Planet Connections Presents 2018 Playwrights For A Cause: MY SEXUALITY IS...

"Each season, Playwrights For A Cause continues to raise awareness on topics of social justice while providing an opportunity for theater artists to share their creations. I couldn't be more excited about this seasons line-up of brilliant playwrights," says Glory Kadigan, founder and curator of the annual Playwrights for a Cause benefit, hosted by Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. "I'd also like to thank the Associate Artistic Director of the Theater at the 14th Street Y, David Stallings, for providing a home for our event."

The event, designed to address a powerful social and topical issues facing our society today through the works of prominent playwrights, will delve, this year, into
Defining -- and not Defining -- your Sexuality, and will benefit The Trevor Project.
Founded in 1998 by the creators of the Academy Award-winning short film, TREVOR, The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24.

The event will be the evening of August 27 at 7:00 p.m. at the Theater at the 14th Street Y, 344 E 14th St, New York City.

Inspired by works that welcome artists of all backgrounds, the Theater at the 14th Street Y focuses on social awareness and change through big picture narrative. "Its mission made it the ideal forum for this year's powerful evening of plays and playwrights," said Shaun Peknic, the new producing artist director of Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.

2018 marks Planet Connections' 10th year and Playwrights for a Cause's sixth year.

Every year, PFAC's powerful line-up features some of the strongest names in New York theatre playwrights. The contributing Playwrights for this event include:
Lucy Boyle, MIGDALIA CRUZ, CATHERINE FILLOUX, Regina Taylor, and ?Lucy Thurber

A reception will follow the performance. The cast and production team will be announced shortly. Benefit tickets for reserved seating will be $20 - $125. Reservation information will be announced shortly.

Learn about the Playwrights:

Lucy Boyle is a playwright whose plays include The Blue Deep (Williamstown Theatre Festival with Blythe Danner and Heather Lind), Girls' School Gothic (Hangar Theatre), and Mort (F*It Club). She wrote for the ABC Family television series HUGE, created by Winnie Holzman. She was a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood Playwrights Collective, the Dramatists' Guild Fellows, and was given Hunter College's John Golden Incentive Award by Tina Howe while studying with her there. She received her BA from Brown University and her MFA in acting from Brown/Trinity Rep.

MIGDALIA CRUZ is a Bronx-born, playwright, lyricist, translator & librettist of more than 60 works including: El Grito Del Bronx, Fur, Salt, Satyricoño, and Miriam's Flowers, produced in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the US & abroad. New Dramatists alumna, a 2016 NYFA Fellow & 2013 Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright, her other awards include the NEA, the Mcknight, and a TCG/Pew Fellowship. She was nurtured by the Lark, Sundance & by María Irene Fornés at INTAR. She is currently teaching at Princeton, where her newest play, The Book of Miaou: Don't Drink Everything Your Mother Pours You, will premiere in April 2018 as part of the Fornés Symposium. Her translation of Macbeth for OSF's PlayOn! Project will be seen in Boston and San Francisco in Fall 2018 and in New York in Spring 2019. She will lead the Fornés Institute Playwriting Workshop in June 2018 and the Playwrights' Retreat for LaMaMa/Umbria in August 2018. www.migdaliacruz.com

CATHERINE FILLOUX is an award-winning playwright who has been writing about human rights and social justice for twenty-five years. Catherine was honored in New York City with the 2017 Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre. Her new play Kidnap Road recently premiered at La MaMa and was presented by Anna Deavere Smith as part of NYU's Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue in 2016. Filloux received the 2015 Planet Activist Award due to her long career as an activist artist in the theater community. Her play whatdoesfreemean? about women and mass incarceration in the U.S. will premiere in 2018, produced by Nora's Playhouse in New York City. Recent productions include: Selma '65 which premiered at La MaMa and has been performed around the U.S., including at Pygmalion Productions, Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City, Utah; and Luz at La MaMa, and Looking for Lilith Theatre Company in Louisville, Kentucky. Catherine is the librettist for three produced operas, New Arrivals (Houston Grand Opera), Where Elephants Weep (Chenla Theatre, Phnom Penh, Cambodia), The Floating Box (Asia Society, New York City.) Filloux has been commissioned by the Vienna State Opera to write the libretto for composer Olga Neuwirth's new opera, Orlando to premiere in 2019. www.catherinefilloux.com

Regina Taylor has two plays this season: "Crowns" (McCarter/Long Wharf; Director: Regina Taylor /4 Helen Hayes Awards including Best Director), "Bread" (Edgerton Award/Water Tower Theater; Director: Leah C. Gardiner). Ms. Taylor was honored as the 2017 Denzel Washington Chair Fordham University at Lincoln Center where she directed her play "Magnolia". She was also a writer for the Princeton and Slavery Plays at the McCarter Theater that featured Emily Mann, Kwame Kwei Armah, Jackie Sibles Drury, Nathan Davies, Elizabeth Dipika and Brandon Jacobs Jenkins. Writing credits include: "Trinity River Plays" (Edgerton Award), "Drowning Crow" (Broadway), "stop.reset". (Signature Theater Residency 5). Taylor is Artistic Associate of Goodman Theatre and one of its most produced playwrights. Acting credits include: First African American Juliet on Broadway in "Romeo and Juliet" (Belasco Theater) First African American lead in Masterpiece Theater's "Cora Unashamed". Taylor received a Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Performance for the TV Series "I'll Fly Away". Movies include: "Clockers", Courage Under Fire and Lean on Me."

Lucy Thurber is the author of: Where We're Born, Ashville, Scarcity, Killers and Other Family, Stay, Bottom of The World, Monstrosity, Dillingham City, The Locus and The Insurgents. The Insurgents was commissioned by Contemporary American Theater Festival and produced at their 2011 Festival. Bottom of The World opened the 2010/11 season at The Atlantic Theater. A reworking of Killers and Other Family played Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2009. The Atlantic Theater Company opened its 2007/08 season with Scarcity. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has produced three of her plays, Where We're Born, Killers and Other Family and Stay. Monstrosity was workshopped at Encore Theatre Company (San Francisco). She was the recipient of the 2000-01 Manhattan Theatre Club Playwriting Fellowship. She has had readings and workshops at Steam Boat Springs, Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages, MCC Theater, Encore Theatre Company, PlayPenn, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The O'Neill with WET, New River Dramatists and Soho Rep. She is the recipient of the first Gary Bonasorte Memorial Prize for Playwriting, a Lilly Award and a 2014 OBIE Award for The Hill Town Plays.

To post a comment, you must register and login.