Lark Announces PLAYWRIGHTS' WEEK 2011

The Lark Play Development Center announced that seven plays-in-development have been chosen for its 18th annual Playwrights' Week, which will kick off on Tuesday, September 20 at 8pm with the Meet the Writers event and reception, where writers will read excerpts from their work. Playwrights' Week public readings will be presented from September 21-24. All events are free, open to the public, and take place at the Lark's BareBones Studio, 311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor. For full schedule visit: www.larktheatre.org.

2011 PLAYWRIGHTS' WEEK

WATER ON THE MOON by Emily Bohannon

FAILURE: A LOVE STORY by Philip Dawkins

SLIP/SHOT by Jacqueline Goldfinger

TIMBER LAND by Katharine Clark Gray

THE NETHER by Jennifer Haley

DETROIT '67 by Dominique Morisseau

GET THORPE by Ken Weitzman

ABOUT PLAYWRIGHTS' WEEK

Playwrights' Week playwrights participate in an intensive seven-day retreat where they focus on self-stated developmental goals - with support from their creative teams, peer writers, and Lark's staff - and present their works-in-progress to the public in a rehearsal format.

Playwrights' Week is supported this year by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Office of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The Washington Jefferson Hotel is the official hotel of Playwrights' Week.

Works are selected from among writers who are generally new to the Lark, possess extraordinary and distinctive voices, offer diverse perspectives, and articulate clear developmental goals. Each submission requires a statement of goals from the writer about how the play will specifically benefit from the Lark's playwright-driven developmental process. This year, the selection process began with a review of nearly six hundred scripts that had been submitted to the Lark's Open Access Program by the November 2010 deadline. Twenty-five finalists were named by the Lark's Literary Wing, a committee of 35 volunteer theater artists and community members skilled at reading and assessing new plays. Seven of these finalists were subsequently selected for Playwrights' Week by a Final Selection Committee of theater industry professionals that this year included Joshua Allen (playwright), Beth Blickers (Abrams Artists Agency), Mark Blankenship (Theater Development Fund), Andrea Hiebler (Lark's Literary and Artistic Coordinator), Mia Katigbak (MaYi Theater Company), Miles Lott (Chairman of Lark's Literary Wing), Matthew Paul Olmos (Lark's Communications and Marketing Manager), Margarett Perry (director), and Tijuana Ricks (performer).

To RSVP for Playwrights' Week, please visit: www.larktheatre.org or call 212-246-2676 x224.

PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

WATER ON THE MOON by Emily Bohannon - Bex runs a pirate radio station from her closet, but when her best friend (and best DJ) has the chance for a better life, her life is shaken like the walls of her crumbling apartment.

DETROIT '67 by Dominique Morisseau - In 1967 Detroit, a quarrelsome brother and sister struggle to make ends meet and get caught in the middle of the '67 riots.

SLIP/SHOT by Jacqueline Goldfinger - Two young couples are torn apart by a terrible shooting. This play is about the malleability of truth, and how we re-imagine history to protect the ones we love.

GET THORPE by Ken Weitzman - In 1912, less than twenty years after the massacre at Wounded Knee, American Indians and the U.S. Army were about to face off again: this time on the football field.

THE NETHER by Jennifer Haley - A young cyberdetective interrogates a successful businessman about crimes against children. But are they truly crimes if they are committed in the "thought space" of the Nether?

TIMBER LAND by Katharine Clark Gray - A progressive community must reckon with its flaws when a stranger comes to town in this satire of modern activism and the choirs

FAILURE: A LOVE STORY by Philip Dawkins - This love story follows the three Fail sisters, all of whom happen to die within the same year, and the one man who happens to fall in love with each of them.

ABOUT THE LARK

The Lark Play Development Center, now in its 18th year, is a laboratory for new voices and new ideas. The Lark brings together actors, directors, playwrights and the community to allow writers to learn about their own work by seeing and hearing it, and by receiving feedback from a dedicated and supportive community. The company reaches into untapped local populations and across international boundaries to seek out and embrace unheard voices and diverse perspectives, celebrating differences in language and worldviews. The Lark also plays a leading role in advancing unknown writers and their works to audiences through carefully stewarded partnerships with a host of theaters, universities, community-based organizations and NGOs, locally, nationally and globally. The Lark is led by its co-founder and Artistic Director John Clinton Eisner and Managing Director Michael Robertson.

Plays developed at the Lark frequently go on to full productions at theaters around the globe. Katori Hall's THE MOUNTAINTOP is scheduled to open on Broadway on October 13. David Henry Hwang's CHINGLISH is bound for Broadway this fall after its run at Chicago's Goodman Theater this summer, and Rajiv Joseph's BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO ran on Broadway from March 31 - July 3, starring Robin Williams. For more information: www.larktheatre.org.

PLAYWRIGHT BIOGRAPHIES

Emily Bohannon is the author of ten full-length plays, and an actor you may have seen onstage in past Playwrights' Weeks. She is a 2010 Artist Fellowship recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts, and her work has recently been developed with Coyote REP Theatre Company and Reverb Theatre Group. She has studied playwriting at the Einhorn School of Performing Arts with Tanya Barfield, Cusi Cram, Michelle Bossy, and Dael Orlandersmith. She received a B.A. in Drama from the University of Georgia.

Katharine Clark Gray is a playwright, screenwriter and occasional producer. Plays include USER 927 (HERE), 516 (five sixteen) (Roust), THE BEEF (PlayPenn "In the Penn" series), THE B SIDE (Governor's Laundress), FRANCIS BACON (winner, Ithaca Great Playwrights contest) and dozens of one acts. Her work has been produced by Reverie, The Drilling Company, Hypothetical, Brat, Luna Stage, Manhattan Theatre Source, People's Improv Theatre, 3Graces, mtp!, and NextFest Edmonton, among others. Katie is a 2008 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Other awards: Barrymore Award for collaboration (Three Chord Fiction, Brat Productions); winner, Reverie Productions' Next Generation Playwriting Contest (for USER 927). Memberships: Dramatists Guild, the Playwrights Center, InterAct Playwrights Forum and Actors Equity. Several of her monologues as well as a play for six year olds have been published by Smith & Kraus. She is a founding member and current Design Director for A Chip & A Chair Films, which first feature IF YOU COULD SAY IT IN WORDS is now out on DVD. Next up: the musical THE PESTILENCE IS COMING with Magic Futurebox, NYC. In development: THE WALK (screenplay), A HOLD IN THE SIDE (stage). She currently resides in Philadelphia.

Philip Dawkins is a graduate of Loyola University, Chicago. His plays for kiddos are published through Playscripts, Inc. (www.playscripts.com), and have been performed all over Chicago and North America. This past summer, his play, THE HOMOSEXUALSs received its world premiere production at About Face Theatre in Chicago under the direction of Bonnie Metzgar. In the fall, his play MISS MARX OR THE INVOLUNTARY SIDE EFFECT OF LIVING will receive a staged reading as part of Steppenwolf's First Look Series. Other credits: DEAD LETTER OFFICE (Dog and Pony Theatre), CAST OF CHARACTERS (Theater Three, NY; Drip Action, UK), YES TO EVERYTHING! (Chicago, NY,CA, DC), PERFECT (The Side Project); UGLY BABY (Chicago Opera Vanguard/Strawdog Theatre Company), A STILL LIFE IN COLOR (T.U.T.A. Company), THE MAN WITH A SHATTERED WORLD (Ethington Theatre, AZ), SAGUARO (Estrogen Fest; Estrogenius Festival, NY; 16th Street Theatre, Berwyn; Painted Filly, Ireland.). Philip is an Artistic Associate of About Face Theatre, and a founding member, with artistic partner, Eric C.Reda, of Chicago Opera Vanguard. Philip taught playwriting in public schools for ten years through Chicago Dramatists, and he teaches Kung Fu to children through Rising Phoenix Kung Fu.

Jacqueline Goldfinger is an award-winning playwright from Tallahassee, Florida. Her play SLIP/SHOT was recently nominated for the Weissberger Award and developed at PlayPenn. It will world premiere at Flashpoint Theatre in Philadelphia in the spring of 2012. She is currently a semi-finalist for the Haas Award for Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist. Her other full-length plays include THE TERRIBLE GIRLS (Azuka Theatre, Moxie Theatre, NYFringe), THE OATH (Theatre Exile, Off-Off Broadway Maieutic Theatre Works, Penobscot Theatre), and THE BURNING SEASON (Winner of the National Plays for the 21st Century Competition). Her short play, HIS LAST FLIGHT, was recently published in the collection "The Best 10-Minute Plays of 2010." Her commissioned adaptations include HERSHEL AND THE HANUKKAH GOBLINS (Gas & Electric Arts), LITTLE WOMEN (North Coast Repertory Theatre), A CHRISTMAS CAROL (North Coast Repertory Theatre), and THE GHOST'S BARGAIN (Playscripts). She has been a finalist/semi-finalist for New Dramatists, O'Neill Theater Center Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils Theatre Conference, Next Generation Playwrights Award, and the Stone New Play Award. She is a Senior Lecturer in Theater at the University of the Arts and a freelance dramaturg. Her work has been published by Playscripts and Smith & Krauss. Visit her online at: www.jacquelinegoldfinger.com.

Jennifer Haley is a playwright who's current plays include NEIGHBORHOOD 3: REQUISITION OF DOOM, which premiered at The Actors Theatre of Louisville 2008 Humana Festival and continues to see productions nation-wide, and Breadcrumbs, which premiered at the 2010 Contemporary American Theatre Festival and enjoyed an extended run this summer at Theater 150 in Ojai, CA. Plays in development are FROGGY, workshopped at the 2011 Sundance Theatre Lab, and THE NETHER, workshopped at the 2011 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Her work has also been seen at Summer Play Festival in New York, PlayPenn Playwrights Conference in Philadelphia, Lincoln Center Director's Lab, Geva Theatre in Rochester, Theatre at Boston Court in Pasadena, and the Page 73 Productions Summer Residency at Yale. She is a former fellow of the MacDowell Colony and Millay Colony for the Arts, and her work is published by Samuel French and Playscripts, Inc. She lives in Los Angeles, where she founded a network of dramatic writers called the Playwrights Union. You can find out more about her at www.jenniferhaley.com.

Dominique Morisseau is a writer and actress, currently a member of the 2011 Public Theater Emerging Writer's Group and the 2010-2012 Women's Project Playwrights Lab. Her play, FOLLOW ME TO NELLIE'S, was developed at the 2010 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and produced at Premiere Stages in July 2011. Her produced one-acts include: THIRD GRADE (FTT Festival), BLACK AT MICHIGAN (Cherry Lane Studio/DUTF), SOCKS, ROSES ARE PLAYED OUT and LOVE AND NAPPINESS (Center Stage, ATH). Dominique's commissions include: love.lies.liberation (The New Group) and BUMRUSH (Hip Hop Theater Festival). Dominique is currently developing a 3-play cycle on her hometown of Detroit, entitled "THE DETROIT PROJECTS". The first play in the series, DETROIT '67, was developed at The Public Theater and was a finalist for the 2011 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Dominique has worked as an actress with BET/Viacom, The Lark Play Development Center, Women's Project, McCarter Theater, NYSAF, and MCC Theater. Her work has been developed with: the Kennedy Center, African Continuum Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem and published in NY Times bestseller- "Chicken Soup for the African American Soul". Dominique is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award Honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award Recipient, a nominee for the Wendy Wasserstein Playwriting Prize, and a runner-up for the 2011 Princess Grace Award.

Ken Weitzman is a playwright who's plays include THE CATCH (The Denver Center Theatre Company), FIRE IN THE GARDEN (Indiana Repertory Theatre), THE AS IF BODY LOOP (Humana Festival), ARRANGEMENTS (Atlantic Theatre Company), SPIN MOVES (The Summer Play Festival), STADIUM 360 (Out of Hand Theater), MEMORABILIA (ALLIANCE THEATRE), HOMINID (Out of Hand Theatre/Theatre Emory/Oerol Festival Netherlands). These plays and others were developed with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Arena Stage, the Geva Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, New York Stage and Film, Hartford Stage, The New Harmony Project (board member), Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Page 73 Productions, Out of Hand Theatre (writer-in-residence). Awards include The L. Arnold Weissberger Award for ARRANGEMENTS, Henry Award (best new play in Denver) and an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award for THE CATCH, the Fratti/Newman Political Play Contest Award for Fire in the Garden. Commissions include Arena Stage, the ALLIANCE THEATRE, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Theatre Emory, and South Coast Repertory (the Elizabeth George Commission for an Outstanding Emerging Playwright). Ken received his MFA from UCSD and currently heads the graduate playwriting program at Indiana University. Prior to playwriting, Ken wrote and produced sports documentaries and narratives for television and new media for the National Basketball Association Entertainment, Speedvision, Emerald City, and CybrCard.

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