The Common Tongue Presents Connect Five 1/5-16

The Common Tongue's CONNECT FIVE unites new writers with established playwrights in an evening of one act plays by award winning writers Wendy MacLeod and Lucy Thurber and emerging playwrights Danny Mitarotondo and Bronwen Prosser. An exploration of what it means to connect with one another in this modern world, CONNECT FIVE features stories about people striving for love and acceptance. Through these stories, The Common Tongue is reaching out to connect to you, our audience. Four plays, One Audience. Connect Five.

LAST NIGHT
Written by Wendy MacLeod
Directed by Karen Kohlhaas
Juliet tries to do a little something extra in the bedroom for her boyfriend but the morning after finds him full of some ungrateful suspicions.

YOUNG
Written by Lucy Thurber
Directed by Shannon Fillion
Ava just can't seem to stop hurting the women in her life. Can they forgive her one last time?

A ROOM AND A RICHARD
Written by Danny Mitarotondo
Directed by Mo Zhou
Strangers Cynthia and Alex, having an ordinary New York exchange over an apartment, suddenly sink into an extraordinary interchange of loss, love, and memory.

THE MAKE-OUT QUEEN
Written by Bronwen Prosser
Directed by Kathryn Walsh
A young woman's fierce and spastic quest for magic through the revolutionary art of kissing.

The production, presented by The Common Tongue, will play a limited engagement at The Ars Nova Building (511 West 54th Street between 10th & 11th Avenue), January 5-16 at 8pm with additional performances January 8-9 & 15-16 at 2pm. Tickets ($18/$15 students & seniors) are available online at www.tctnyc.org or by calling Ovation Tix at 1-866-811-4111. Please note that this production is not affiliated with Ars Nova or any of its 2011 programming.

The Common TONGUE is an ensemble-based theater company that aims to tell simple and truthful stories. By investigating the playwright's power, collaborating across generations, and uniting diverse groups within the theatre community, TCT explores our generation's search for place, purpose, and meaning.

"The Common Tongue theatre company is a highly dedicated and accomplished group which is making a provocative and healthy impact on American theatre. They should be highly encouraged."
Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright, Edward Albee

Wendy MacLeod (Last Night) Wendy's play Schoolgirl Figure premiered at The Goodman Theater, where her play Sin also premiered before opening Off-Broadway at Second Stage. She is the author of The Water Children which premiered at Playwrights Horizons in New York as a co-production with The Women's Project and was subsequently done at L.A.'s Matrix Theater where it was cited as "the most challenging political play of 1998" by L.A. Weekly and earned six L.A. Drama Critics Circle nominations. Playwrights Horizons also premiered The House of Yes, which became an award-winning film starring Parker Posey, won the Bay Area Critics Award for Best New Play and became the second longest running show in The Magic Theater's history. The play has since been done in L.A., at Soho Rep in NYC, at The Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin and at The Gate Theater in London, where it was selected to be published in Plays International. Her children's musical, How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, based on Marjorie Priceman's book, premiered at The Kennedy Center. Her play Things Being What They Are was produced at Seattle Rep, Steppenwolf and Bay Street Theater. Steppenwolf commissioned and developed her play Phantom Limbs. EST included her one-act solo play The Probabilities in their 2007 Marathon. She has been commissioned by MTC, Playwrights Horizons, The Kennedy Center and the Contemporary American Theater Festival and was a recipient of a MacDowell residency. Wendy was a staff writer for the TV series "Popular" during the 1999-2000 season. She has been twice published by The Chicago Tribune with two short comic pieces. She is the playwright-in-residence at her alma mater, Kenyon College, where she is the Drama Editor of The Kenyon Review. She is a New Dramatists alumna and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Lucy Thurber (Young) Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has produced three of Lucy's plays, Where We're Born, Killers and other Family and Stay. The Atlantic Theater Company opened their '07 season with her play Scarcity and their '10 season with Bottom of the World. Monstrosity received development at Encore Theatre and a workshop production in New York City via 13P. She was also a participant in Lear deBessonet's adaptation of Don Quixote, with music by the gypsy-Christian punk band The Psalters, for the Broad Street Ministry in Philadelphia. A collaboration of professional actors, community members and the homeless, it was named one of the ten best productions of the season by Philadelphia Weekly. Bottom of The World was also workshopped by WET at The Eugene O'Neill Playwrights' Center, was part of the first Tribeca Theater Festival, as well as receiving a workshop at The Public Theater. She was the recipient of the 2000/2001 Manhattan Theatre Club playwriting fellowship and was twice a guest artist at The Perseverance Theater, where she helped to adapt both Moby Dick and Desire Under The Elms. She has had readings and workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages, MCC, Encore Theatre in San Francisco, PlayPenn, Williamstown, New River Dramatists and Soho Rep. Her ten-minute play Dinner is published in a collection called, Not So Sweet, 16 plays from Soho Rep's 10-Minute Play Festival. Her produced plays are published by Dramatists Play Service. Lucy is a member of the MCC Playwrights' Coalition, Primary Stages writing group, 13P and New Dramatists. She is currently writing a new play under commission from Playwrights Horizons, a new play for Rattlestick and a film project for Vox3 and director Deborah Granik.

DANNY MITAROTONDO (A Room and A Richard) is a playwright, director and Co-Artistic Director of The Common Tongue. Danny's plays have been produced at venues across Manhattan and in the Williamstown Theater Festival. As a director he has worked with John Shea, Angelica Torn, and members of The Actors Studio and LAByrinth, and is currently collaborating with Edward Albee on Albee's All Over, most recently presented at the Linda Gross Theater with Marian Seldes and Kathleen Butler. Danny is an MFA playwriting candidate at Columbia University, holds a BA from NYU Gallatin, is a graduate of the Atlantic Theater Company's Professional Conservatory, is an Assistant Teacher of Catherine Fitzmaurice's Voicework ® and is the recent recipient of an Edward F. Albee Writing Fellowship.

BRONWEN PROSSER (The Make-Out Queen) is a graduate of the Atlantic Theater Acting School and a proud founding member of The Common Tongue. Currently she can be seen in episode 5 of the Sundance syndicated web series "Sparks", appearing now on sundancechannel.com or at www.sparks-series.com. Stage work includes the Chicago premiere of Kill the Old Torture their Young (Steep Theater Co.) and A Tribute to Dylan Thomas (DCA Theater), also in Chicago. In New York: Arrivals (Where Eagles Dare), Family Album (Atlantic Acting School), The Picasso Project (Vital Theatre), Cruise Control (Katie Bull), and her original short pieces with TCT. Previously in Boston, The Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie, The Maids, 4.48 Psychosis, and The Balcony. She also received a best actress award for her lead role in the short film Breaker, and is currently adapting The Make-Out Queen for a feature film directed by Lisa Robinson with shooting scheduled to begin this year. The Make-Out Queen has previously been produced for limited engagements in New York with Emerging Artists and Tongue in Cheek Theater Company.

www.tctnyc.org

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