New Perspectives Theatre to Host 7th Annual WOMEN'S WORK SHORT PLAY FESTIVAL, 8/4-9

New Perspectives Theatre Company (NPTC) has announced on the margin, the 7th Annual Women's Work Short Play Festival with six original scripts developed to that theme. The festival runs from Monday, August 4th to Saturday, August 9th with performances of two Programs alternating 4:00pm and 8:00pm curtain times.. on the margin performs at NPTC Studio, 458 West 37th Street (at 10th Avenue.)

The festival is comprised of six plays: Occupy Bronxville by Joan Castagnone, directed by Luisa Baptista; Sweet Stuff by Charlotte Ortiz Colavin, directed by Mia Anderson; One More Cup of Sugar by Emily Daly, directed by Ghenet Pinderhughes; The Bowl by Teresa Lotz, directed by Jenny Greeman; God Don't Exist for Girls From Brooklyn by Yani Pérez, directed by Joyia Bradley; and Educational, Career Relevant Jobs Are Important for Young Women by Catherine Weingarten, directed by Daniella Caggiano. Meganne George serves as Set and Prop Design Consultant, Deborah Constantine is Lighting Designer, Peter Fogel is Costume Designer.

Now in its 7th year, each Short Play Festival is created in NPTC's Women's Work LAB, in which Artistic Director Melody Brooks provides a theme to new members in the spring, and resident directors collectively dramaturge the scripts and bring them to production quality. The festival then provides the critical development tool of putting scripts on their feet fully rehearsed in a bare bones production. The theme of on the margin was inspired (as all themes have been) by the social and political discourse percolating at the start of a new LAB. This year the increasing devastation from climate change heavily influenced our theme, along with expanding income and wealth inequality. After an intensive and wide-ranging discussion of the topic each writer found her own take on this theme -- from literal perspectives to more metaphorical explorations of life and circumstances at the edge of the common or the norm. The resulting plays are as unique and diverse as the talented writers who created them.

Program A begins with Occupy Bronxville, in which one young man makes his protest personal and discovers that things are not always black and white. Global violence against young women is no surprise, but God Don't Exist for Girls From Brooklyn takes a look at it in our own backyard. And in Educational, Career Relevant Jobs Are Important for Young Women a young woman learns that sometimes we have to lose something we want in order to find the thing that we need. We all know that the recipe for a successful relationship is elusive, but One More Cup of Sugar, which kicks off Program B, reveals that there is hope for a great cake. The ties that bind can be the most restrictive, and Sweet Stuff calculates the cost of truly parenting a child?especially when there is no blood relation. And The Bowl takes us to a world in which freedom is a foreign or forgotten concept, until one group bands together to discover new possibilities for all.

SCHEDULE: (Press Performances August 4-9, 2014)

Monday, August 4, Program A: 4:00pm; Program B: 8:00pm

Tuesday, August 5, Program B: 4:00pm; Program A: 8:00pm

Wednesday, August 6, Program A: 4:00pm; Program B: 8:00pm

Thursday, August 7, Program B: 4:00pm; Program A: 8:00pm

Friday, August 8, Program A: 4:00pm; Program B: 8:00pm

Saturday, August 9, Program B: 2:00pm; Program A: 5:30PM

All performances at New Perspectives Theatre Company, 458 West 37th Street (at 10th Avenue). Tickets: $18; $15/students and seniors w/ID; FESTIVAL PASS (see both programs): $28/24. Advance Sale at www.nptnyc.org; Reservations: 212-630-9945; contact@nptnyc.org. Limited seating; advance ticket purchase encouraged.

2014 WOMEN'S WORK LAB WRITERS

JOAN CASTAGNONE earned her MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of North Dakota. She received an ATA award for an adaptation of The Three Sisters for the Drama Department's main-stage production and had a number of her plays produced throughout the state. A former playwright member of the Women's Project, she was invited to New York for the development and reading of her full-length play, Blackbirds, as part of their Midwestern Voices Project. She has published poetry and short fiction in over twenty quarterlies and literary magazines and was the founder and editor of Bloodroot, a literary magazine dedicated to the publication of women writers and artists. Joan was one of the first abridgers at Random House AudioBooks. During a long hiatus from the creative writing life, she worked in corporate communications and, later, as an acquiring/developmental editor at Church Publishing Inc. She is a member of Charles Maryan's Playwrights/Directors Workshop.

CHARLOTTE ORTIZ COLAVIN: Full length plays Beautiful Fig and annie & betty: 2 Birds had staged readings at Performance Space, Santa Cruz, CA and in New York at the Barrow Group Theatre. Beautiful Fig: honorable mention at Ashland New Play Festival, OR and at Pandora Productions, L.A., One acts, Clean Sweep, Frankie and Edna and JINX were workshopped at The Barrow Group Theatre; georgie was produced at Festival Ten VIII, at The College at Brockport, Rochester, NY; Pause was produced at MSNBC and Cece at The Performance Works, NYC. Charlotte has also been a collaborative playwright for many years in California and New York, most extensively with Joseph Chaikin on his Disability Project at the Public Theatre with John Belluso, Bill Hart and Charles Mee. She was a co-founder of Lilitheatre in San Francisco, and she conducts playwriting residencies for teachers and students in NYC Public High Schools and with incarcerated youth that culminate in staged readings with professional actors

EMILY DALY is a playwright and actor based in New York. As a playwright, her work has been featured at a range of New York venues, including Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's TheaterJam, Jimmy's No. 43, and Manhattan Repertory Theater. Her work has also been developed and presented around the United States, including the Great Plains Theater Conference's Play Lab in Omaha NE, the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington D.C., and the foolsFURY Theater's Factory Parts in San Francisco CA, She is a member of the Middle Voice Theater Company, in residence at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, which will present a workshop production of her full-length play Graduation Day in the fall of 2014. Emily is also a member of Stable Cable Lab Co., an ensemble-driven theater company dedicated to developing new artists and works. Emily studied at the Johns Hopkins University with John Astin, and at the National Theater Institute. www.emilyjdaly.com

TERESA LOTZ is a playwright, composer and librettist whose work includes She Calls Me Firefly, The Toucan Man (words)with composer Jesse Goldman, The Birds and the Bees: Unabridged (music) with lyricist Ella-Rose Chary (NYC, 2013), Smoke (NYU's Brandspankin' New Works Showcase), Dick Whittington: an XMAS Panto for NYC (music, Dixon Place, 2012), Grounded; an original One Act Musical (book and lyrics) with composer-lyricist Ryan Korell (Nashville, 2012).Her work has been heard at NYMF, 54 Below, and the Duplex. She works with VH Theatrical Development Foundation, Works by Women, and is the current Managing-Producer of LezCab (lezcab.com). Teresa is a proud member of the Dramatist's Guild and an apprentice member of the League of Professional Theatre Women. Bowling Green State University, B.M. Music Composition New York University, M.F.A Musical Theatre Writing. www.teresalotz.com

YANI PÉREZ is an Ecuadorian born, Brooklyn raised poet and playwright. Her work can be found in literary journals and websites such as Brooklyn Paramount, By the Overpass, Having A Whiskey Coke With You, Napalm and Novocain, Jellyfish Whispers, Barbie in a Blender Anthology and Storm Cycle 2012: The Best of Kind of a Hurricane Press. She reads her poetry in literary events throughout the city, and assists with literary workshops and publicity at IATI Theater. She also does marketing for artists, theaters and businesses. When not writing plays, poetry or marketing materials, she teaches English at the university level. Her current research entails the merging of American and Hispanic concepts in second and third generations to accommodate the duality of Latinos in America. She received her M.F.A in Creative Writing from Long Island University/Brooklyn. www.yaniperez.com

CATHERINE WEINGARTEN is a recent graduate of Bennington College in Vermont and an incoming playwriting MFA candidate at Ohio University. During her freshman year, her one act play, Venus Mars and Torturous Change Your Life Intense Idealistic Love, was selected as a finalist in the school's playwriting competition. Her full length plays include: Are you Ready to Get PAMPERED!?, Recycling Sexy, A Roller Rink Temptation and Pineapple Upside Down Cake: a virgin play. Ms. Weingarten's plays have been showcased at such theaters as Ugly Rhino Productions, Nylon Fusion Collective, Last Frontier Theater Conference and Piper Theater Productions. She is currently a member of Abingdon Theater's Playwrights Group as well as the playwright in residence for "Realize Your Beauty, Inc" which uses theater workshops to promote positive body image for kids. catherine-weingartensquarespace.com

NPTC is an award-winning, multi-racial company performing in the Theatre District and communities throughout NYC. Now beginning its 22nd season, notable productions have included Richard III, starring Austin Pendleton; The Taming of the Shrew (OOBR Award for Excellence), Exhibit #9 by Tracy Scott Wilson (Audelco Award); Jihad by Ann Chamberlain (OOBR Award for Excellence); Admissions by Tony Velella (10 Best Plays Citation, Backstage); the premiere of The Shaneequa Chronicles by OBIE-Winner Stephanie Berry (with Blackberry Productions); Anatomy of a Love Affair by Deirdre Hollman (Optioned by Essence Entertainment); and innovative productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Othello, and Julius Caesar. The Company's mission is to develop and produce new plays and playwrights, especially women and people of color; to present classic plays in a style that addresses contemporary issues; and to extend the benefits of theatre to young people and communities in need. Our aim is not to exclude, but to cast a wider net.

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