Parity Productions Awards Shualee Cook And Gina Femia Awarded 2019 Annual Parity Commission

Theatre production company Parity Productions, a producer of new work that ensures they fill at least 50% of the creative positions (playwrights, directors, and designers) on their productions with women and/or trans and gender nonconforming (TGNC) artists, has awarded two commissions to Shualee Cook for Cercle Hermaphroditos and Gina Femia for you know, that Bakery out in Bensonhurst that don't got a name. The ceremony took place on Wednesday, October 16th at the third annual Parity Awards Ceremony and Celebration at Theaterlab.

The awards were presented by last one of year's Parity Productions Commission-winning playwrights, Azure D. Osborne-Lee, and 4-time New York Times Critics' Pick recipient Crystal Skillman.

Parity Productions awards two commissions annually women and TGNC playwrights who have demonstrated a singular talent for storytelling. Shualee Cook and Gina Femia will receive $2,500 each and developmental support for their plays with an option for production.

The submission period for Parity's Fourth Annual Parity Commission opens on October 17th at 2pm, and will close after Parity receives 150 submissions. Click here to learn more about the submission process.

Parity Productions is also thrilled to announce the launching of their first auction on Paddle8 and their annual Silent Auction Buy Now Prices on The Parity Store.

Bidding for the Parity Productions Online Auction on Paddle8 closes on October 28th. Parity's auction will feature works by Tim Goodchild, Paul McDonough, Paul Moran, Joseph Alexander (J.A.) Pescenke, Edwina Sandys, Sylvia Sleigh, and Malcah Zeldis.

Parity has also announced its Silent Auction Buy Now items, available through December 31st on The Parity Store. Apparel, jewelry, experiences, and art are all included in the collection. Fifty percent of all proceeds go towards Parity's 2020 production of Mirrors by Azure D. Osborne-Lee, premiering February 2020 at Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop.

Shualee Cook (she/her) has been writing theatre in the Midwest for so long that she's starting to forget how to speak Californian. She has been a resident playwright at Tesseract Theatre in Saint Louis, and Stage Left Theatre in Chicago. Plays in performance and development include Earworm, Cercle Hermaphroditos, An Invitation Out, Sunset Artists of the American West, Tempest In A Teapot, Osgood Rex, The Geography of Nowhere, and Music of the Goddess.

Gina Femia (she/her) has written 32 full-length plays which include ALLOND(R)A (Winner: Leah Ryan Prize, Runner-up, Yale Drama Prize), We Are a Masterpiece (Winner: The Doric Wilson Award), The Mermaids' Parade (Semifinalist, The Relentless Award, Finalist, Princess Grace Award), REBELS TIL DEATH (Reading, Playwrights Horizons), Annie and the Fat Man (Honorable Mention, The Kilroys), THIS HAPPENED ONCE AT THE ROMANCE DEPOT OFF THE I-87 IN WESTCHESTER (Workshop, Youngblood), Super, or, How Clark Graves Learned to Fly (semi-finalist The O'Neill and The Princess Grace Award), For The Love Of (Center Theatre Group's Block Party, Theatre of NOTE, Original Works Publishing), and The Violet Sisters (Great Plains Theatre Conference). She is the 2019 Writer-in-Residence with Spicy Witch Productions (The Virtuous Fall of the Girls from Our Lady of Sorrows) and is an Alum of EST Youngblood, Pipeline Theatre's PlayLab and New Georges' Audrey Residency (Accidental Burlesque). Gina is a current member of Page 73's Interstate 73 and Project Y Writers' Groups. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and a New York Madness Company Member, and has received residencies with Page 73, Powerhouse, NTI at the O'Neill, SPACE on Ryder Farm, and Fresh Ground Pepper. She has been nominated for the Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theater Award and the Cherry Lane Theatre Mentor Project. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College (Lipkin Prize in Playwriting).

Parity Productions is a formidable producer of new work that ensures that they fill at least 50% of the creative positions (playwrights, directors, and designers) on their productions with women and/or TGNC artists. In addition to producing their own work, they actively promote other theatre companies that follow their 50% hiring standard. Artistically, they develop and produce compelling new plays that give voice to individuals who rebel against their marginalized place in society. Parity Productions is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit theatre company formed in 2016 by international award-winning director Ludovica Villar-Hauser with its roots in two other previous not-for-profits founded by Villar-Hauser: VH Theatrical Development Foundation and Works by Women.

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