NNPN Celebrates Acclaim for World Premiere: MEMOIRS OF A FORGOTTEN MAN By D.W. Gregory

National New Play Network, the country's alliance of professional theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays, celebrates the acclaimed run of its 82nd Rolling World Premiere (RWP): Memoirs of a Forgotten Man by D.W. Gregory. The Roll kicked off at Core Member Contemporary American Theater Festival (Shepherdstown, WV) and runs through July 29. It continues in 2019 at Associate Member Shadowland Stages (Ellenville, NY) June 22 through July 6 and Core Member New Jersey Repertory Company (Long Branch) August 29 through September 29.

In an NNPN Rolling World Premiere, the Network provides production support to the playwright and the partnering theaters, including assistance with the creation and the contracting of the premiere agreement, collaborative interactions between the theaters, and travel and housing funds for the playwright to further develop the play in each city.

A Soviet journalist with the gift of total recall. A psychologist seeking to rehabilitate herself. A government censor with a secret past. Over two decades their fates become entwined as victims and collaborators in Stalin's campaign to rewrite public memory. Long before 'fake news' was an internet meme, it was called propaganda. And in the Soviet Union, circa 1938, it was the grease that kept Stalin's machinery of terror in motion. By taking us to this world, where justice is arbitrary and freedom, as we think of it, does not exist, Memoirs of a Forgotten Man forces the audience to consider the fragility of democracy in an era when facts are fungible and history is whatever you say it is.

D.W. Gregory's plays frequently explore political issues through a personal lens. The New York Times called her "a playwright with a talent to enlighten and provoke" for her most produced work, Radium Girls, about the famous case of industrial poisoning. Other plays include Memoirs of a Forgotten Man; NNPN Annual Commission, Molumby's MIllion, nominated for a Barrymore Award by Philadelphia Theatre Alliance; The Good Daughter, and October 1962; and a new musical comedy, The Yellow Stocking Play, with composer Steven M. Alper and lyricist Sarah Knapp. She is also a two-time finalist for the Heideman Award at Actor's Theater of Louisville, where her short comedy So Tell Me About This Guy was produced on a bill of short works. In addition, Gregory writes for youth theatre and makes occasional appearances as a teaching artist. Her new drama, Salvation Road, recently released by Dramatic Publishing, was the winner of the American Alliance for Theatre in Education's Playwrights in Our Schools Award and developed through New York University's New Plays for Young Audiences program. Her work has also received the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National New Play Network, the Maryland Arts Council (she is a two-time winner of the Individual Artist Award in Playwriting), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the New Harmony Project and the HBMG Foundation. A member of the Dramatists' Guild, Gregory is also an affiliated writer with The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis and an affiliated artist with NNPN. Her work is available from Dramatic Publishing, YouthPLAYS.com, and Playscripts.com.

The Contemporary American Theater Festival, founded by Producing Director Ed Herendeen in 1991, is dedicated to producing and developing new American theater. It is hosted on the campus of Shepherd University, a state liberal arts institution located in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. CATF intersperses established voices with emerging ones and is committed to telling diverse stories. To date, it has produced 115 new plays, including 43 world premieres, and 10 commissions. CATF is a well-respected playwrights' forum, with a bent toward championing challenging, culturally relevant work. catf.org

It is the mission of the Shadowland Stages to offer the residents of the region, and visitors to the area, the full range of professional theatre and performing arts educational opportunities at an affordable price. In fulfilling this mission, we strive to produce a mixture of classic, contemporary, and new plays. Our focus remains on producing thought-provoking, socially relevant works with vision that will entertain, educate, and challenge our audience.

Shadowland produces a seven-production season from May thru December in its 179-seat main theatre space, a renovated 1920's art deco former movie theatre. In 2018, Shadowland completed construction on Shadowland Studio, its new black box theatre space that houses Shadowland Academy (its education program), and serves as the company's rehearsal and new play development space.

The New Jersey Repertory Company is a professional, non-profit theater founded in 1997 by Suzanne Barabas (Artistic Director) and Gabor Barabas (Executive Producer). Located in Long Branch, New Jersey, the theater's primary mission is to develop and produce new plays and to make a lasting contribution to the American stage. In addition, it also seeks to achieve the following: to be a catalyst in the redevelopment and revitalization of its surrounding community; to build and encourage young audiences and inspire interest in theater arts among young people and to nurture the work of writers from diverse backgrounds and build diverse audiences. njrep.org

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