Project Y Theatre Company Commissions 9 Plays by Women

In an effort to broaden opportunities for women playwrights, Project Y Theatre Company has commissioned nine female playwrights in two separate productions, Great Again, an evening of plays by Crystal Skillman and Chiori Miyagawa, and The Hrosthvitha Project, 7 adaptations of the 10th century female-written play "Dulcitius" written by playwrights Caridad Svich, Pia Wilson, Julienne Hairston, Michole Biancosino, Lia Romeo, Stacie Lents, and Erin Mallon.

Great Again is an evening of plays in two parts: Test by Crystal Skillman (directed by Jessi Hill) and In the Line by Chiori Miyagawa (directed by Kristin Horton and choreographed by Sonoko Kawahara). Both plays were commissioned by Project Y Theatre Company and written as a response to the November 2016 election. Together they will receive full productions as part of the Women in Theatre Festival, June 1-24th 2017 at The A.R.T./New York Theatres.

In Test, an English teacher in a struggling high school readies her junior students for the most important test of their lives. But when a symbol of hate appears in her classroom, she and two students on either side of the recent election, find their lives forever changed.

In the Line revolves around a woman who drops something while standing in a long line of people. She looks for the lost object as the line transforms into other lines - people waiting to vote, to buy the newest Nintendo, to get into the hottest restaurant - as she struggles to keep her original place. When she finally arrives at the front of this line that has shifted time and space, what she finds is a surprise. It is a magical exploration of loss, long lines, and letting go.

The Hrosthvitha Project will feature two nights of staged readings of new commissioned short plays. These adaptations will reclaim a piece of women's theatre history by highlighting the first female and first German language playwright, Hrostvitha of Gandersham, while also making her work relevant and resonant to a modern audience through fresh adaptations by playwrights Caridad Svich, Pia Wilson, Julienne Hairston, Michole Biancosino, Lia Romeo, Stacie Lents, and Erin Mallon.

Award-winning playwright Crystal Skillman is the author of the plays Geek, Cut, and King Kirby (co-written with Fred Van Lente), all New York Times Critics Picks. Her new plays include: Rain and Zoe Save the World (2017 Blue Ink Award Finalist, 2017 O'Neill Semi-Finalist, 2016 New Harmony Project, 2016 Oregon Performance Lab), Pulp Vérité (2017 Judson's Magic Time Series, 2016 BAPF Finalist, 2015 Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Commission), and Another Kind of Love, a punk rock play (Chopin Theater with InFusion Theatre Co., 2015, Chicago). She is the musical theater book writer of Mary and Max, and The Cover written for Glee's Ali Stroker, both with award winning ASCAP Composer/Lyricist Bobby Cronin. Wild was just published by Chicago Dramaworks, following sold out runs in Chicago and New York (at Off-Broadway's Lucille Lortel). She is also the author of The Vigil or The Guided Cradle, winner of the 2010 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Full-Length Script. She is a proud member of EST, Women's Project Lab and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Her work can be found at her publisher Samuel French, as well as Chicago Dramaworks. She just finished the original TV pilot for her series Paper Heroes, co-created and written with Fred Van Lente. http://www.crystalskillman.com/

Chiori Miyagawa (Playwright - In the Line) is a playwright, an educator, and a New York City registered voter. Her plays vary in subject and style, yet they all bear a unique signature-elements of magic realism, collapsed time, and a theme of memory and identity. They have been produced off-Broadway, at renowned performance houses in NYC, and regionally. Currently, she is working on a libretto based on her play This Lingering Life, which premiered in San Francisco in 2014, in collaboration with renowned librettist Mark Campbell (Pulitzer Prize, Silent Night) and composer Anne LeBaron. Twelve of Chiori's plays are collected in two books: Thousand Years Waiting and Other Plays, published by Seagull Books and America Dreaming and Other Plays, is published by NoPassport Press. Her work has been supported by many fellowships and grants including a New York Foundation for the Arts Playwriting Fellowship, a McKnight Playwriting Fellowship, a Van Lier Playwriting Fellowship, an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, a Rockefeller Bellagio Residency Fellowship in Italy, MAP Fund (twice from the Rockefeller Foundation and once from Creative Capital), and a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies Fellowship at Harvard University. She is an alumnus playwright of New Dramatists, a member playwright of Lark Play Development Center, and a Usual Suspect of New York Theatre Workshop. She teaches playwriting at Bard College. chiorimiyagawa.info

Great Again and The Hrostvitha Project will be presented by Project Y Theatre Company as part of their 2nd Annual Women in Theatre Festival runningJune 1-24th, 2017 at The A.R.T./New York Theatres (502 West 53rd Street, off 10th Avenue). Ticket prices range from $20-$35. For more information or for tickets visit: www.projectytheatre.org.

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