Jewish Plays Project Presents Playwriting Contest Winner REDDER BLOOD Tonight

Jewish Plays Project (Artistic Director, David Winitsky) is proud to announce Helen Murray Pafumi has won the 2016 Jewish Playwriting Contest for her play "Redder Blood," selected from a high-quality pool of 204 submission and vetted by 50 artists as well as over 450 Community members across the country. Celebrating its 5th year, the Jewish Play Contest continues to encourage a new generation of playwrights to create and develop scripts that reflect the 21st-century Jewish experience in all its complexities, and to ensure that those scripts, once fully-developed, make their way onto major stages.

As the winning playwright, Ms. Pafumi will receive the benefit of dramaturgical assistance including industry advocacy and literary development lead by Jewish Plays Project's Resident Dramaturg and Contest Producer Jeremy Stoller, over the course of a 29-hour rehearsal and reading residency in New York. Ms. Pafumi's residency will culminate in a staged reading on Friday, June 24th at 7pm as part of the Jewish Plays Project's 5th Annual OPEN Festival of New Jewish Theater at the 14th Street Y. The Festival will run from June 21 through June 26; full festival line-up with major cultural partnerships and casting will be announced soon. The JPP is dedicated to advocating for the plays it develops to be produced on mainstream stages, and we are proud to announce that Ms. Pafumi's play is slated to receive its world premiere in the Washington D.C. regional area, from July 8-31, 2016, co-produced by The Hub Theatre and JCC of Northern Virginia (Jeff Dannick, Executive Director).

Ms. Pafumi said, "'Redder Blood' was a story I struggled to tell, reckoning with such questions as the role of God in today's world and how we deal with clashes of cultures and beliefs playing out in our own families. I can only hope that I have illuminated the conversation in a way that is entertaining and that makes people feel how connected and worthy we are. I was thrilled to be among the exceptional finalists for this years Jewish Play Contest, and even more elated to have so many Audience members and readers connect to the play. Winning the contest is icing on an already beautiful cake."

The Jewish Playwriting Contest was established by the Jewish Plays Project as an international search for the best new ideas in Jewish theater. Over its five years, the Contest has gathered the largest international collection of contemporary Jewish plays. To date, 913 plays from 650 writers in 29 states and 8 countries have been entered. The JPP has actively developed 29 plays, 15 of which have gone on to production in New York, London, Tel Aviv, and around the U.S. Founding Artistic Director David Winitsky was thrilled by the 2016 Contest, saying, "This was the Jewish Playwriting Contest's fifth and biggest year, a huge milestone in our effort to create a new kind of pipeline for artists forging a contemporary, exciting, and sexy vision for a 21st-century Jewish theater."

"Redder Blood" by Helen Pafumi was initially chosen as one of the 2016 Jewish Play Contest Top 10 Finalists, along with nine other plays. These finalists represent the most promising, intriguing, and inspirationally Jewish plays of the 204 submissions received. Each play was read by 2-5 readers on the 45-member Artist Panel Readers comprised of JPP Staff and artistic colleagues from the best theaters in New York City, including the Roundabout, Atlantic, New Georges, Vineyard Theaters, LCT3, the Flea, Playwrights Realm, and P73 Productions {see full list here}. The Top 10 Finalists also included:

Tough Jews by Michael Albert (Toronto, CA)

Aviva in October by Tenara Calem (Providence, RI)

The Hebrew Ladies Burial Society by C.P. Englander (Baltimore, MD)

To the Orchard by Les Hunter (Cleveland, OH)

Treif by Lindsay Joelle (New York, NY)

Match by Jennifer Maisel (Los Angeles, CA)

The Son of the Last Jew by Yoav Michaeli (Beer-Sheva, Israel)

Crossing Jerusalem by Julia Pascal (London, UK)

Purple Beastly by Dara Silverman (Oakland, CA)

The JPP is unique in that once the JPC Top 10 Finalists are chosen, they receive dramaturgy and advocacy, in addition to exposure, to a wide national audience of community partners as well as the theatrical industry, via the National New Play Exchange. We turn the final decisions to decide the winning play of the year over to the community. Throughout 2016, the JPP toured the Top 10 Finalist plays to 9 cities, working with a range of community partners to expose the finalist plays to the widest possible audience, as part of the Jewish Playwriting Tour, with locations including:

• Stamford, CT (Limmud NY)
• Boston, MA (JCC of Northern Virginia)
• Chicago, IL (Continuum Theater)
• Silicon Valley (Oshman JCC)
• New York, NY (14th Street Y)
• Hartford, CT (Charter Oak Cultural Center)
• Philadelphia, PA (Gershman Y)
• Milwaukee, WI (JCC of Wilwaukee)

In each location, a Community Panel of five to twenty-five readers read all 10 finalist plays, and chose the three that resonated most with their city. 2016 Community Panelist Readers included, among others: novelist Anita Diamant; Rabbis Donna Berman and Joel Soffin; playwright Jim Sherman; and Professors Barbara Wallace Grossman and Jeffrey Shoulson. (Full list here.) Reader Professor Jonathan Garlick of Tufts University said, "I was thrilled to be part of the remarkable process that the JPP created. The quality of the conversation and the immersion into the Jewish worlds that were brought to life in these plays was inspiring. What a great way to build and enrich our community."

At each Contest event, 20-minuQte selections from the three chosen plays were read by a cast of area professional actors, after which the audience used the JPP's Txt2Thtr cell phone technology to cast their vote on which play should win their regional Contest. Boston City Producer Sara Brookner (Director of Engagement, Jewish Arts Collaborative) said, "The process of choosing three plays out of 10 reflects a creative energy and commitment to Jewish theater. This year Boston's panel consisted of 18 readers who came together to give what Brookner describes as "incredible feedback in a discussion moderated by David." Redder Blood was selected by five of the nine contest Community Panels, winning the top vote in four of the Contest events. The winning play is selected via a points system culled from these communal interactions, and goes on to receive the Jewish Play Contest's annual prize.

Resident Dramaturg and Contest Producer Jeremy Stoller said of the culmination of the 2016 Jewish Playwriting Contest, "I'm excited about the way the Top 10 Plays create a portrait of contemporary Jewish life. Provoking ourselves and our audiences to find through lines and reverberations among these plays does something beneficial for the culture. I'm always glad to hear our writers discuss the ways that being recognized by JPP has inspired them to view their own work differently. It adds up to a really expansive conversation about 21st century Jewish identity-where we are shapes the plays that writers dream up and send to us, and the plays reflect back to us how we are evolving as a culture, and in turn push us forward."

Previous winners of the Jewish Play Contest include: Belfast Kind by Margot Connolly; Six by Zohar Tirosh-Polk; Estelle Singerman by David Rush; G-d's Honest Truth by Renee Calarco (World Premiere: Theater J, Washington D.C.). Read more about the success of previous winners and finalists here.

"Redder Blood" have its Jewish Playwriting Contest Award Winner staged reading tonight, June 24 at 7pm at the 14th Street Y as part of the Jewish Play Project's OPEN: The Festival of New Jewish Theater. To attend this event (Not Open for Review) or the larger festival (festival line-up to be announce soon), please visit the website at: www.jewishplaysproject.org/tickets. For more information about the Jewish Plays Project and the OPEN Festival of New Jewish Theater, visit the website at www.jewishplaysproject.org.

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