Horse Trade Presents The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group

HOLIDAY STUCCO will feature new one-act plays by members of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group including playwrights Nikole Beckwith, Chris Craigin Day, Deen, Sevan Kaloustian Green, Aaron Wigdor Levy, Mona Mansour, Don Nguyen, Jerome Parker, Stalla Fawn Ragsdale, Akin Salawu, and Pia Wilson. Every winter holiday is up for grabs in this seasonal spectacular!

The Public Theater'S 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. www.publictheater.org

HOLLIDAY STUCCO will play a limited engagement, December 15-17 at 8pm in The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery). Tickets ($18/$15 students & seniors) are available online at www.horseTRADE.info or by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444.

NIKOLE BECKWITH's plays have been read at Ensemble Studio Theater, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Barrow Street Theater, 3LD and the Old Vic in London. She is an alum of EST's Youngblood and a former associate artist of Atlantic Center for the Arts. As an actor, Beckwith has developed new work with Gregory S. Moss and Eric Bogosian among others and is a member of The Story Pirates. She recently made her New York stage debut in Joshua Conkel's hit play MilkMilkLemonade for which she was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award. Her comic strip companion piece to The Civilians' You Better Sit Down: Tales From Our Parents' Divorce can be viewed on the WNYC culture page and her other comics can seen on The Huffington Post.

CHRIS CRAGIN DAY is a proud alum of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, where her play, The River Nun, was presented in the 2009 Spotlight Series. Her new musical Son of a Gun, (music and lyrics by Don Chaffer and Lori Chaffer), was accepted as one of four new musicals in the 2011 Eugene O'Neill National Music Theater Conference and was also recently given a concert reading at Joe's Pub. New York productions include Emily, An Amethyst Remembrance by Firebone Theater (winner of NYIT Outstanding Female Actor in a Lead Role award for leading actress ElizaBeth Davis), Deadheading Roses by Firebone Theatre, Love & Money (excerpt), and Milking Success, at the Nyorican Poets Café, and Dig at Horse Trade Theater. Other playwriting awards include: Yale Music Theater Institute Finalist, Actor's Theatre Louisville 10-minute play contest semi-finalist, Riva Shriver Comedy Award Finalist, Primary Stages Semi-Finalist, Inter-Act Play Commission Finalist. Chris works as a screenwriter and story supervisor for Motion Capture NYC. (www.motioncapturenyc.com ) She and her husband, Steve Day, are founding members of Firebone Theater.www.firebonetheatre.com

DEEN is an alum of the 2009 Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group. He began his undergraduate education at Columbia University in NYC, took some time off and pursued community theater, then transferred to UMass Amherst where he designed his own major and wrote the full-length Shut-Up! The play won him the Dennis Johnston Playwriting Prize and the James Baldwin Award. He worked as a journalist before returning to NYC for an MFA at The Actors Studio Drama School/New School of Drama. His plays have appeared at W.O.W. Cafe Theatre, Chernuchin Theatre, Theatre Row, Vital Theatre, and the Abrons Arts Center, and include the one-acts Butchus Homosexualis, Sikhandini, Barely Breathing (semi-finalist for the Samuel French Festival), Saffron, and Seven-Year Itch. His full-length play The Story of Tank & Horse (which he wrote, directed, and produced) ran at the 2007 Berkshire Fringe Festival in Great Barrington, Mass. In his spare time, he is community organizer on the board of SALGA (serving the queer desi community) and has spoken at schools and universities about issues of gender and sexuality. Deen is currently working on a solo show, Draw the Circle, which had a staged-reading at The Public Theater in April 2010, Dixon Place (NYC) in August 2010, the Berkshire Fringe Festival (MA) in August 2010, Dartmouth's Hopkin's Center (NH) in August 2010, and will soon appear at Passage Theatre (NJ) in March 2011 and Queens Theatre in the Park (NYC) in April 2011. He is currently working on a play about Operation Blue Star.

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

AARONG 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.

Mona Mansour began her theater career as an actress, studying acting at UCSD (Dream Play, dir. Michael Hackett; Good Person of Szechuan, dir. Michael Greif) and SMU, where she received a BFA in Theater/Acting (Oh What a Lovely War!, Taken in Marriage, among others). She later starred in productions with Chicago's Griffin Theater and L.A.'s Moving Arts. She was part of L.A.'s famed Groundlings Theater, where she wrote and performed her own material in the Sunday Company for a year and a half. Her first play, Me and the SLA (Groundling Theater, Seattle Fringe Fest - Best of the Fest) focused on her adult and childhood obsession with Patricia Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army. Her play Girl Scouts of America (co-written with Andrea Berloff) had a reading at New York Theater Workshop, was part of The Public Theater's New Work Now!, and had a successful outing at NYC Fringe 2006. Her play Others had a staged reading at The Flea Theater in August 2007, directed by Sharon Lennon. Mona was recently chosen as "One of 50 to Watch" by the Dramatists Guild. Television credits include produced episodes of Showtime's Dead Like Me and the CBS show Queens Supreme. She curated, along with Lisa Kron, a piece for gay, lesbian, and transgender youth called 'Nuff Said, which was performed at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC. In her spare time, Mona teaches improv and writing classes to adults over 60 in NYC.

DON NGUYEN served as the Artistic Director of the Shelterbelt Theatre in Omaha from 1999-2003. Full-length plays include Three To Beam Up (The Shelterbelt Theatre, Nebraska Arts Grant recipient) and Red Flamboyant (finalist O'Neill National Playwrights Conference). His one-act play The Harlequin Maneuvre was a finalist in the Riant Theatre's Strawberry One-Act Festival (2004) and was published in The Best of The Strawberry One-Act Festival, Volume 1. It has subsequently been produced in New York, Nebraska, and Canada. Other one act plays include Fat Ugly Vampire (Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NY), The Imaginary Association of Flight Attendants (Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NY), Love 160 (Robert Moss Theater, NY). Don is a member of the The Living Newspaper (dir Laura Savia), The Civilians R & D Group and the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. You can follow Don at www.thenuge.com.

JEROME 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.

AKIN SALAWU As a Stanford undergrad Akin founded and ran ergo student theater troupe, which earned him the Sherifa Omade Edoga Prize for mounting culturally diverse theatre. In June 2006, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University's Film Division where he was accepted with the Dean's Fellowship. He is also a two time Tribeca All Access Winner for his stage play You Dead Yet?, and his screenplay, Glory Masters (which also won the 2006 Columbia Screenplay contest). Additionally, his plays You Dead Yet? and Your God's Not Coming have both been part of New Heritage Theater's Roger Furman Reading Series. When not writing, Akin is a professional film and video editor and was an avid grassroots Obama Organizer. Prior to the campaign, Akin firmly believed that art and politics never mix. Then an invitation to write a play for an anti-war benefit yielded one of the most satisfying artistic experiences of his career. The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group has given Akin Salawu a space to explore the latest startling by-product of this awakening.

PIA 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 that 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. In 2011 Horse Trade received the New York Innovative Theatre Ellen Stewart Stewardship Award for demonstrating a significant contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway community through service, support and leadership.

www.horseTRADE.info

 

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