THE PIANO MEN Comes to A Contemporary Theatre for Free Reading This Weekend

The 2015 ACT New Play Award recipient is Moby Pomerance, for The Piano Men, a true story of an American spy working on the Manhattan Project. In the 1950s, Americans believed they knew the identity of all the spies who worked on the atomic bomb: David Greenglass and Klaus Fuchs. They were wrong. There was one more, a young man of 18 named Ted Hall. When J. Robert Oppenheimer saw the atomic explosion at Trinity, his first words were, curiously, a quote from the Indian epic the "Mahabharata." This is a story of those two men.

"The title The Piano Men comes from an old Laurel and Hardy film in which the two movers struggle to push a large piano up an insurmountable flight of stairs," says Associate Artistic Director John Langs. "Like the legendary Sisyphus, this is a cyclical and absurd tale of the never ending rise and collapse of an advancing civilization."

The ACT New Play Award (sponsored by an annual $20,000 gift from Gian-Carlo and Eulalie Scandiuzzi) is one of the largest playwriting awards in the country which is also distinguished by its significant opportunity to workshop the script at ACT with professional actors, artistic input, and a staged reading. The award provides the playwright with a $2,500 prize and a one week workshop to further develop the play. The process culminates in two public readings, providing audiences the first opportunity to experience the new play, followed by a feedback discussion with the playwright.

Audiences joining us for The Piano Men will be raising a glass in honor of playwright, Moby Pomerance and ACT New Play Award sponsors, Eulalie M. and Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi. All members of the audience will be invited to a pre-show toast and a post-show celebration and discussion.

Past ACT New Play Award recipients include

• Jason Grote's Shostakovich, 2014
• Mark Jenkins' Red Earth, Gold Gate, Shadow Sky, 2013
• Angus MacLachlan's Abundant Acreage Available, 2012
• Emily Schwend's South of Settling, 2011
• David Weiner's Extraordinary Chambers,2010
• Zakiyyah Alexander's Sweet Maladies, 2009
• Yussef El Guindi's Language Rooms, 2008
• Laura Schellhardt's The K of D, 2006
• Elizabeth Heffron's Mitzi's Abortion, 2005

Moby Pomerance was born in London in 1969. He moved to Boston to attend music school and from there went to New York where he lived and played in the local scene for 5 years. He returned to London to study theatre at Central School of Speech and Drama, after which he worked as playwright Howard Barker's assistant for two years with his company the Wrestling School.

His plays include U. Wound, performed at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith; African Women (ASK reading); The Piano Men; and Broken Hands (winner of Outstanding Playwriting Award for 2006 New York Fringe). His latest play, The Good Book of Pedantry and Wonder, helped immeasurably by a workshop with dramaturg Marge Betley and director Mark Cuddy at Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY in November 2007-went on to have its world premiere produced by Boston Court Theatre and Circle X Theatre Co. in Pasadena, California in 2010.

Performance dates

Saturday, June 27 - 7:00pm

Sunday, June 28 - 2:00pm

To RSVP for this free event go to www.acttheatre.org.

ACT is the only local theatre dedicated to producing contemporary work with promising playwrights and local performing artists since 1965. ACT is a cultural engine that makes plays, dance, music, and film that touch us through its annual Mainstage Play series and new works generated from the Young Playwrights Program, ACTLab, and New Works for the American Stage commissioning program. Because contemporary life demands examination, ACT is driven to inspire and strengthen our diverse community through works that advance our understanding of human life. ACT is an interactive community where artists and the public witness, contemplate and engage in dialogue on today's thought-provoking issues, ideas, and art, presented with intelligence, insight, and humor. Dedicated to the advancement and preservation of today's contemporary work for future generations, ACT is a destination for contemporary theatre and arts in downtown Seattle.

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