The Old Globe Hosts 2nd Annual New Voices Festival This Weekend

The Old Globe today announced it will present the Second Annual New Voices Festival, a weekend of readings of new American plays by professional playwrights, this weekend, December 12 - 14, 2014.

The Festival will kick off tonight, December 12 at 7:30 p.m. with brownsville song (b-side for tray) by Kimber Lee (fight, tokyo fish story), directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg.

The Festival weekend will continue on Saturday, December 13 at 4:00 p.m. with Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau (Detroit '67, Sunset Baby), directed by Lisa Berger; and at 7:30 p.m., The Last Match by Anna Ziegler (Photograph 51, Another Way Home), directed by Casey Stangl.

On Sunday, December 14 at 4:00 p.m., join us for the first play commissioned by the Globe by a professional playwright for the Festival: Five Hundred Lives Per Mile, created and performed by Roger Guenveur Smith (playwright of A Huey P. Newton Story and Rodney King, featured in Do The Right Thing and American Gangster).

The New Voices Festival will take place in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Tickets to all four readings are free but require reservations, currently available to donors and subscribers. Reservations for the general public will be available beginning December 2. Tickets can be reserved by calling the Box Office at (619) 23-GLOBE.

"Our New Voices Festival was a real success last year and we're delighted to continue it next month," said Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. "We're committed to bringing the best new playwriting to San Diego, and we love to give our audiences opportunities to see the artistic process in action. The exciting artists joining us this year approach the theatre from many angles, but all share a common goal: to distill the American experience into vivid theatrical form. The four works they've created will provoke, delight, and entertain even as they make the stage of our Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre a cutting-edge venue for new drama. Two of these plays have never been produced, one is being heard aloud for the first time, and I look forward to sharing all of them with local audiences."

The complete New Voices Festival lineup is as follows:

Tonight, December 12 at 7:30 p.m.

brownsville song (b-side for tray) by Kimber Lee

Directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg

Set in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, brownsville song (b-side for tray) is a portrait of one family's courage, humor, and resilience in the face of overwhelming loss. Moving fluidly between past and present, the play tells the story of Tray, a spirited 18-year-old, and his family, who must hold on to hope when Tray's life is cut short. brownsville song (b-side for tray) originally premiered at the Humana Festival last year, and Lincoln Center's LCT3 presented the New York premiere.

Kimber Lee's (Playwright) plays include fight, tokyo fish story, and brownsville song (b-side for tray), which premiered at the 2014 Humana Festival, received a production at LCT3, and will play in the 2014-2015 season at Long Wharf Theatre and Philadelphia Theatre Company. In May 2014, Center Theatre Group presented the world premiere of her play different words for the same thing directed by Neel Keller. Her work has also been presented by Lark Play Development Center, Page 73 Productions, Hedgebrook, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Magic Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Conference, and Dramatists Guild Fellows Program. Lee is a Lark Playwrights' Workshop Fellow (2014-2015) and a member of Ma-Yi Theater Company Writers Lab, and she is currently under commission at Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3, South Coast Repertory, Denver Center Theatre Company, and Hartford Stage. She is the recipient of the 2014 Ruby Prize, the 2013-2014 PoNY Fellowship, and the 2014-2015 Aetna New Voices Fellowship.

Delicia Turner Sonnenberg (Director) is the founding Artistic Director of MOXIE Theatre, where she has directed many award-winning productions. Her other San Diego directing credits include plays for Mo`oelo Performing Arts Company, ion theatre company, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Cygnet Theatre Company, New Village Arts, Diversionary Theatre, San Diego State University, Eveoke Dance Theatre, and Playwrights Project. Her honors include Theatre Communications Group's New Generations Program: Future Leaders at San Diego Rep; San Diego Theatre Critics Circle's Des McAnuff New Visions Award and Craig Noel Awards, Patté Awards; Women's International Center Living Legacy Award; Van Lier Directing Fellowship at Second Stage Theatre; Drama League's Directors Project program; and a Small Business Leader of the Year awarded by Senator Christine Kehoe.

Saturday, December 13 at 4:00 p.m.

Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau

Directed by Lisa Berger

At the last still-operating auto plant in Detroit, long hours and unreliable shifts have turned the workers into a makeshift family. The tough, compassionate Faye holds them together, and she's only months away from retiring with her full pension. When she discovers that the plant is scheduled to close, she's torn between self-preservation and allegiance to her fellow workers. Skeleton Crew is part of Dominique Morriseau's Detroit Projects cycle, a series of vibrant, funny, and often moving plays that explore the history of her hometown.

Dominique Morisseau (Playwright), writer and actress, is an alumna of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group, Women's Project Theater's Playwrights Lab, and Lark Playwrights' Workshop. Among her playwriting credits are Detroit '67 (The Public Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem/National Black Theatre, Northlight Theatre), Sunset Baby (LAByrinth Theater Company, Gate Theatre), and Follow Me to Nellie's (The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Premiere Stages). Her produced one-acts include Third Grade (The Fire This Time Festival), Black at Michigan (Cherry Lane Theatre), Socks, Roses Are Played Out, and Love and Nappiness (Center Stage, The American Theatre of Harlem), love.lies.liberation (The New Group), Bumrush (Hip-Hop Theater Festival), and The Masterpiece (Harlem9/The American Theatre of Harlem). Morisseau is currently developing a three-play cycle on her hometown of Detroit entitled The Detroit Projects. Detroit '67 is the first of the series. The second play, Paradise Blue, was developed with Voice & Vision, The Hansberry Project at A Contemporary Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, McCarter Theatre Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and The Public Theater. Her work has also been published in the New York Times bestseller Chicken Soup for the African American Soul and in the Harlem-based literary journal Signifyin' Harlem. She is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award honoree, two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, runner-up for the Princess Grace Award, recipient of the Elizabeth George commission from South Coast Repertory, commendation honoree for the Primus Prize by the American Theatre Critics Association, winner of the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwriting Award, winner of the L. Arnold Weissberger Award for Playwriting, University of Michigan Detroit Center Emerging Leader Award recipient, and a PoNY (Playwrights of New York) Fellow.

Lisa Berger (Director) is a director and teacher. Her San Diego directing credits include The Car Plays: We Wait (LaJolla Playhouse, Moving Arts), The Whale (reading) and Paper Cities (La Jolla Playhouse), Anatomy of Gray, Eurydice, and A Streetcar Named Desire (University of San Diego), The Collector (Animal Cracker Conspiracy), Righteous Exploits (So Say We All), A Behanding in Spokane (Cygnet Theatre Company), Buried Child, Simpatico, and Things We Want (New Village Arts), Killer Joe (Compass Theatre, Patté Award), Miss Julie (Stone Soup Theater), Crimes of the Heart and Anonymous (Canyon Crest Academy), Buried Child (UC San Diego), The Long Christmas Ride Home (Patté Award) and Looking for Normal (Diversionary Theatre), Handbag (Actors Alliance San Diego), The Pirates of Penzance (Lyric Opera San Diego Academy), and Islands of Repair (New York International Fringe Festival). Her additional directing credits include The House of Blue Leaves, Our Town, The Boys Next Door, Picnic, Laughing Wild, and several children's musicals for The Metropolitan Opera Guild's Creating Original Opera program. She currently teaches at Mira Costa College, City College, and University of San Diego. She is co-artistic director of MeisnerChekhov Integrated Training Studio. She received her M.F.A. in Directing from University of Montana and is a graduate of the Meisner actor intensive at The William Esper Studio.

Saturday, December 13 at 7:30 p.m.

The Last Match by Anna Ziegler

Directed by Casey Stangl

The semifinals of the U.S. Open are underway. Sergei Sergeyev, an up-and-coming Russian phenom, and Tim Porter, the great American superstar, are doing battle under the lights on center court. As the intense, back-and-forth action unfolds, The Last Match journeys inside the minds of these two extraordinary players. And by the time the lights go out, more has been won and lost than just a game of tennis.

Anna Ziegler's (Playwright) plays have been produced at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Magic Theatre, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Georges, Theater J, WET at DR2, Playwrights Realm at Cherry Lane Theatre, Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep, Summer Play Festival, The Fountain Theatre, English Theatre Berlin, Theatre503, Synchronicity Theatre, Jewish Ensemble Theatre, and Vermont Stage Company, among others. She has received commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, and New Georges. Her awards include the STAGE Award, Weissberger Award (finalist), Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, Douglas T. Ward Playwriting Prize, and a New York Innovative Theatre Award nomination for Best Short Play (2011 and 2012). She has participated in residencies and workshops at Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Arena Stage, PlayLabs at The Playwrights' Center, Chautauqua Theater Company, Soho Repertory Theater's Writer/Director Lab, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's New Works Festival, Lark Playwrights' Workshop, McCarter Theatre Center's Playwrights Retreat, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Araca Group, Old Vic New Voices, TimeLine Theatre Company, First Light Festival at The Ensemble Studio Theatre, terraNOVA Collective's Groundbreakers Playwrights Group, Orchard Project, SPACE at Ryder Farm, Ars Nova, Berkshire Playwrights Lab, Primary Stages, Geva Theatre, Icicle Creek Theater Festival, and The New Group. Her publication credits include New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2007 and DPS editions of BFF, Life Science, and Photograph 51. Her film credits include a screenplay adaptation of Photograph 51 funded by a Tribeca Film Institute/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant.

Casey Stangl (Director) has directed for theatres across the country including American Conservatory Theater, Guthrie Theater, Denver Center Theatre Company, Humana Festival of New American Plays, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Portland Stage, Cleveland Play House, Arizona Theatre Company, and Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Based in Los Angeles, Stangl works frequently with South Coast Repertory (including the recent hit Venus in Fur), Falcon Theatre, and The Antaeus Company, where her production of Peace in our Time won numerous awards. Her other local credits include Between Us Chickens, which was workshopped at South Coast Repertory and moved to Atwater Village Theatre; Slither and The Chapel Play for Chalk Repertory Theatre; and the world premiere of How Cissy Grew, named Best New Play at the 2009 L.A. Weekly Theater Awards. As a Fellow at American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women, Stangl directed C U @ ED'S, a short film that has screened at 21 film festivals and won several awards. Her further credits include the web series Trudy O'Reilly Consumer Rights Advocate.

Sunday, December 14 at 4:00 p.m.

Five Hundred Lives Per Mile, Created and Performed by Roger Guenveur Smith

Critically acclaimed writer, performer, and director Roger Guenveur Smith uses his work to investigate the great American themes of identity, individuality, ethnicity, class, and power. Whether exploring the life of Huey P. Newton, the brawl between baseball legends Juan Marichal and John Roseboro, or the odyssey of Rodney King, Smith has collaborated with composer Marc Anthony Thompson to tackle gripping narratives with amazing illumination, grace, and empathy. Five Hundred Lives Per Mile, his newest solo piece, explores the Panama Canal and the human costs of its construction. It was commissioned by The Old Globe to be created jointly by Smith and Thompson.

Roger Guenveur Smith is an actor, writer, and director whose work has illuminated the international stage and screen. He adapted his Obie Award-winning solo performance of A Huey P. Newton Story into a Peabody Award-winning telefilm. His most recent play, Rodney King, has already been lauded by the Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly as among the season's best and is currently featured in the Under the Radar festival at The Public Theater, where he has frequently presented his history-infused work. For Spike Lee's classic Do the Right Thing, Mr. Smith created the stuttering hero Smiley, as well as a gallery of memorable characters in Mr. Lee's Malcolm X, Get on the Bus, and He Got Game. His eclectic range of screen credits also includes Eve's Bayou, Deep Cover, Hamlet, All About the Benjamins, and the HBO series "K Street" and "Oz." He was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for his work in American Gangster and recently starred in the acclaimed indie films Mooz-Lum and Better Mus' Come, as the Prime Minister of Jamaica. Among his upcoming releases are two dark Los Angeles dramas: Water & Power and Dirty. Frederick Douglass Now is Smith's signature solo, played on countless stages from The Kennedy Center to London's Institute of Contemporary Arts. Inside the Creole Mafia, a "not-too-dark comedy," is his award-winning duet with Mark Broyard. He has also written and performed Juan and John, inspired by baseball greats Juan Marichal and John Roseboro, In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Watts Towers Project, and Who Killed Bob Marley?, which inaugurated the Harlem Stage Gatehouse. Christopher Columbus 1992 was the first of many collaborations with composer Marc Anthony Thompson. Their commissions also include the volcanic love story Iceland; Two Fires, inspired by Philadelphia's Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 and the MOVE bombing of 1985; and Twenty Twenty, a multimedia survey of black music in Los Angeles, 1960-1980, for the Now Dig This! retrospective at the Hammer Museum, curated by Dr. Kellie Jones. Five Hundred Lives Per Mile is the working title of Smith and Thompson's exploration of the Panama Canal and the human costs of its construction, commissioned by The Old Globe. Smith directed the Bessie and Ovation Award-winning Radio Mambo: Culture Clash Invades Miami and, more recently, the acclaimed West Coast premiere of Katori Hall's The Mountaintop and Steven Berkoff's Agamemnon.

Marc Anthony Thompson is a reluctant singer and indolent songwriter, an autodidactic musician, composer, sound designer, and filmmaker. He has collaborated with a wide range of genre-defying citizens from Philip Glass and Spike Lee to Bruce Springsteen and The Roots. With his internationally based nucleus, Chocolate Genius Incorporated, Thompson has released five discs of songs centered on the themes of life, death, and the quest for the perfect postprandial. For over a decade, Thompson has worked extensively with his frequent collaborator, Roger Guenveur Smith. The partnership has earned them both AUDELCO and Ovation Awards, in addition to a pair of Obie Awards for their groundbreaking depiction of the epic life and tragic death of Huey P. Newton.

LOCATION and PARKING INFORMATION: The Old Globe is located in San Diego's Balboa Park at 1363 Old Globe Way. There are numerous free parking lots available throughout the park. Guests may also be dropped off in front of the Mingei International Museum. The Balboa Park valet is also available during performances ($12), located in front of the Japanese Friendship Garden. For additional parking information visit www.BalboaPark.org. For directions and up-to-date information, please visit www.TheOldGlobe.org/Directions.

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