill Our Mouths; and her current work-in-progress Quinn and also The Mooncalves; as well as a dozen short plays; the solo piece Funny Story; and several collaborative/devised works. She is also a co-creator of The Apocryphal Project. Her plays have been seen throughout the U.S. and in London, Canada, and Australia. She was a U.S. playwright delegate at The Royal Court Theatre and at World Interplay/Australia, and she has been an artist-in-residence at Tofte Lake Center (upcoming), Montana Artists Refuge, Cornell University, The Missoula Colony/Montana Rep, Sewanee University of the South, and Theater Emory/Brave New Works Festival. Most recently, she received the Agnes Ranjo Capps Award for an Emerging Female Playwright, and a nomination for the 2009 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award for Grace, or the Art of Climbing. She is published by Applause Books and Broadway Play Publishing. M.F.A. Playwriting, Yale School of Drama; B.A. English, Cornell University; The Shakespeare Programme, British-American Drama Academy/Skidmore College. She is now writing, collaborating, teaching, and learning trapeze.

ANDREW KRAMER hails from Cleveland and is a proud recent graduate of Ball State University's Department of Theatre and Dance in Muncie, Indiana where he was the founder/president of Busted Space Theatre Company, Ball State's student-run theatre company specializing in new works and non-conventional theatre performances. His play, A Map of Our Country, was a part of this year's 35th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. He was a 2010 Core Apprentice Writer at the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, where he developed his play The Dog(run) Diaries. He is currently being considered to be the newest member of the X-Men.

NICK MWALUKO was born in Tanzania and raised in Kenya and other east and central African countries. Nick worked with an African news agency for several years writing economic and standard copy for the region, sometimes touching on issues in the Indian Ocean islands. Lengthy feature stories detailing the dignified struggles of everyday folk, especially African women, eventually grew into source material for many of his plays. Nick came to New York, took part in year-long residencies with Freedom Train Productions (2007-2008) and The Public Theater's inaugural Emerging Writers' Group (EWG, 2008-2009), key inspirations in shaping many plays like S/He, Waafrika (a three-part trilogy based in a rural Kenyan village and New York), Asymmetrical We, Trailer Park Tundra, Ata and other works. A residency with terraNOVA Collective's Groundbreakers is a great opportunity to collaborate with a talented team of theater practitioners for which Nick remains truly grateful and extremely excited!

LEAH NANAKO WINKLER is a writer and director from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington, Kentucky who now lives in NYC. Leah's essays on hapa identity has been seen on Discover Nikkei through an New York University A/P/A commission for the Japanese American National Museum in California. She has directed her plays at the Ontological Hysteric Theater (Pale Horse...), The Brick Theater (Big Girls Club- Happy Dance Dance Princess Show in The Antidepressant Festival), HERE Arts Center (The Formula Play) and the Indianapolis New Art Theatre (Everywhere). Her short plays have been seen at the Cultural Development Corporation's Source Festival (little girls- dir Scott Fortier), Workingman's Clothes Productions' Binge Festival (BGC-Dir.Teddy Nicholas) and Butler University. She has also worked with the Asian American Arts Alliance and Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and is a founding member of Everywhere Theatre Group. She most recently wrote for the multi-media dance piece, The Internet at the Incubator Arts Project. She makes songs happen on her ukulele to relieve stress.

TERRANOVA COLLECTIVE is a vibrant playground for artists devoted to innovative new and original theatrical works. Its multi-layered development process, solo arts festivals, and productions serve to nurture and liberate our community.

"...brings back the art of storytelling." - Backstage

www.terranoavcollective.org

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