Aurora Theatre Company Announces 8th Annual Global Age Project Finalists

Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company, along with GAP Producer M. Graham Smith and GAP Associate Producer Deborah Taylor, announces the four plays chosen as finalists by a committee of local directors for the eighth annual Global Age Project (GAP), the company's new works initiative that promotes the creation of forward-looking theater: In From the Cold by Jonathan Spector; The Drinking Problem by Sarah Gubbins; Luce by J.C. Lee; and The Bandaged Place by Harrison David Rivers. The selected GAP plays will be presented as staged readings in a four-week festival at the Aurora Theatre, Mondays, February 4-25, 7:30pm, coinciding with the company's fully-staged World Premiere of Anthony Clarvoe's family drama Our Practical Heaven (January 25-March 3), directed by Allen McKelvey.

Each of the four finalists will receive a $1,000 award and their work will be considered for further development and production during Aurora Theatre Company's regular main stage season; out of town artists will receive travel and accommodation expenses. Each GAP reading will be followed by an audience discussion of the contemporary issues raised in the work. For information on GAP events (free and open to the public) and Our Practical Heaven, call 510-843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.

The Global Age Project is a discovery and developmental vehicle established to encourage playwrights to address life in the 21st century and beyond. Seeking forward-thinking unproduced work from both established and emerging playwrights, the festival celebrates the diversity of perspectives, styles, voices, concerns, and stories that make up the world today, and provides a development opportunity for plays that directly respond to our complicated present and our possible future. Writers are encouraged to submit works that explore and/or examine the changing state of human relationships in this new century; plays need not be about science or technology. Submissions that transcend traditional forms of theater presentation are encouraged.

The lineup for the 2013 GAP festival is as follows:

Monday, February 4, 2013
In From the Cold
By Jonathan Spector (Berkeley, CA)
Directed by Josh Costello
Presented in partnership with Playwrights Foundation

In "In From the Cold," the past just might be catching up to an ex-Cold War spy. Inspired in part by the true story of super-spy Ryzard Kuklinski, a Polish Colonel in the KGB who defected to the United States in the 1980s and raised his family in an American suburb, this funny and touching play explores what it means when you used to mean a lot, and when you don't mean much anymore.

Jonathan Spector is a director and playwright based in Berkeley. He is the Co-Artistic Director of Just Theater. Original works for the stage include Sandal Weather, Be What You Wish to Seem, and The World To Come; his plays have been developed and produced by Just Theater, PlayGround, Source Theater Festival, and St. Bonaventure College. He is a former Associate Artistic Director of Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco and is currently pursuing his MFA in playwriting at San Francisco State. Spector was a director for Aurora's GAP in 2011.

Monday, February 11, 2013
The Drinking Problem
By Sarah Gubbins (Chicago, IL/Los Angeles, CA)
Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe

In The Drinking Problem, the discovery of prescription drugs in Chicago's drinking water sends a handful of public officials scrambling to figure out who is ultimately responsible for the contamination. An inventive and imaginative tour through the murky channels between ethics and practical reality, The Drinking Problem explores the secret life of one of the most important substances on earth.

In addition to The Drinking Problem, Sarah Gubbins's plays include Fair Use, In Loco Parentis, The Kid Thing (Jeff Award and Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award), fml: how Carson McCullers saved my life, and I am Bradley Manning. Her plays have been produced at Steppenwolf Theatre, Actor's Express, Next Theatre, About Face Theatre, and Chicago Dramatists. Additionally, her work has been developed at The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Goodman Theatre, and The Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis, among others. She is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, an Artistic Associate at About Face Theatre, the 2010-2011 Carl J. Djerassi Playwriting Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a 2011-2012 Jerome Fellow.

Monday, February 18, 2013
Luce
By J.C. Lee (Berkeley, CA)
Directed by M. Graham Smith

Amy and Peter think they've adopted the perfect son in Luce. Having grown up in war-torn Africa, he's become the model student everyone aspires to be. But when a locker search at school reveals that the face Luce shows the world might not be his true self, Amy and Peter are forced to reconcile their idea of their perfect son with a potentially more sinister reality.

J.C. Lee is a National New Play Network Playwright in Residence at Marin Theatre Company and a recent writing fellow at The Playwrights Realm. He was the Founding Artistic Director of the Omicron Theatre Project. His plays have been staged and developed at South Coast Repertory, Magic Theatre, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Wordsmyth Theatre, Sleepwalkers Theatre, Crowded Fire Theater, and Azuka Theatre, among others. He is currently under commission from South Coast Repertory.

Monday, February 25, 2013
The Bandaged Place
By Harrison David Rivers (New York, NY)
Directed by Jennifer King

Jonah Irby keeps people at a distance - his precocious eight-year old daughter, his grandmother who helps raise her, and the new man in his life. But when an unexpected phone call from a former lover reopens a painful wound, Jonah is forced to turn to his friends and family for support. The Bandaged Place is a play about the places we go to when we're hurt and the people who ultimately help us get back home.

Harrison David Rivers's splays include Look Upon Our Lowliness (Harlem School for the Arts, 2013); when last we flew (Diversionary Theatre, 2012);MINOTAUR (Drama League DirectorFEST, 2012); Lydie, or (S)he Who Looks Inside, Awakes; And She Said, He Said, I Said Yes; We Are Misquoted Texts, and Jack Perry is Alive (And Dating). He is the recipient of the 2011 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Off-Off Broadway Play, a 2010 FringeNYC Excellence in Playwriting Award, and Sundance, Van Lier (New Dramatists), and Emerging Artist of Color (New York Theatre Workshop) Fellowships. He is a member of the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater.

Handpicked by Aurora Artistic Director Tom Ross, the GAP Directors' Council is comprised of esteemed local and nationally recognized directors. This year's GAP Directors' Council is: Josh Costello (founder and first Artistic Director of Impact Theatre; directing credits include productions at Marin Theatre Company, Impact Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, and Custom Made Theatre Company), who directs In From the Cold by Jonathan Spector; Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe (directing credits include productions at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Magic Theatre, TheatreWorks, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, and the Mark Taper Forum, among others) who directs Sarah Gubbins's The Drinking Problem; M. Graham Smith (GAP Producer, founder and Artistic Director of Precarious Theatre; directing credits include productions at Brava Theater and Shotgun Players, among others), who returns to the GAP to direct J.C. Lee'sLuce; Jennifer King (Founder and Artistic Director of Napa Valley Conservatory Theater and Shakespeare Napa Valley; directing credits include productions at Berkeley Playhouse and Napa Valley Playhouse, among others) who directs The Bandaged Place by Harrison David Rivers.

Our Practical Heaven is the fully-staged anchor production in this season's Global Age Project. This family drama, which originated as one of Aurora Theatre Company's GAP finalists in 2011, is the third Aurora main stage production to develop from the GAP. In Our Practical Heaven, three generations of family gather over three holidays in a home none of them expects to long survive the rising sea. They do chores, text each other, and dance. They watch the birds, and watch each other, while struggling for loyalty, legacy, and turf. By the end, everything has shifted and a new generation is in charge, but of what? Our Practical Heaven addresses the changing tides of communication, gender roles, and society in a place where even the notions of home and family remain fluid. GAP director Allen McKelvey helms this six character play, featuring original GAP cast members Julia Brothers (The First Grade), Joy Carlin (Thérèse Raquin), and Anne Darragh (A Delicate Balance), reprising their roles for Aurora's main stage production.

Following Our Practical Heaven, award-winning Bay Area auteur Mark Jackson returns to Aurora Theatre Company to put his spin on Alistair Beaton's new translation of Max Frisch's West End hit The Arsonists. The season concludes with the Bay Area Premiere of Neil LaBute's searing dark comedy This is How It Goes, directed by Aurora Theatre Company Artistic Director Tom Ross.

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