Working Theatre Presents a Benefit Reading of HOLD, PLEASE 4/12

Working Theatre Presents a Benefit Reading of HOLD, PLEASE on Monday April 12, 2010 at 7pm at the Abringdon Theatre Arts Complex, Dorothy Strelsin Theatre, located at 312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Ave.

Hold, Please, by Annie Weisman, is a one-night only reading of Annie Weisman's hysterical send-up of 21st Century office politics. Connie Grappo directs a cast featuring Emma Bowers, Laura Esterman, Kathryn Rossetter and Jeanine Serralles.

Annie Weisman is a Los Angeles based playwright whose work includes Hold Please, originally commissioned and produced by South Coast Repertory, and subsequently produced at San Diego's Globe Theatres, the Working Theatre in New York, and others. Her play Be Aggressive premiered at La Jolla Playhouse and went on to productions at Dallas Theatre Center, Chicago's Rivenden Theatre Ensemble, Theatreworks in Palo Alto and others. Be Aggressive is published in Smith and Kraus' Best Plays of 2001, Vintage's Under 30: Plays for a New Generation and by Dramatists Play Service and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Annie is the recipient of an NEA residenCy Grant, a Sundance Ucross residency, and commissions for new work from the Mark Taper Forum and Trinity Repertory. Her most recent play, Surf Resort, has received developmental support from the Ojai Playwrights Conference and South Coast Repertory. She is currently developing an original musical collaboration with composer Michael Friedman and director Des Macanuff titled The Essential Alice for La Jolla Playhouse. Her television credits include Eastwick, Samantha Who? for ABC, Dead Like Me for Showtime, Inconceivable for NBC, Heartland for TNT, and the unaired Baseball Wives for HBO. Annie is a member of the Writers Guild and the Dramatists Guild, and a graduate of Williams College.

Connie Grappo began her association with the Working Theater in 1999 as director of Belmont Avenue Social Club by Bruce Graham and subsequently directed Tabletop and Disconnect by Rob Ackerman, and Hold Please by Annie Weisman. Since becoming Artistic Director in the fall of 2005, she has directed Port Authority Throw Down by Mike Batistick, Lynn Rosen's Back From the Front, and began last season with King of Shadows by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Among her other directing credits are new plays at Second Stage, Yale Rep, Cleveland Playhouse, Westport Playhouse, the WPA, Actors Theatre of Louisville, San Diego Rep, CRT, as well as theaters in Australia, Canada and South Africa. She has written and directed one short film titled ‘Little Feet', which premiered at Sundance and aired on the Showtime Network. She received her MFA at Yale School of Drama in 1995 and has since served on the faculty of both YSD and Yale University, where she currently teaches Acting. Connie also teaches an Acting workshop at Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, NY, through Rehabilitation Through the Arts.

Tickets cost $25 and are available at www.smarttix.com or by calling 212-868-4444. All tickets include a post-performance cocktail reception with the cast. For additional information and to learn more about the Working Theatre's full season, visit www.theworkingtheater.org.

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