InProximity Theatre Co Announces Directors & Casts for 2nd Annual Project W Theatre Festival

InProximity Theatre Company (Jolie Curtsinger, Laurie Schaefer Fenton, Co-Artistic Directors) is proud to announce the cast for this year's second annual PROJECT W Theatre Festival which includes work by Darcy Parker Bruce, Mathilde Dratwa, Christina Gorman, Donna Hoke, Kara Emily Krantz and recently added Ann Marie Shea. PROJECT W Theatre Festival will take place June 4-9, 2018 with readings starting June 5, and will kick-off with an opening night, invite-only party on June 4, 2018 at Town Stages (5 White Street). Tickets are FREE to attend but reservations are strongly recommended. More information can be found at www.inproximitytheatre.org.

PROJECT W Theatre Festival is a celebration of women in theatre from both the creative and business aspects. This muliti-day play reading festival features new plays, written, directed, produced and mananged exclusively by professional women in theatre. With over 125 submissions from female playwrights around the world, the selection committee has chosen six scripts to be presented as part of the Project W Theatre Festival.

InProximity Theatre Company's Jolie Curtsinger explains "We are so excited about the amount of amazing submissions we received. This year's selections explore a variety of topics, but it's pretty clear what's on everyone's minds: sexism, racism, assault, growing up, growing old, and Trump. These 6 stories are an unpredictable perspective, a way in, through fresh and vital voices. They are funny and moving, but most of all: important. They deserve to be heard and it's a true privilege to present them. We are thrilled to be bringing together a team of dazzling talent, on stage and off, for this year's Project W Festival."

Darcy Parker Bruce's SOLDIER POET, directed by Maureen Monterubio - June 5 at 8PM

Set in Aleppo, SOLDIER POET follows two American Army Rangers rescue an injured Syrian woman about to give birth. At a nearby hospital, a neonatal nurse with an unwavering sense of duty struggles to save the lives of infants as her hospital is bombed.

Cast includes: Keivon Akbari, Sulekha Ebelle (Regional: A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. TV "The Blacklist"),

Jo Mei (MTC's The World of Extreme Happiness. TV: "Nicki"), Sean McIntyre (Film: Business Time), and Sade Namei (NY: Emotional Creature)

Donna Hoke's ELEVATOR GIRL directed by Bryn Boice - June 6th at 8PM

Elevator Girl was never meant to be more than an urban legend, a sexual revenge fantasy created by Vanessa and her graphic illustrator boyfriend. But when the comic superhero unleashes her boyfriend's darkest fantasies, as well as a flesh-and-blood copycat, Vanessa must stop EG in her tracks-with the truth.

Cast Includes: Harrison Bryan (NY: Cherry Lane's Patron of the Arts), Zachary Clark (NY: Promising!), Jenna Krasowski (NY: *ms. estrada), and Kim Wong (TV: "Blue Bloods")

Mathilde Dratwa's MILK AND GALL, directed by Jen Wineman - June 7 at 8PM

Raising a magnifying glass to the experience of being a new mother under Trump, Milk and Gall? opens as Vera gives birth to a shape-shifting baby on election night. Over the course of one seemingly unending year, tensions mount between Vera and her second-wave feminist mother, she struggles to connect physically with her husband, and her friendship with her Syrian-American best friend Amira falters. A surreal and fragmented play mimicking the experience of sleep-deprived new parents, ?Milk and Gall explores the terror of the mundane: Vera is stuck in the world of diapers, breast pumps and padsicles while everyone else she knows is out marching.

Cast includes: Rutanya Alda (Films: The Deer Hunter, Rocky II, Mommie Dearest ), Julie Asriyan ("The Cast Call Project"), Brian D. Coats(Broadway: Jitney), Carrie Heitman (NY: Phallacy), Irene Sofia Lucio (Broadway: Wit), and Aaron Roman Weiner (Broadway: Fool for Love. Film: The Post)

Christina Gorman's ROAN AT THE GATES, directed by Michelle Tattenbaum - June 8 at 8 PM

Would you buy a sofa without consulting your partner? How about a car? Change your job? Could you commit a crime and say nothing? And could you still love your partner if she followed her conscience but kept you in the dark? Nat is an outspoken civil rights attorney. Roan, the quiet one, is an NSA Analyst who isn't even allowed to tell her wife the location of her next business trip. Roan at the Gates is a topical and thought-provoking new play, a long-time couple confronts questions about their marriage they never thought to ask as their personal relationship collides with national security.

Cast includes: Billy Griffin Jr. (TV "Black Mirror"), Katie Flahive (TV: "Nurse Jackie"), and Lynnette R. Freeman (Regional: Raisin in The Sun, Clybourne Park)

Added production:

Ann Marie Shea's THE MUSE IN AUTUMN, directed by Terry Berliner - June 9th at 2pm

there a difference between sexual predation and a "May-December" romance? In her youth, Gwyneth was a prolific writer, but now her life is confined to a remote country retreat caring for her aged husband, famous poet Marshall Rivers, as he struggles with paralysis and aphasia. The unexpected arrival of two strangers -an ambitious young scholar, Larry, and a mysterious girl, Maggie - lead to revelation of Rivers' life-long sexual predation, and subsequent plagiarism. Gwyneth, finally finding her "voice," devises a subtle revenge on helpless husband as he is forced to live with the words of his silenced student chasing him to his grave.

Cast includes: Zach Clark (NY: Promising!), Emilee Dupré (Broadway: Chaplin), Ana Isabel (NY: Fade, Songs for the Disappear), Joel Rooks(Broadway: Fish in the Dark, The Royal Family), and Eliza Ventura (Film: The Other Side of Joy)

Kara Emily Krantz's YOU, ME, AND ENNUI, directed by Diana Canterbury - June 9 at 8PM

When 28-year-old Samantha wakes up with a hangover on 75-year-old Theodore's couch, the only logical way to navigate the situation is to pose as his new caretaker. Through the process of discovering why she is in his house, Sam and Teddy form a quirky yet wonderful bond. In You, Me, and Ennui,sometimes people stumble into your life... and help heal you.

Cast includes: Ben Bartolone, Samantha Debicki (NY: Hysterical), Yvette Ganier (Broadway: The Miracle Worker, King Hedley II), Kasey McNulty MacDonald, and Joel Rooks (Broadway: Fish in the Dark)

www.townstages.com

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