Horse Trade Presents Plays by The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group

UNDER CONSIDERATION is a 90-minute event featuring new one-act plays by members of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group including 2008 playwrights Chris Cragin and Pia Wilson, 2009 playwright Bridget Kelso, and 2011 playwrights Sevan Greene, Sukari Jones, Aaron Levy, Anna Moench, Jerome Parker, and Stella Fawn Ragsdale.

The Emerging Writers Group seeks to target playwrights at the earliest stages in their careers. In so doing, The Public hopes to create an artistic home for a diverse and exceptionally talented group of up-and-coming playwrights.

UNDER CONSIDERATION will play a limited engagement at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery), April 14, 15, & 16 at 7pm.Tickets ($10) are available online at www.horseTRADE.info or by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444.

Chris Cragin spent her childhood in the Phillippines, Hong Kong and China before returning to Oklahoma where she spent her teenage and college years. While earning her MFA in Stage Directing from Baylor University, she found her true artistic passion, playwriting. Since, she has written seven full length plays including: The River Nun (Public Theater EWG Spotlight reading), War in a Manger (commissioned by Art Within Theatre in Atlanta), Emily (Firebone Theatre, NYC in 2009, Acacia Theatre, Milwaukee 2008, and workshopped at Pacific Theatre Vancouver, 2007), Deadheading Roses (Firebone Theatre, Acacia Theatre, and published by Original Works Publishing), Debutantes Anonymous (workshopped at The Lamb's Theatre), Love and Money, and Lady of the Dunes. She is currently writing the book to a musical, Son of a Khrusty (NDNW Drama League Fellowship). Chris also has six one act plays: Milking Success (Actor's Theatre of Louisville Semi-Finalist and MWTC finalist), Peanut Butter or Soy (Baylor University), Pankhurst (Baylor University), Nathaniel, Dig (The Public EWG retreat), and Port Authority (The Public EWG retreat). She and her husband, Steven Day, provide the artistic and managerial direction for their company, Firebone Theatre (www.firebonetheatre.com).

Sevan Kaloustian Greene is a Lebanese?Armenian/Pakistani actor and playwright. Gulf War, Part I Refugee. Member of Rising Circle Theatre Collective's 2010 InkTANK Writer's Lab. NYTW 2011 Teaching Artist at the Khalil Gibran Academy. William Saroyan 2010 Playwriting Prize Finalist. Plays: Forgotten Bread, DOON, Say Something, Narrow Daylight, Babel. Screenplays: "N.Y.B.", "(in parentheses)." Coming Soon: "Sketchy Arabs" - a web-base sketch series. As an actor: Lortel Award?Winning Betrayed (Culture Project, LATW, Kennedy Center, PBS), NYTW's Aftermath, Prospect'sMapquest, FringeNYC's hit Perez Hilton Saves the Universe.... TV/Film: "The Stoop," "If the Lie Succeeds," "M.O.N.Y.," "Blue Bloods." www.sevangreene.com

Sukari Jones' musicals include The River Is Me, The Lucifer Effect, Candyland, Snobbles the Greatand Egg! She is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Advanced Workshop. She holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.F.A. from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program where she was twice awarded the Yip Harburg Outstanding Lyricist Award. Her musical work has been featured at several venues including Barrington Stage Company, Joe's Pub, and the Goodspeed Opera House. Her first full-length straight play "LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!!" has been developed at the Tofte Lake Center's Emerging Artists Program, the Vineyard Arts Project and the Lark Play Development Center.

Bridget Kelso uses her writing to explore and define herself and her world. She is a writer, an actor, and a mother, and has lived in Harlem for the last 20 years. Hailing from Chicago, Bridget has performed on several prominent New York stages and around the world. She has also appeared on daytime television and in several commercials. Her interest in African and African American theatrical techniques was cultivated while she was devising and implementing educational theatre workshops in the NYC Public Schools as a member of the Creative Arts Team. Her NYU Masters Thesis project, Symptoms of Liberty, dramatized Nat Turner's famous slave rebellion and incorporated the traditional African techniques of call and response, storytelling and spiritual co-existence. She is deeply interested in exploring the Antebellum time period in her work, as she feels this time period represents a little examined period of strength and creativity for African Americans. Bridget is currently working on a children's book series based on her experiences with her son, a book of poetry, and a new play, A Little Bird Sings Freedom. Her writing has appeared in Harlem Parent Magazine and Essence. She is eternally grateful to her family and friends for their love and support and honored to be a member of The Public Theater's 2009 Emerging Writers Group.

Aaron Wigdor Levy's play This is Not a Time Bomb was produced last summer at The Source Festival in Washington D.C. and recently received a reading at The New Group. His Play for One Actress, Townie and One Act Play Over Here were recently presented at The Flea Theater. Other plays include The Ball Player, Hunky Dory, and Central Standard Time, which was also read at The New Group. His short play First/ Last was produced by the Source Festival in 2008 and was a finalist for The Heidaman Award given out by The Actors Theatre of Louisville. He was a member of The Royal Court Theatre's New York Residency and received his MFA from the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU where he studied with David Ives and Mac Wellman. Originally from Chicago, he now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Anna Moench's plays include In Quietness (Ensemble Studio Theatre), The Pillow Book (59E59), and Great Eastern (EST/Sloan Commission). Her work has been produced at The Flea Theater, the Old Vic, Dance Theater Workshop, Dixon Place, The Looking Glass Theatre, and FringeNYC. Anna has developed plays at New Dramatists, the Great Plains Conference (NE), the Last Frontier Conference (AK), the Sewanee Writers' Conference (TN), and The Inkwell (DC). Awards include the Jerome Foundation's 2009 Travel Grant, the T.S. Eliot Fellowship at the Old Vic (US/UK Exchange), the Tennessee Williams Scholarship (SWC), and the 2008 and 2010 FAR Residencies. Anna is a member of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre and is a New Georges Affiliated Artist. In addition to her work as a playwright, Anna is Co-Artistic Director of anna&meredith, a cross-disciplinary performance company whose work forms creative bridges between playwriting and choreography.

Jerome A. Parker's play Miracle On Monroe received the Lorraine Hansberry Award from the Kennedy Center. Other works include Origins Of Us (Tim Robbins Playwriting Award), Ballad Of Sad Young Men (Francis Ford Coppola One act Series, Best Short in the Downtown Urban Theater Festival), and House Of Dinah (Faces of the World Festival - Los Angeles Theater Center). Jerome received his BA in Theatre from Williams College, his MFA in Playwriting from UCLA and studied costumes at the Juilliard School. In 2008, he participated in the Eugene O'Neill Playwriting Conference as a fellow.

Stella Fawn Ragsdale was born and raised in East Tennessee. Her most recent play Spring, which is part of a three-play trilogy inspired by her Appalachian heritage and classics background, was produced at Knoxville Theater Downtown by the Water Series Company in Fall 2009. Her work has been nominated for the Lark PONY award among others. She holds an MFA in playwriting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. In the summer she works on a farm.

Pia N. Wilson received a 2009 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is a member of the 2009 Project Footlight team of composers and librettists and is a 2009 resident in the Women's Work Lab at New Perspectives Theatre. Her full-length drama, Tree of Life, received a 2007 workshop production at The Red Room Theater. The River Pure for Healing was part of the 2008 Resilience of the Spirit play festival and received a staged reading from Horse Trade Theater Group. Short plays and one-acts: Dressed In Your Dreams (Stagecrafter's New Works Play Festival); Do You Proud (Eclectic Theater Company's "Got a Minute?" play festival); Whatever and Delicately (Groove Mama Ink; The Looking Glass Theatre's Spring 2008 Writer/Director Forum); The Rooster Never Crows (OneHeart Productions); All the Pretty Girls (The Looking Glass Theatre's Spring 2009 Writer/Director Forum).

HORSE TRADE THEATER GROUP is a self-sustaining theater development group; with a focus on new work, it has produced a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater. Horse Trade's Resident Artist Program offers a home to a select group of Independent Theater artists, pooling together a great deal of talent and energy. It is also the home of FRIGID New York - the first and only festival of its kind in New York City.

www.horseTRADE.info

 

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