The Workshop Theater to Present Benefit Reading of One-Acts For JALBCA

As part of its new Words Matter initiative, The Workshop Theater will be presenting four newly-commissioned one-act plays by Samantha Chanse, Caridad Svich, Ellen McLaughlin, and Rehana Lew Mirza on behalf of JALBCA. The plays will be presented as a Zoom reading at 7pm on November 4, and then will be available until November 8 on The Workshop's YouTube channel. All proceeds will benefit JALBCA, and reservations can be made at www.workshoptheater.org.

All four plays were inspired by the prompt word "resilience", and were specifically commissioned to be presented as a benefit reading for JALBCA. Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert is an association of lawyers and judges that provides educational programs relating to breast cancer, funds legal and other support services for low-income women and families in crisis from breast cancer, and annually underwrites dozens of mammogram vans to provide early breast cancer detection for underinsured and uninsured women.

The plays feature: Taylor Schilling (Orange Is the New Black), Daphne Rubin-Vega (B'way: Rent ), Laura Gomez (Orange Is the New Black), April Matthis (Toni Stone), Patch Darragh (Everything Sucks!), Jeanine Serralles (Drama Desk Nom: Gloria), Ato Essandoh (Netflix: Away) and Jennifer Ikeda (Bway: Top Girls, Seascape).

Sam Chanse is the author of plays including Trigger, Monument, or Four Sisters (A Sloth Play), What you are now, The Opportunities of Extinction, Fruiting Bodies, The Other Instinct, Lydia's Funeral Video, about that whole dying thing, and Asian American Jesus. Her work has been developed and/or produced with the Lark, Ars Nova, The Civilians, Ensemble Studio Theater/Sloan Project, NAATCO, Magic Theatre, New York Stage & Film, Engarde Arts, Ma-Yi Theater, Cherry Lane, Leviathan Lab, Broken Nose, 24 Hour Plays, and the Ojai Playwrights' Conference, and is published by Kaya Press (Lydia's Funeral Video) and TCG (The Kilroys List).

Ellen McLaughlin's plays have received numerous national and international productions. They include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity's House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Persians, Oedipus, Ajax in Iraq, Kissing the Floor, Septimus and Clarissa, and Penelope. Producers include: The Public Theater, The National Actors' Theater and New York Theater Workshop in NYC, Actors' Theater of Louisville, The Actors' Gang L.A., Classic Stage Co., N.Y., The Intiman Theater, Seattle, Almeida Theater, London, The Mark Taper Forum, L.A., The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Getty Villa, California., and The Guthrie Theater, Minnesota, among other venues. Grants and awards include: Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, Great American Play Contest, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the NEA, the Writer's Award from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the Berilla Kerr Award for playwrighting. T.C.G./Fox Residency Grant -- for Ajax in Iraq, written for the A.R.T. Institute.

Caridad Svich received a 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement. Her work as a playwright, translator, lyricist, and essayist has been seen in print, live and digital stages at diverse venues across the US and abroad. Key plays in her extensive repertoire include 12 Ophelias, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls..., Red Bike and The House of the Spirits (based on Isabel Allende's novel). Theatrical premieres in 2021 include The Book of Magdalene and Theatre: a love story. As a screenwriter, her first feature film (as co-screenwriter, based on her play) Fugitive Dreams has been seen at the Fantasia, Austin, Tallinn Black Nights, Manchester (UK) and Maryland Film Festivals. Among her recognitions are an American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize, the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, and National Latino Playwriting Award (which she has received twice). She is founder of NoPassport theatre alliance and press and an editor at Contemporary Theatre Review. She has edited several books on theatre. She most recently authored a book about Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Routledge). She was awarded the 2018 Ellen Stewart Award for Career Achievement in Professional Theatre from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Her second film (as screenwriter) is currently in post-production.

Rehana Lew Mirza is a playwright, writer and creator. She is currently writing the feature WISHTREE for Netflix. She is one of the 2020 recipients of the Kleban Prize for Librettists. She was also a winner of the HBOAccess Writing Fellowship and has been featured on the Kilroy List three times. She and playwright Mike Lew (also her husband) are currently in collaboration on a trilogy of plays under commission from La Jolla Playhouse, including an upcoming musical BHANGIN' IT, being produced in 2022. Her play, HATEFCK, was produced by WP Theater and Colt Coeur in 2019. She was the recipient of a Toulmin Foundation Commission from Primary Stages for her play A People's Guide to History in the Time of Here and Now. Rehana won the Mellon National Playwright Residency at Ma-Yi Theater, administered by Howlround.

Performance Details:

THE WORKSHOP THEATER presents a benefit reading for JALBCA

.

WHERE AND WHEN:

November 4, 2021, 7pm

Zoom reading

Presented by The Workshop Theater (Thomas Coté, Artistic Director;

Philip Callen, General Manager)

Reservations are pay-what-you-can at www.workshoptheater.org

and will benefit JALBCA (Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert)

Running time: 90 minutes.

To post a comment, you must register and login.