Seattle Rep New Play Program Presents Plays by Rapp, Timm & Willis

Seattle Repertory Theatre's New Play Program presents workshops of three new plays in June-one at Seattle Rep and two at Western Washington University.

Pulitzer-nominated playwright and director Adam Rapp will be at Seattle Rep to develop and direct his new work, Welcome Home, Dean Charbonneau, about a Wisconsin family's attempt to celebrate the return of their son from Iraq (to both comic and heart wrenching effect). Public staged readings will be held June 4-6, 2010, in Seattle Rep's black box space, the PONCHO.

Later in June, Seattle Rep's artistic team will bring two playwrights and ten equity actors to Western Washington University for an intensive six-day residency. Seattle Rep's Producing Artistic Director Jerry Manning will direct Bryan Willis' Bootleg, a love story about bootleggers during Prohibition, set in 1927 Olympia. Associate Artistic Director Braden Abraham will work with Stephanie Timm on her new piece, Asleep in the Mouth of a Crocodile, which follows the comedic, epic journey of Joe, a middle-aged narcoleptic bartender with no direction in life.

A group of select Western Washington University students will observe the process, shadow members of the artistic team, and participate in workshops with the directors and playwrights.

"This is the first time Seattle Rep has done a residency quite like this," said Manning. "We're excited to bring these two amazing plays to Bellingham, to help develop such exciting new work from local playwrights, and to do it with the next generation of theatre makers in the room with us."

Similarly, Seattle Rep's New Play Program workshopped Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's play Lidless with the University of Washington's School of Drama in February.

A limited number of tickets for Welcome Home, Dean Charbonneau are currently on sale for $15 through the Seattle Rep Box Office at (206) 443-2222. Tickets for the Western Washington University residencies will be available through the WWU Box Office at (360) 650-6146 or boxoffice@wwu.edu. Admission is free.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Adam Rapp is a novelist, filmmaker, and an OBIE Award-winning playwright and director. His plays include Nocturne (A.R.T., New York Theatre Workshop), Ghosts in the Cottonwoods (Victory Gardens; The Arcola, London), Animals and Plants (A.R.T.), Blackbird (The Bush, London; Pittsburgh City Theatre; Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), Stone Cold Dead Serious (A.R.T., Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), Finer Noble Gases (26th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays), Essential Self Defense (Playwrights Horizons/Edge Theater, Drama Desk Nomination for Best Original Music), Kindness (Playwrights Horizons), and the 2006 Pulitzer-nominated Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf). As a director, his production of Blackbird (Edge Theater) received two Drama Desk Nominations. His production of Red Light Winter was the first play to completely sell-out Steppenwolf's Garage Theater and won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work.

Stephanie Timm's play On the Nature of Dust was recently developed at Portland Center Stage's JAW Playwrights Festival in 2009, and also Icicle Creek/ACT Theatre Festival in 2008, and is set for a premiere by New Century Theatre Company in May 2010. Her play Sweet Nothing: a grim (fairy) tale was developed as part of Playwrights Week at The Lark New Play Development Center in the fall of 2009. Sweet Nothing was also developed at the Kennedy Center, Baldwin New Play Festival, and was a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in 2009. Her play Crumbs Are Also Bread was commissioned and produced by the Washington Ensemble Theatre, and will be published in the upcoming Rain City Projects Manifesto Series, edited by Steven Dietz. Her puppet play Frankenocchio: The Adventures of a Divine Boy Toy was produced by the Empty Space Theatre and also by Monkey Wrench Theatre. Stephanie is a three-time finalist for the Heideman Award at The Actors Theatre of Louisville. Her plays have also been produced at Boots Up Theatre Company, Barnyard Theatre, Looking Glass Theatre, New Perspectives, and Live Girls, among others. She is a founding member of the Gregory Award Winning New Century Theatre Company. She was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota, but is now a Seattle based playwright where she lives with her husband Paul and newborn son, Hayes.

Bryan Willis quit his day job in '92 and has been a working playwright (that doesn't have to be an oxymoron) ever since. His plays have been workshopped and produced off-Broadway, on the London fringe, throughout the U.K., Israel, and in theaters across the U.S. and Canada, including ACT, New York Theater Workshop, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, Unseam'd Shakespeare Co. and Riverside Studios in London. His work has also been featured on NPR and BBC Radio (commission for Sophie). Bryan is the proud recipient of a Theater Fellowship from Artist Trust and has also received the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion for his work with the American College Theater Festival. He has worked in the literary departments of many theaters, including Playwrights Horizons and Lincoln Center (NYU's Playwright-in-Residence) and Tacoma Actors Guild. Bryan, his wife Susan and their son, Zach, live in Olympia with their dog, Frieda a.k.a., the Greased Pig from the Planet Krypton.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

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