Plays & Players Announces 2013-14 Lineup: THE DISAPPEARING QUARTERBACK World Premiere, CLOUD TECTONICS, & More!

Plays & Players' 2013-14 season focuses on Brothers and Sisters; those with whom we are closest, those who share our blood, and those with whom, familiar or unknown, we seek connection. Through rituals old and new, we continue searching for those who are both distant from and deeply within us as we attempt to unwrap the simplest of notions: brotherhood.

The season will comprise four productions:
October 17 to November 3, 2013 - Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet (Mainstage)
January 16 to February 2, 2014 - The Disappearing Quarterback (Skinner Studio)
March 13 to 30, 2014 - P.L.A.Y. (Philadelphia Local Artists for Youth) World Premiere (Mainstage)
June 5 to 22, 2014 - Cloud Tectonics (Skinner Studio)

Special events:
September 28, 2013 - Fringe Recovery 24-Hour Play Festival - Brothers and Sisters (Skinner Studio)
June 15, 2014 - Honey Bee Cabaret III (Mainstage)

Subscriptions are just $75 per person to see four plays and access discounts to our special events. In honor of this season's theme, for anyone who subscribes with a brother or a sister, the second subscription is 50% off! Subscriptions can be purchased at www.playsandplayers.org or by calling 800-595-4TIX.

The Fringe Recovery 24-Hour Play Festival
Saturday, September 28 at 7pm & 9pm
Skinner Studio
Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door

An inaugural entry into a new series, designed to be an opportunity for Philadelphia's best emerging artists to "recover" together just after the annual Fringe Arts Festival has swept through Philadelphia, this play-creation marathon will serve as an appropriate launch to Plays & Players' new season dedicated to "Brothers and Sisters". Join us to see the theatrical magic that can happen when a people come together to write and plan through the night, rehearse all day and premiere new works just hours after their inception.

Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet

Philadelphia Premiere!

Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney

Directed by Daniel Student

Set Design by Colin McIlvaine, Costume Design by Amanda Sharp, and Light Design by Chris Hallenbeck

10/17-11/3 (Opening night 10/19)

Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm, and Sundays at 3pm

Mainstage

Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door

From the theater that brought you 2012's hit production of Joe Turner's Come and Gone, comes the Philadelphia premiere from the African-American playwright touted as the "next August Wilson," Tarell Alvin McCraney. A provocative, poignant, fiercely humorous, and ultimately universal story of a "sweet" young man's journey to discover the secret of who he really is and where he really came froM. Days before Hurricane Katrina strikes the projects of Louisiana, the currents of his life converge, overflowing into his close-knit community and bringing three generations of characters, all named after African gods, together in the stirring conclusion of McCraney's The Brother/Sister Plays trilogy.

Tarell Alvin McCraney's plays include Wig Out! (Sundance Theatre Lab, Vineyard Theatre, and The Royal Court Theatre) and The Brother/Sister Plays: In the Red and Brown Water (Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition; premiered at the ALLIANCE THEATRE), The Brothers Size (premiered at The Public Theater in association with the Foundry Theatre and in London at the Young Vic), and Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet (premiered in a coproduction by McCarter Theatre Center and The Public Theater). Other productions of The Brother/Sister Plays include those by Steppenwolf Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, and The Studio Theatre, among others. McCraney's plays also include Without/Sin; Run, Mourner, Run; and The Breach, written with Catherine Filloux and Joe Sutton (commissioned and premiered by Southern Repertory Theater in New Orleans.) He was nominated for London's Olivier Award for The Brothers Size and has received the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, a 2009 GLAAD Award for Outstanding Play, the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Whiting Award, the first Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the inaugural New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, and a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University.

The Disappearing Quarterback - World Premiere!

Written and Performed by Michael J. Boryla ?Directed Daniel Student

Set Design by Danielle Ferguson, Costume Design by Jillian Keys, and Light Design by Amanda Jensen?1/16-2/2 (Opening night 1/18)

Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm, and Sundays at 3pm

Skinner Studio

Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door, $50 meet-the-artist (includes one beverage and a half hour post-show meet and greet with Michael Boryla)

Michael J. Boryla was the starting quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1974-1976. He had everything he wanted. But he didn't want what he had. Two years later, he quit professional football and... disappeared. In a World Premiere one-man show, he returns to Philadelphia for the first time in over 35 years to tell the story of walking away from the sport and the teammates, he loved. With the average life expectancy of a professional football player reported at 55, the effects of concussions becoming ever more clear, and even our president speaking out against its future, should "America's Game"... disappear? A play for football fanatics and amateurs alike and set in the intimate Skinner Studio, The Disappearing Quarterback puts you inside the helmet of a unique athlete, a self-described "long-haired hippie," with a passionate purpose and a story to share as he comes home to the city that made him famous.

Michael J. Boryla was a quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1974-76 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1977 to 1978. He was an All-American at Stanford University. In the 1976 Pro Bowl he threw two touchdown passes in the final minutes of the game to lead the National Football Conference team to a 23-20 win. He is a former attorney and former mortgage banker in Denver. He has recently morphed into a writer. In the last few years he has written seven plays: Long Ago And Far Away, Shannon's Hope, Ministers Of Satan, The Clone, Overtime, Black Oak and The Disappearing Quarterback. His plays are all Nouveau Theatre. Long Ago And Far Away will be staged sometime in 2013 by Inspire Creative at the PACE Theatre in Parker, Colorado. He is happily married to Ann with four sons (Daniel, Tim, Pete and Ryan) and living small somewhere in Colorado. For the last 26 years he has been a director of Shannon's Hope, a Christian home for unwed mothers, which owns and operates a twelve bedroom and twelve bath house in Arvada, Colorado.

P.L.A.Y. (Philadelphia Local Artists for Youth) - World Premiere!

Written by Greg Romero

Directed by Candace Cihocki

3/13-3/30 (Opening performance 3/15)

Wednesdays, Thursdays, & Fridays at 10am, and Saturdays and Sundays at 11am and 2:30pm

Mainstage

Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door ($10 for groups of ten or more)

Plays & Players proudly launches a new yearly series that entertains and inspires, P.L.A.Y. (Philadelphia Local Artists for Youth)! Written by a local playwright with a focus on original and local stories, this imaginative new program offers a theatrically immersive, interactive experience for young audiences, engaging their creativity to help build and spark each performance, sharing living stories that capture the magic all around us. This season's work will explore mythic animals local to the area (The Great Blue Heron, The Red Fox, The Box Turtle), people once indigenous to the Delaware River (The Lenni-Lenape), and the rituals and journeys that speak across time and species, reflected through the lens of our season theme, Brothers and Sisters. P.L.A.Y. is appropriate for ages 4-104!

Greg Romero is originally from Louisiana. His plays, site-specific projects, and sound art collaborations include The Most Beautiful Lullaby You've Ever Heard, The Milky Way Cabaret, Of Plastic Things and Butterfly Wings, Radio Ghosts, Dallas, and The Babel Project, and have been presented in theaters and found spaces in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Dallas, Austin, Baltimore, Washington DC, Louisville, New Orleans, as well as Toronto and Zurich. Romero has been a finalist for the Heideman Award, a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award, nominated for the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theater Artist, and was selected as the first-ever Resident Writer of the ArtsEdge Residency. He is one of three playwrights to inaugurate the Philadelphia Dramatists Center/Plays & Players Playwriting Residency and is an alum of the 2012 WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory. He is published by Heinemann Press, YouthPLAYS, and Playscripts, Inc. and is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America. Romero received an MFA in Playwriting from The University of Texas-Austin where he held the James A. Michener Fellowship.

Candace O'Neil Cihocki is a Director and Choreographer. She is a New York City, Vermont, Florida transplant who has settled in Philadelphia . She received her Masters of Fine Arts in Directing from Florida State University in 2010. This year in Philadelphia, she has had the pleasure of serving as a Co-leader for the new Acting Residency program at Plays and Players Theatre, as well as the new Company Manager for FlashPoint Theater. Candace earned her BFA in Acting from Adelphi University in 2001, where she also studied modern dance and choreography. Her past directing work has been seen at On the Square Productions in NYC, Hybridge Arts Collective, The Philadelphia Fringe, Plays and Players, and FlashPoint Theatre. She currently works and practices at Dhyana Yoga, is a Holistic Nutritional Health Coach focusing on completing her 250 hour Yoga Teacher Training. Recent adventures include dance projects, exploring acrobatics, Acroyoga, and community based nutritional education programs. You can visit www.the-ethical-eater.com for wellness information!

Cloud Tectonics - Philadelphia Premiere!

Written by Jose Rivera?Directed by Allison Heishman

Starring Taysha Canales, Eric Scotolati, and Anthony Martinez-Briggs

Costume Design by Jamie Grace-Duff, Light Design by Andrew Cowles, and Sound Design by Daniel Kontz?6/5-6/22 (Opening night 6/7)

Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm, and Sundays at 3pm

Skinner Studio

Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door

"A story of theatrical enchantment, in which the ordinary is suddenly transformed into the miraculous." - Chicago Tribune

Celestina de la Sol is a young woman who claims to be 54 years old and to have been pregnant for two years. From Obie Award winning acclaimed Puerto Rican playwright Jose Rivera, Cloud Tectonics brings new meaning to a "timeless" love story. When Anibal Sanchez picks up Celestina in a torrential storm, her arrival to his house literally makes the clocks stop, and that's only where this enchanting and unconventional romance takes off. With the world outside his house awashed in pain and war, Cloud Tectonics reminds us that simple miracles exist all around us if we care to find them.

Born in Puerto Rico, Jose Rivera's family moved to Long Island, New York, when he was four years old "as part of a mass exodus because essentially the Great Depression never ended on the island." He wrote his first play at age 12. He is the recipient of two OBIE Awards for Playwriting, a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, a Whiting Foundation Award, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant and a Kennedy Center Grant. He studied with Gabriel García Márquez at The Sundance Institute and was writer-in-residence at The Royal Court Theatre, London. Mr. Rivera's U.S. premieres include The House of Ramon Iglesia, Slaughter in the Lake, Flowers and The Promise at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Each Day Dies With Sleep at Circle Repertory Company and Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Marisol, Tape, and Cloud Tectonics at Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays; References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot at South Coast Repertory; Sonnets for an Old Century at Greenway Arts Alliance; Sueño at Hartford Stage; Giants Have Us in Their Books at Magic Theatre; Maricela de la Luz Lights the World and Adoration of the Old Woman at La Jolla Playhouse; The Street of the Sun at Mark Taper Forum; School of the Americas at The Public Theater and LAByrinth Theater Company; Massacre (Sing to Your Children) at Goodman Theatre and Teatro Vista; Brainpeople at American Conservatory Theater; Gliese 581D at Chicago Humanities Festival; Boleros for the Disenchanted at Yale Repertory Theatre; Yellow at Collaboraction; Human Emotional Process (a commission by McCarter Theatre), and Pablo and Andrew at the Altar of Words. Mr. Rivera was nominated for a 2005 Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Writers Guild of America Award for his screenplay The Motorcycle Diaries.

Allison Heishman is Artistic Associate at Azuka Theatre, and a freelance 'theatrician' throughout Philadelphia. Her work includes Directing, Performance, Script Analysis, Stage Management, and a smattering of Dramaturgy and Writing. She has done work for Azuka (Actor: Long Christmas Ride Home, Director: the terrible girls, Hazard County, "I Love You I Hate You"); National Constitution Center (Program Manager/Educator: Living News, AD/Dramaturg: Fighting for Democracy,Director/Writer: Theatre Exhibition Series); The Wilma Theatre (AD; Angels in America, pts I and II); Tiny Dynamite (Director: Spacewang - A Play, A Pie and A Pint); Flashpoint Theatre (Actor: Autobahn, Dead Guy); Madhouse Theatre (Actor: Pounding Nails into the Floor); Quince Productions (Director: Beebo Brinker Chronicles, Well of Horniness). Up next she will direct: A Taste of History, An Evening with Chef Staib in collaboration with The KimMel Center and City Tavern for PIFA; and Failure: A Love Story for Azuka.

Honey Bee Cabaret III

Saturday, June 15th at 7pm

Plays & Players Mainstage

Tickets: $50 in advance/$60 at the door, $25 for artist/under 30 in advance/$30 at the door

To celebrate the closing of another season, Plays & Players hosts the third annual Honey Bee Cabaret, a fundraiser for the Next 100 Years, co-presented by the Melissa Lynch Foundation. As in past years, the cabaret will feature new and much-loved works as well as music, dance and puppetry from both Philadelphia's up-and-coming and best known performers and public figures.

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