TRU Voices New Plays Virtual Reading Series presented with The StoryLine Project & CreateTheater

from Emily MT

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) announces the 23rd annual series of new plays, now virtual, by TRU writers produced by TRU producers, as part of TRU Voices New Plays Virtual Reading Series on Sundays, February 12 & 19, 2023 at 3pm. The series executive producers are TRU executive director Bob Ost; TRU literary manager and founder of CreateTheater, Cate Cammarata; and technical producer Iben Cenholt. Each play will be followed by TRU’s renowned "Dollars and Sense" talkback focusing on the future development of the play read, and featuring professional producers, artistic directors and general managers. Tickets are on sale now at https://www.onthestage.tickets/theater-resources-unlimited

“Both of our selected plays this year highlight the feminine BIPOC experience of American life in the 21st century, one in an academic setting, one in a Queens laundromat,” said Cammarata. “Written by men, and matched with strong female directors, they were highly resonant with our selection committee and demonstrate theater’s diversity and inclusiveness in storytelling.”

Sunday, February 12th, 2023, 3pm ET
Max Needle presents
The Queen of Sad Mischance
by John Minigan
directed by Sharifa Williams

How far would you go to change your narrative? When her promising job with white feminist scholar Beverly becomes a trap she must escape, ambitious bi-racial college senior Kym is forced to choose between betraying her boss and betraying herself.

John Minigan (playwright) is a recent Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow in Dramatic Writing and New Repertory Theatre Playwriting Fellow. Queen of Sad Mischance won the 2022 Judith Royer Award from The Kennedy Center and The Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the 2022 Wigglesworth Award from Florida's Lab Theater. Noir Hamlet was an EDGE Media Best of Boston Theater 2018 selection, Boston Globe Critics' Pick, and a 2019 Elliot Norton Outstanding New Script nominee. He has developed new work with Urban Stages, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Portland Stage Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, Utah Shakespearean Festival, and the Great Plains Theatre Conference, and his work is included in the Best American Short Plays, Best Ten-Minute Short Plays, and New England New Plays anthologies. John is on the faculty of Emerson College and serves as Dramatists Guild Ambassador for the Boston area. Please visit johnminigan.com.

Sharifa Williams (director) is a film and theater director whose credits include Every Creeping Thing by David Beardsley for the TRUSpeak Hear Our Voices Virtual Gala; Breakz by Cris Eli Blak for the Hamilton Arts Festival; Magpie by Phyllis Heltay (T. Schreiber Studio/Robert Moss Theater); and the sci-fi romantic comedy play Interventions by Greg Lam (The Navigators Lift-Off Festival). She wrote and produced the post-apocalyptic play Night of the Neutron Dance (New York Theater Festival) and the drama The View from the Q (winner: Audience Award, Short Play Festival). She was honored to complete a directing observership with the great Terry Schreiber. She has a BFA in Film and Television from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts.

Max Needle (producer) is a commercial theater producer based in NYC. Max started his producing career in June 2022 with a sold-out, Off-Broadway presentation of a new play about donor conception entitled Little Egg, Big World at Theatre Row through the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival. Aside from Queen of Sad Mischance, Max is also producing a new play about how algorithms can predict human happiness entitled Disruption, which will run Off-West End in London for five weeks beginning in July of 2023, and he is developing a new comedic play entitled You're Not My Type about the anxieties and realities around dating in the modern world for a New York audience. An avid supporter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and multiple non-profit theatre organizations, Max hopes to develop and support works of theatre that advance our social and cultural awareness while leveraging the emotional capabilities of the performing arts. maxneedleproductions.com

Sunday, February 19th, 2023, 3pm ET
Megan Schadler presents
Lost Sock Laundry
by Ivan Faute,
directed by Christina Rose Ashby

An episodic exploration of how we forge friendships, identity, and a national culture. Three women from different waves of American immigration frequent the corner laundry to meet, exchange gossip, and yes, do laundry. As their lives intertwine, they confront their own views of identity, culture, and nationality. This is not some undisciplined hangout. There are rules and expectations about how you use the Maytag, how long you can use the dryer before you get looks, and who gets to save a machine for a friend.

Ivan Faute (playwright) production credits include The Dog Show at The Players Theatre (NY), the OffCom and OffFest recommended one-woman show On Arriving (Searchout) across London, the City Lit Art of Adaptation Festival winner "Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher," The Darling Children (New York International Fringe), and the movement piece Life, Death, & Everything In-Between (Capital Fringe). LOST SOCK LAUNDRY was awarded the OnStage! Award and translated into Italian by Pietro Bontempo. ELEPHANT: A COMEDY was named a finalist in the Award of Excellence in Playwriting by the Association for Theater in Higher Education. His prose appears in over three dozen journals and was named a finalist for the Calvino Prize. ivanfaute.org
 
Christina Rose Ashby (director) is an Alaskan theater artist living in Brooklyn. Christina specializes in new work creation and the reimagining of classics. Select past credits include Lack of Milk and Suspicion Obsession Paranoia Marriage by Faute; Living With an Angel, a semi-autobiographical clown fantasia by Catherine Restivo-Romito; Life is a Dream: a New Vintage by Calderon and adapted by Annie R. Such. Christina recently directed the charming children's musical Petunia's Playhouse Live: Petunia's Big Day by Laura Kay Clark with music and lyrics by BIlly Reece. Christina is the founding artistic director of Permafrost Theatre Collective (PTC.) Through PTC, Christina conceived and directed Are You Alice: A New Wonderland Tale, a classic reimagining that had several short runs in New York City and made its international debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August of 2019. Her current devised adaptation, Poe's Children, is a meditation on grief and generational trauma told through selected poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. Christina is also a teaching artist and has taught in Alaska, New York, and West Virginia. MFA in directing from the Actors Studio Drama School. Instagram @christinaroseashby Twitter @tvschristina christinaroseashby.com
 
Megan Schadler (producer) is a New York-based producer & writer originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. After graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Megan began working as a freelance & independent Producer in NYC. Megan joined Yonder Window Theatre Company in 2018 as the Assistant to the Artistic Director and departed in 2022 as the Artistic Line Producer. Megan is also a playwriting member of Yonder Window's New Works Collective. Megan is the co-founder of Stagepunch.com, a subscription-based website dedicated to helping teens get into drama school. As an independent producer, Megan's work has focused on creating safe and exciting spaces for artists to thrive, centering on new work and emerging playwrights. In September 2020, Megan produced The Birth Control Series, a collection of scripts reflecting the writers' unique experiences with contraception. The series was created, filmed, and live-streamed remotely by artists in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Megan is also the Co-Creator and Producer of A Night of Play, a monthly play-reading party supporting a diverse community of theatre artists (Brooklyn, 2018-2019), and a new reading series called Connect the Dots (2022). In 2021, Megan completed the CGO Institute Diploma for Creative Producing course (UK). She co-founded The Fifth Producer, a collaborative and support network for Early Career Producers that advocates for better inclusion, diversity, and sustainability in the theatre industry. Instagram: @MeganSchadler meganschadler.com

"Dollars and Sense" industry talkback to follow each reading, speakers TBA.The series was created to not only develop new plays but also new producers for theater, as well as foster the relationship between writers and producers with the hope that our readings will launch future steps of development. 

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a twenty-nine-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies.

TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, opportunities and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab.

Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Montage Foundation, The Storyline Project and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation.
 
For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.
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