Lineup For 3rd Annual Women In Theatre Festival Announced

Project Y Theatre Company presents the 3rd Annual WOMEN IN THEATRE FESTIVAL from May 30 - June 24 at IRT Theatre (154 Christopher Street, between Washington & Greenwich Streets in the West Village). The Festival seeks to broaden the opportunities for women in the entertainment industry by producing new work by women with more than 50% female representation of all artists involved. Tickets for all performances are $25 general admission / $15 for students with ID. For more information or for tickets, visit www.witfestival.projectytheatre.org

The 3rd Annual WOMEN IN THEATRE FESTIVAL will feature 8 productions. The highlights of the festival are three fully staged works:

WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT (World Premiere of a #MeToo Play)
By Lia Romeo. Directed by Allison Benko.
Jenna and Kate are best friends . . . until one drunken night, Kate ends up in the bathroom with Derek, the guy Jenna has a crush on. Afterwards, Kate says she was raped, while Derek claims it was consensual. A play about sexual violence, rape culture, and what it means to listen.
Performances: Wednesday, 6/6 at 7:30pm; Thursday, 6/7 at 7:30pm; Saturday, 6/9 at 8pm; Sunday, 6/10 at 5pm; Friday, 6/15 at 7:30pm; Saturday, 6/16 at 5pm; Wednesday, 6/20 at 7:30pm; Friday, 6/22 at 7:30pm; Saturday, 6/23 at 8pm; and Sunday, 6/25 at 5pm.

TRUTH/DARE (World Premiere of a Kilroy's Long List play)
By Tori Keenan-Zelt. Directed by Andrew W. Smith.
At 13, Ursa, Hannah, Linney, and Maeve live in their own world built of basements, secrets, loves, and backyard ghosts - until the last sleepover of the summer. High school looms, with the promise and threat of reinvention, and the group fractures as shifting beliefs and identities collide in a traumatic accident that none of them can explain. Four years later, questions and accusations fly as the survivors revisit the scene of the "crime" and try to understand what happened, what they have lost, and how to live now.
Performances: Wednesday, 5/30 at 7:30pm; Thursday, 5/31 at 7:30pm; Friday, 6/1 at 7:30pm; Saturday, 6/2 at 7:30pm; Friday, 6/8 at 7:30pm; Saturday, 6/9 at 5pm; Sunday, 6/10 at 7:30pm; and Tuesday, 6/12 at 7:30pm.

CINDY (World Premiere of a Play for Kids)
By Amina Henry. Directed by Michole Biancosino.
Cindy does not want to be a princess. She wants to be a pilot. Her best buddy, a friendly rat, understands her longing to fly, but the ghost of her dead mother and the charming fairytale prince have other plans to keep her grounded. In this kid-friendly modern re-imagining of Cinderella, Cindy struggles to define her own "happily ever after." For children ages 6-99, with music, dancing, and puppets.
Performances: Sunday, 6/3 at 2pm; Saturday, 6/9 at 2pm; Sunday, 6/10 at 2pm; Saturday, 6/16 at 2pm; Sunday, 6/17 at 2pm & 5pm; Saturday, 6/23 at 2pm; and Sunday, 6/24 at 2pm.

Rounding out the Festival are:
• Uninvited Girl: An Immigrant Story, by Nimisha Ladva, directed by Ed Sobe.
• The Hrosthwitha Project, adaptations of Abraham by Arlene Hutton, Donna Hoke, Charly Evon Simpson, Tasha Gordon-Solmon, E.M. Lewis, and Nandita Shenoy.
• Bible Adventure Park!, performed by Becca L. McLarty, directed by Mark Cirnigliaro.
• The Dionysian presents: Ritual Madness, Women in Theatre Edition.
• A Case of You: The Von Cosel Variations, conceived and created by Tracy Weller & Mason Holdings, written by Devin Burnam and directed by Kris Thor.

Founded in 1999, Project Y Theatre Company has been called the "smartest of the city's theatre troupes," by N.P.R. Project Y has had an unwavering presence in the New York Off-Off Broadway community and has been nominated for nine Innovative Theater Awards. Project Y has been the recipient of grants from NYSCA, ART/NY, The Nancy Quinn Fund, and the humanitarian Puffin Foundation. They have produced work, which includes Trump Lear, Gary Busey's One-Man Hamlet..., A User's Guide to Hell featuring Bernard Madoff, Connected, Fubar and Great Again, at venues including 59E59, A.R.T./New York Theatres, HERE, and Theatre Row Theaters. They have produced and/or developed work by playwrights including Hilary Bettis, Karl Gadjusek, Charles Mee, Lee Blessing, Chisa Hutchinson, Adam Szymkowicz, Caridad Svich, Johnna Adams, Lauren Yee, Crystal Skillman and Chiori Miyagawa.

Amina Henry is a Brooklyn-based playwright. Productions include: Ducklings at JACK, The Animals at JACK, Happily Ever at Brooklyn College, An American Family Takes a Lover at Theater for the New City, Water produced by Drama of Works and The Minstrel Show at the 2013 Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival at 13th Street Theater/CSC (NYC). Her work has been developed by and/or presented at: The New Group, The Flea, Clubbed Thumb, National Black Theater, Barefoot Theater, Little Theater at Dixon Place, HERE, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Ashland, OR), Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas, TX) and Interrobang Theatre (Baltimore, MD), among others. She has been a participant in Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers, Page 73's Interstate 73 writers group and is currently a member of Ars Nova's emerging writers group. She is also a recipient of a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Space Grant. For more information, go to aminahenry.wordpress.com.

Tori Keenan-Zelt is an alumna of the Ingram New Works Lab, Fresh Ground Pepper's PlayGround PlayGroup, Bastard Playground @ The Drama League, and Mission to (dit)Mars Propulsion Lab, she has recently been a Playwrights' Center Core Apprentice and Lark Dramaturgy Fellow and has written for Colonial Williamsburg's Emmy Award-winning PBS education series. She has been named an Emmy Nominee, Kilroys Lister, Jerome Finalist, Princess Grace Finalist, and Playwrights of New York Nominee. She is currently a member of Super Secret Play Lab, Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit, The Actors' Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit & the Dramatists Guild. Some of her short plays are published by Next Stage Press.

Lia Romeo has been nominated for the ATCA/Steinberg Award for best new play and the NYIT Award for outstanding full-length play, and has been recognized by the O'Neill (finalist), the Heideman Award (finalist), and the Kilroys List (honorable mention). Her plays have been produced at 59E59, Project Y Theatre Company, Unicorn Theatre, HotCity Theatre, Stillwater Theatre, Renegade Theatre Experiment, Forward Flux Productions, New Origins Theatre Company, Jersey City Theater Center, Porch Light Productions, The Skeleton Rep, MCS Theater, and Xpressions Performing Arts Network, and have been developed at the Lark, San Francisco Playhouse, Abingdon Theatre, and elsewhere. She is an Individual Artist Fellowship Recipient from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts. She is also the author of a novel, Dating the Devil (Amazon bestseller, optioned by ABC Family), and a humor book, 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About. Her plays are published by Playscripts and Smith & Kraus, and she teaches in the graduate creative writing program at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

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