Magic Theatre Presents Virgin Play Reading Series, 3/7

The Friend Center for the Arts at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (JCCSF) and the Magic Theatre present The Virgin Play Reading Series on four Mondays in March.  These readings of scripts-in-progress by the playwrights themselves, offer audiences the chance to hear the plays before they arrive on the stage and see the new play development process up close. After each reading, the playwright and director will have a conversation with the audience members.

Monday, March 7, 7 pm
Jesus in India by Lloyd Suh
Two years after his hit play, American Hwangap, Lloyd Suh is back with a contemporary parable imagining a wild stretch in the lost years of Jesus Christ. Teenaged and wayward, a little confused and a little punk rock, Jesus of Nazareth journeys to the east with his friend, Abigail of Galilee. On the back of a donkey, they cross the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan to the Indo-Mathura, a spiritual haven full of Maharajas, music and some really good weed.  This  Biblical prequel looks at the world's most famous rebel before he found his cause.

Lloyd Suh is the award-winning author of American Hwangap, which premiered to critical acclaim at the Magic Theatre in 2009, followed by performances in New York and The National Theater of the Philippines. He is also the author of The Children of Vonderly (Ma-Yi Theater Co.), Masha No Home (Ensemble Studio Theatre, East West Players), Happy End of the World (NEA/Arena Stage New Play Development grant), The Garden Variety, Great Wall Story [Colorado New Play Summit] and several shorter plays, including Happy Birthday William Abernathy and Not All Korean Girls Can Fly (EST Marathon). 

Monday, March 14, 7 pm
We Are Proud to Present A Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South-West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915
by Jackie Sibblies Drury
In a post-racial world evolved beyond race and racism, what does it mean to have an open discussion about race? What would it look like if we had that discussion in a theater? Jackie Drury's brave, visceral play exposes the fault lines in an art form considered free thinking, liberal and beyond prejudice-and in so doing, she strips away our culture's romantic clothing of ignorance and vulnerability and our primal tendencies towards violence.  Is the oppression of another a primary human instinct? We Are Proud to Present asks how we are different from our ancestors and whether we have created distance between our primal and contemporary selves for seemingly no benefit except that we know ourselves less.

Jackie Sibblies Drury's play We Are Proud to Present a Presentation ... was presented at Victory Gardens' 2010 Ignition Festival in Chicago. She is a recent graduate oF Brown's MFA playwriting program, where she received a Weston Award and the David Wickham Prize in Playwriting.  Jackie is a 2010-11 New York Theater Workshop playwriting fellow and a member of The Civilians' R&D group.  Currently, she is working on a play for Trinity Rep set in a post-apocalyptic Rhode Island.

Monday, March 21, 7 pm
Any Given Day by Linda McLean
Sadie and Bill wait expectantly in their flat for Bill's niece Jackie to arrive. But Jackie is sitting in a bar with Dave in a nameless city. Two plays. Two different casts of characters-two connected to the world we know, two who operate at their own pace with their own rituals in a celebration of love and the promise of a good day-and the profound fragility of it all. Linda McLean, one of Scotland's most scintillating playwrights, reflects our world back to us with poetic, hard-hitting and frightening clarity.
 
Linda McLean was born in Glasgow, Scotland, where she studied at Strathclyde University and Jordanhill College of Education. She travelled as a teacher in Croatia, America, Africa and Sweden before she wrote plays. Linda is Chairwoman of the Playwrights' Studio Scotland and has worked for the British Council in Mexico City, Teluca, Oslo and Bogota.  In 2009 she delivered the keynote speech to the Playwrights' Guild of Canada. She is currently Creative Fellow at Edinburgh University's Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities.

Monday, March 28, 7 pm
Edith Can Shoot Straight and Hit Things by A. Rey Pamatmat
Sixteen-year-old Kenny and his little sister Edith are all but abandoned on a remote farm in Middle America. But when Kenny's friend Benji starts encroaching on their makeshift family, the outside world comes barging in. Edith takes aim at growing up, staying young, falling in love and facing the consequences.  Edith Can Shoot Straight and Hit Things premieres at the Humana Festival for New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville in March.

A. Rey Pamatmat is the 2010 Princess Grace Fellow in Playwriting. Rey's full-length plays have been produced by Second Generation (Thunder Above, Deeps Below) and the Vortex Theatre Company (DEVIANT), and his shorts have been produced by The Actors Theatre of Louisville (Ain't Meat and 1260 Minute Life in The Open Road anthology play), Vampire Cowboys (Red Rover), and HERE (High/Limbo/High). Rey's work has been developed at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, New Work Now! at The Public Theater, Victory Gardens' Ignition Festival, Playwrights' Horizons, among others.

All readings take place at 7 pm in Gallanter Hall.  Tickets ($10 - $15) may be purchased through the JCCSF Box Office (415/292-1233) or online at www.jccsf.org/arts <http://www.jccsf.org/arts> .  The JCCSF is located at 3200 California Street at Presidio.

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