InterAct Announces Two More Shows In 2017-18 Season

Defy preconceptions. Both MJ Kaufman's SENSITIVE GUYS and Seth Rozin's HUMAN RITES take place in academic settings, and both attack pervasive social norms regarding sex and gender politics. However, the two plays converge on these themes from wildly opposing angles.

SENSITIVE GUYS runs from January 19 - February 11, 2018 and HUMAN RITES from March 23 - April 15, 2018.

Kaufman's biting social satire, SENSITIVE GUYS, takes place in the safe spaces of a small liberal arts college where the student-led Men's Peer Education Group works in tandem with the campus women's Survivor Support Group on a surefire, three-point plan to totally eradicate all sexual violence everywhere within five years. Suddenly, an incident between one of the men and women from each group threatens to topple closely held beliefs and shake the university system to its foundations. The play features five female identifying and gender non-conforming people who are double cast as both male and female students attempting to understand what it really means to fight the patriarchy.

An alum of InterAct's Core Playwrights Program, Kaufman is a Yale Drama MFA graduate, member of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers' Group, and a New Dramatists member. They have also received numerous writing awards and commissions including the 2013 ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting, and have been featured on the Kilroys List of the most recommended new plays by female and trans writers. SENSITIVE GUYS will be directed by Evren Odcikin.

Inspired by actual people and scientific research, HUMAN RITES is a charged and dynamic play that puts gender science and implicit bias under a microscope. In response to student protest, Michaela, an African-American dean at a major American university, summons Alan, a renowned Jewish professor of cultural psychology, to request that he consider retracting a controversial paper on female initiation rites in Africa. When dormant feelings resurface from an affair years earlier, a heatEd Battle over science and cultural pluralism turns into a heavyweight fight. This provocative play shatters the ivory tower of academia, upending questions of privilege and Western morality.

Rozin is Producing Artistic Director and co-founder of InterAct Theatre Company and author of several plays, including: MEN OF STONE, MISSING LINK, BLACK GOLD, TWO JEWS WALK INTO A WAR..., and THE THREE CHRISTS OF MANHATTAN which have been produced across the country and in Australia. Rozin is also the recipient of two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the National New Play Network's 2007 Smith Prize, a commission from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, and two Barrymore Award nominations. HUMAN RITES will be directed by Harriet Power.

These plays join BROKEN STONES by Fin Kennedy and DRAW THE CIRCLE by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen in a dynamic season made up of plays that celebrate the inclusion of diverse artists including two trans playwrights as well as casts that predominately feature opportunities for women, genderqueer artists, and artists of color. For more information or to subscribe, please visit InterAct's website at www.interacttheatre.org or call 215-568-8079.

About InterAct

Celebrating its 30th anniversary season and new home at The Drake, InterAct is a theatre for today's world, producing new and contemporary plays that explore the social, political, and cultural issues of our time. Founded in 1988 by Producing Artistic Director Seth Rozin, InterAct seeks to entertain audiences by producing world-class, thought-provoking productions, and to use theatre as a tool to foster positive social change and civic discourse. Through artistic and engagement programs, InterAct makes a significant contribution to the cultural life of Philadelphia and the American theatre.

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