Contact Us:
311 West 43rd Street,
Suite 406
New York, NY 10036
(Btw 8th & 9th Avenues)
212-246-2676
212-246-2609 (fax)
info@larktheatre.org
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The Lark's 2009-10 Season
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The Lark in residency at
July 20 - 26, 2009
Sixteen Lark artists spent the week in a writers' retreat developing new work.
Playwrights included: Brian Dykstra, Samuel D. Hunter, Chisa Hutchinson, Rajiv Joseph, Andrea Thome, and Aladdin Ullah.
Other artists included Jordan Mahome, Colin Denby Swanson,
and Jennifer Dorr White.
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Night Over Erzinga
by Adriana Sevahn Nichols
directed by Daniella Topol
Inspired by her Armenian grandparents' survival of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, Adriana explores the imprint of loss, memory, culture, secrets and faith through two generations of her family. The play spans from 1913 Armenia to New York in the 1960s using memory and dream-life as a way to reunite ghosts with the living as they each search for a way to find peace with what is.
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Agnes Under the Big Top,
a fairy tale
by Aditi Brennan Kapil
directed by Eric Ting
dramaturgy by Liz Engleman
A quintessentially American story, it is a surreal journey tracing the intersecting paths of a handful of immigrants as they struggle to form a new identity in America without losing connection to their past.
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October 29& 30 at 7pm
This Studio Retreat is part of
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Part of the National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Project,
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
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U.S. / Mexico Playwright Exchange Program
November 15 - 23
presented in collaboration with
PUBLIC READINGS:
NOVEMBER 21 - 22 @ 3 & 7pm
CELEBRACIÓN:
November 23 @ 7pm
The Lark hosts several Mexican playwrights in New York City for a ten-day
residency as part of an ongoing exchange between the U.S. and Mexico.
For more information, click here
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Free Radicals
by Betty Shamieh
directed by Matthijs Rumke
The story of an American best-selling self-help author who moves to Holland to live with her Dutch husband. They get far more than they bargained for when they hire a mysterious young Moroccan maid. A modern day retelling of the love triangle of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, written in the style of a human puppet show in which the gods of Beauty, Money, and Charisma are in control of their human counterparts.
Betty Shamieh spent the 2008-2009 playwright-in-residence at Het Zuidelijk Toneel in the Netherlands, where Free Radicals will be produced in Dutch translation in 2010.
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The Wife
by Tommy Smith
directed by May Adrales
Tommy Smith's new play is a series of snapshot scenes involving a Hasidic Jewish couple whose firm grasp on their religious identity becomes diluted by a wild assortment of gentrifying goys moving into their urban neighborhood. Equal parts black comedy and psychological drama, THE WIFE marks the second collaboration between Smith and director May Adrales.
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IN RESIDENCY AT THE LARK...
In December the Lark welcomed Romanian playwright Andreea Valean for a residency at the Lark to work on her play Don't Cry, We'll All Meet on the Other Side. Andreea is the recipient of a CEC ArtsLink Indepent Project grant to support the development of her new play over the course of three residences at the Lark. This is her second visit, and she will return this spring for a Studio Retreat of the play. To read more about Andreea, click here. |
all the sincerity in hollywood
by Stuart Hample
directed by Austin Pendelton
johnny sullivan from boston changed his name to paul huckle, then fred st. james, then freddy james, then (briefly) benjamin franklin, and finally fred allen, became a comedian as famous as jack benny, then (poof!) vanished from america's collective memory.*
A two-character play based on the life and career of the mid-20th Century radio humorist, Fred Allen. Legendary talk-show host Dick Cavett, for whom the piece was written, will play Allen and certain other characters. Didi Conn will play his wife Portland Hoffa, and all other parts Cavett doesn't.
*in lower case because Allen, who eschewed capital letters, claimed "i never learned to shift for myself."
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New Life
by Sinan Unel
directed by John Clinton Eisner
In order to satisfy the demands of reparative therapy (the practice to convert gays and lesbians to heterosexuality), Luke must take some drastic steps:
aside from forming non-sexual relationships with his long-idealized macho peers,
he must also detach himself from his mother, and establish a closer, more synergetic relationship with his distant father. Luke's father Frank, a hard-drinking,
middle aged, hunting enthusiast, is navigating a crisis of his own: he's all but left
his wife Robin of thirty years, and is trying to manage a relationship with a younger, ambitious realtor, Lauren.
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CALL ME WALDO
by Rob Ackerman
directed by Tamilla Woodard
When an ordinary electrician becomes possessed by the spirit of Ralph Waldo Emerson extraordinary things happen.
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DON'T CRY,
WE'LL ALL MEET ON THE OTHER SIDE
by Andreea Valean
directed by John Clinton Eisner
About Stefan, a 90 year-old Jew that is going to New York to bring a man's body back to Romania to be buried in a small Jewish cemetery. However, in New York he discovers that the man is not dead, but an old friend that has to be forgiven in order to die.
Part of NYC's Immigrant Hertiage Week 2010
This reading is part of Lark's Eastern European Exchange program led by, Saviana Stanescu, aimed at going beyond "cultural tourism" and allowing a true artistic dialogue to exist between the U.S. and Eastern Europe.
To accomplish our activities Lark partners with the Romanian Cultural Institute,
CEC Artslink, and The Trust for Mutual Understanding.
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2010 Week
Playwrights' Salon
hosted by John Clinton Eisner
and David Henry Hwang
Featuring: Maria Alexandria Beech (Venezuela), Colin Greer (United Kingdom), Rogelio Martinez (Cuba), Nick Mwaluko (Tanzania), Saviana Stanescu (Romania)
A salon featuring play excerpts, followed by a conversation with theater artists about how immigration as a theme intersects the world of new plays. Audiences will be invited to engage with playwrights in conversation about the role that theater plays in telling the stories of unheard immigrant communities.
directed by Nancy Robillard
April 20 @ 7pm
Part of NYC's Immigrant Hertiage Week 2010
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THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
by Koffi Kwahulé
translated by Chantal Bilodeau
directed by Lucie Tiberghien
Shorty, an African-American boxer, is the undefeated World Champion. Shorty is also an aspiring actor. But he soon finds out that leaving the boxing world for the theatre is not an option. Prisoner of a pact signed in blood through which the black community has made him a symbol of supremacy, Shorty must continue to fight.
In this modern retelling of the myth of Faust, French-African playwright Koffi Kwahulé paints a picture of a divided America whose racial tensions get played out on a boxing ring.
This reading is part of an 7 year project to translate, develop, and publish seven of Koffi Kwahule’s plays in order to both encourage international exchange and to bring to the forefront a unique theatrical voice, one that has not been heard in the United States. His work is being additionally supported in the U.S. by hotINK international play festival and Howard University who have both presented readings of Koffi's work this year.
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May 17 - 21 @ 8pm
4th ANNUAL PLAYWRIGHTS' WORKSHOP READINGS
May 17th - SEVEN HOMELESS MAMMOTHS
WANDER NEW ENGLAND by Madeleine George
On jealousy, the perils of college administration, and the closing of a small-town museum. An academic sex comedy.
May 18th - GOLIATH by David Wiener
directed by Kent Nicholson
On his radio show, Denny Kahane speaks truth to power. There are those who would like Denny silenced, but Real Americans know well that Denny's words didn't cause those tragic events in Pennsylvania.
May 19th - OUR LADY OF KIBEHO (working title)
by Katori Hall
directed by Liesl Tommy
Rwanda , 1981. A girl sees the Virgin Mary, who shows her a vision of a glorious future for her country if only the people will pray.
But will anyone believe her?
May 20th - ORPHAN ISLAND by Sarah Treem
directed by Evan Cabnet
In a lighthouse on an island seven miles off the coast, where everyone dies young, a woman appears in the middle of a storm, claiming not to remember.
TBA - ON THE LINE by Michi Barall
Want to know the true cost of your new sneakers? A play inspired by the lives of women workers in the global factory.
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The Body Politic
by Richard Abrons
directed by Margarett Perry
A political comedy that takes place during a presidential campaign. Two young senior advisors of opposing parties and opposite sex are urged by the candidates to use their charms to gain information. As they attempt to manipulate each other, a strong attraction ensures. It's a fictional Mary Matalin-James Carville story with twists and turns that bear no resemblance to the real story of Mary and James.
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CHINGLISH
by David Henry Hwang
directed by Leigh Silverman
A non-Chinese American businessman, seeking to make a deal in a provincial Chinese capital, falls into an extra-marital affair with a female Chinese official, with neither able to effectively communicate in the other's language. In English and Mandarin with projected translations.
presented in partnership with
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