Forward Flux Productions Announces Winners Of THREE NEW AMERICAN PLAYS

Forward Flux Productions, along with commissioning panelists Benjamin Benne, Joshua Castille, Wesley Frugé, Chisa Hutchinson, Pilar O'Connell, Sharath Patel, Patrick Pearson and Emily Penick, is thrilled to announce the three winners of the THREE NEW AMERICAN PLAYS project. This project kicked off on January 2nd, 2018, with an open call to playwrights across North America. Over 250 playwrights submitted pitches inspired by three timely prompts, and now, after a rigorous three month process, the winning playwrights have been selected. They are: Marisa Carr, Sarah Loucks, and Charly Evon Simpson.

THREE NEW AMERICAN PLAYS is a two-year project that will commission, develop and world premiere three new plays about America right now. It will culminate in September 2019, as Forward Flux takes over three different theatres in Seattle, giving audiences the opportunity to see all three plays in one weekend, or, on select dates, in one day. Each of these plays will be a unique and timely look at a different American issue, from fresh, daring voices on the stage.

"In the face of darkness spreading across our land, our duty as artists is to speak the truth and incite conversations about important topics, and our duty as a company is to provide the platform for artists to start these conversations," says Forward Flux Artistic Director Wesley Frugé. "When developing this project, we wanted to create a process that allowed artists a chance to speak to the current times, in real time. I'm thrilled by these daring voices and can't wait to share their perspective on America with audiences in Seattle."

"Too often plays end up in development purgatoryS, with reading after reading but no production," says Forward Flux Creative Director Emily Penick. "I'm excited by this project which not only provides three playwrights with a dedicated team to assist with developing these timely stories, but also guarantees a full production."

Learn more about the three winning playwrights and their pitches below...

Marisa Carr is a Native playwright who will write about the countless Indigenous women across North America who go missing every year. A Deer Woman - the legendary figure of justice and unrelenting vengeance who has the upper body of the most beautiful Indian woman in the world, and the lower body of a deer - will be integral in the story. Maybe she's sick of this bullshit. And maybe, just maybe, she's not going to take it anymore. Gritty urbanism and myth collide in this gripping exploration of the cost for Indigenous women to walk safely on their own land.

Sarah Loucks will write a play exploring the military, the war in Afghanistan, and the role of DIY (do it yourself) combat filming in our soldiers' lives. This is a play about three soldier's relationship to America, each other, and violence, both real and filmed. Spread across America after their time in Afghanistan, the friends, now distant from each other, each carry a copy of a film they took together with a go-pro. They re-watch the footage at different times in their lives, trying to understand what it means to come home to a country that feels just as foreign as the one they left.

Charly Evon Simpson's play will imagine a United States of the future, where the country is now a series of hundreds of islands. Communities have made their separate homes on these islands finding safety and solidarity within the confines of their shores. The story will center on one such island that is inhabited entirely by people of color, and what happens when their way of life is threatened by quickly receding waters. When outsiders begin to encroach upon the island bringing with them harmful beliefs and diseases, will the islander's way of life survive?

Forward Flux will be developing these plays in Seattle throughout 2018 and 2019, and will premiere them in September 2019. Members of Club X will have exclusive invitations to workshops and happy hours with the playwrights. For more information about THREE NEW AMERICAN PLAYS, and to join Club X, visit www.forwardflux.com.

PLAYWRIGHT BIOS:

Marisa Carr is a Twin Cities-based playwright and actor. As a playwright, her work has been produced and/or presented by theaters including: Pillsbury House + Theater, the Playwrights' Center, Intermedia Arts, and the Guthrie. As an actor, she has appeared with companies throughout the Twin Cities including: Pillsbury House + Theater, History Theater, Full Circle Theater, Bedlam Theater, and many others. Selected recent awards and honors include: Berkeley Rep Ground Floor Residency (upcoming 2018), Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant recipient (2017), Playwrights' Center Many Voices Fellow (2016-17), Naked Stages Fellow at Pillsbury House + Theater (2015), "Best New Political Playwright" (Lavender Magazine, 2014). In addition to her work as a playwright and actor, Marisa is a teaching artist at the Jungle Theater and Co-Founder/Artistic Director of the Turtle Theater Collective, a Twin Cities-based company committed to producing high-quality, contemporary work that explores Native experiences and subverts expectations about how and when Native artists can create theater. She is Turtle Mountain Ojibwe.

Sarah Loucks is a playwright and theatre maker living in Austin, Texas. She writes about Iowa, where she grew up, and Texas, where she lives now. Sarah produces her plays under the name MouthRadio. In 2015, Sarah produced her play, THE PROSTITUTE AND THE COW, as MouthRadio's inaugural production (The VORTEX). Recent MouthRadio productions written by Sarah include LANDSCAPE MECHANICAL (Museum of Human Achievement), CRAVE BLUE (MastroGeorge Theatre), DAIRY QUEEN (Porfirio's Restaurant) and THE ANGLERS (Frontera Fest/ATM Gallery). Sarah also makes work with other companies, namely Gale Theatre Co. For Gale, Sarah wrote WAIL, (The VORTEX) which was awarded Best Non-Traditional Theatre by the Central Texas Excellence in Theatre Awards in 2015. Sarah has studied Viewpoints and Suzuki with Gale Theatre Company, Grotowski technique with Double Edge Theatre, and Commedia dell'arte with the Rhodopi International Theatre Lab in Smolyn, Bulgaria. Sarah graduated from Bard College with a B.A. in Theatre. She was awarded the Carter Tobin Prize for overall contribution to the theatre program at Bard College in 2013 and was a finalist for The Ball Grant in 2018.

Charly Evon Simpson is a playwright, teacher, and performer in New York City. Her plays include HOTTENTOTTED (The Tank 2017; ANT Fest 2016 at Ars Nova), JUMP (National Showcase of New Plays 2017; 2017 MFA Playwright's Workshop at The Kennedy Center with NNPN), SCRATCHING THE SURFACE (P73 Playwriting Fellowship Semifinalist; Kilroys List 2017 Honorable Mention; New Group/No Limits Reading Series), WHO WE LET IN (2015 Princess Grace Award Semifinalist), HAPPY ANNIVERSARY (2015 Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival Semifinalist), and more. Her work has been seen, heard, and/or developed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, The Flea, Azuka Theatre, and others. She is a member of the 17/18 Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers' Group and The Amoralists 18/19 'Wright Club. She is The Pack's current playwright-in-residence and is working on commissions from EST/Sloan and The Flea. Charly is an alum of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, SPACE on Ryder Farm's 2017 The Working Farm, Fresh Ground Pepper's 2015 PlayGround PlayGroup, and Pipeline Theatre Company's 2017 PlayLab. When she isn't writing, she is an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College and an engager at The Engaging Educator. Charly received her A.B. with honors in Theatre Arts and Literary Arts from Brown University. She holds a master's in Women's Studies from University of Oxford, New College and a MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College.

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