Aurora Theatre Co Selects Directors For Fifth Global Age Project Festival Of New Works

Aurora Theatre Company has selected the directors for the company?s fifth Global Age Project festival of new works:

Margo Hall - an award winning actor/director/playwright, Hall most recently directed The Story, by Tracy Scott-Wilson, a SF Playhouse/Lorraine Hansberry Co-Production, and Sonny?s Blues, a story by James Baldwin, for Word for Word. Prior to that, she co-directed Bulrusher with Ellen Chang, a new play by Eisa Davis, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. As an actress, she has performed for Arena Stage, Guthrie Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Magic Theatre, Brava! For Women in the Arts, and Word For Word. She is a founding member of Campo Santo.

Jessica Heidt (returning) - current Artistic Director of Climate Theater, Heidt served as Associate Artistic Director at the Magic Theatre for nine years, where she directed world premieres by Betty Shamieh (The Black Eyed, Territories) and Chantal Bilodeau (Pleasure and Pain). Additionally, she works as a casting director with many Bay Area film and theater companies.

Mark Routhier - Bay Area directing credits include Skin, The Bone Man of Benares, 70 Scenes of Halloween (Encore Theatre), Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes (Golden Thread), Monkey Room (Magic Theatre), Cartoon (Impact Theatre). Regional credits include The Seafarer and Opus [this fall] (Southern Repertory, New Orleans) and Opus (Orlando Shakes, Orlando, FL). He was Director of Artistic Development at Magic Theatre, and presently serves on the Executive Committee of the National New Play Network (NNPN).

Matthew Graham Smith (returning, GAP Producer) - founder and Artistic Director of Precarious Theatre, Smith has directed at the Walnut Theater in Philadelphia and the HERE American Living Room series in New York City. He has directed productions at the Yerba Buena Garden?s Festival, Bay Area Playwright?s Festival, EXIT Theatre, Playground, and New Conservatory Theatre, and Assistant Directed Peter DuBois? Curse of the Starving Class at American Conservatory Theater.

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Over the next several weeks, the directors, along with Aurora Theatre Company Artistic Director Tom Ross, will select 16 finalists from an international pool of play submissions dealing with global age concerns. From those 16 finalists, 4 plays will be chosen for the GAP festival, scheduled for February of 2010. The festival will coincide with the company?s fully-staged World Premiere of 2009 GAP finalist Joel Drake Johnson?s new play, The First Grade. The GAP competition is open to playwrights from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Deadline for play submission is August 1, 2009; finalists will be announced in November 2009.

The Global Age Project is a discovery and developmental vehicle established to encourage playwrights to address important issues affecting our present and future at the dawn of this global age. Seeking forward-thinking work from both established and emerging playwrights, Aurora Theatre Company requests submissions that passionately challenge audiences to examine issues and concerns of the 21st century.

 

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