Playwrights' Week 2016

Now in its 23rd year, Playwrights’ Week is an annual festival designed to foster a peer-based community among a cohort of writers with new work in development.  Six playwrights selected via a yearlong Open Submissions process will be provided with crucial creative resources in a nurturing and rigorous laboratory setting. Each new play receives ten hours of rehearsal in advance of a public staged reading, focusing on the writer’s self-stated developmental goals. Playwrights' Week is designed to be a process of discovery for artists and audiences alike.

SCHEDULE:

Monday, October 17 @ 7pm

Meet the Writers

Moderated by Beth Blickers

A panel conversation featuring excerpts from each of the plays, followed by a kickoff reception and a chance to mingle with the playwrights.

This event will be live streamed online, on HowlRoundTV.

Tuesday, October 18th @ 3pm

Pilgrims

by Claire Kiechel​

directed by Colman Domingo

On a spacecraft on its way to colonize a newly discovered planet, a soldier and a young girl live together in one of the ship’s cabins with only an outdated robot and each other for company. After they are quarantined in their close quarters due to a potential outbreak, they are forced to explore their own traumatic pasts through role-playing and ever increasingly dangerous games.

Tuesday, October 18th @ 7pm

Against the Hillside

by Sylvia Khoury

directed by William Carden

With the pervasive buzz of American drones filling the sky above the Pakistani countryside, Sayid and Reem worry that their daughter will grow up too quickly in the presence of so much death and destruction. Meanwhile, Major Matthew Walker becomes increasingly drawn into their lives as he monitors their every move from an Air Force base in the Nevada desert. In a world where wars are fought from a distance, who suffers more: the observer or the observed?

Thursday, October 20th @ 3pm

Europa

by Sarah Saltwick

directed by Michelle Tattenbaum

On a quiet day, in a neighborhood park, Leslie and Alma meet for the first time. As their children play, the women discover they know the same man. Fourteen years later, their children are almost grown. Bruce wants Louise but Louise just wants to be free.

Thursday, October 20th @ 7pm

The Found Dog Ribbon Dance

by Dominic Finocchiaro

directed by Benjamin Kamine

Norma, a professional cuddler in Portland, Oregon, has devoted her life to healing others and ignoring her own needs. When she discovers a lost dog and attempts to return it to its rightful owner, her ordered life takes a series of surprising turns. A story of loneliness, intimacy, and the healing power of the music of Whitney Houston.

Friday, October 21st @ 3pm

at the very bottom of a body of water

by Benjamin Benne

directed by Lisa Rothe

Marina, a Latina immigrant, has led a reclusive existence with only her daughter’s ghost to keep her company.  But when her ritual meal of catfish soup is disrupted by the disappearance of her Japanese fishmonger, she can no longer swim in the routine circles of her solitary life.  She embarks on a quest for connection that takes her into surreal territory where paper cranes take flight, volcanoes speak, the sea and sky are inverted, and traveling to the ocean floor is possible.

Friday, October 21st @ 7pm

The Blameless

by Nick Gandiello

directed by GT Upchurch

The boisterous Garcia family has always tackled their days with warmth, humor, and tough love. But today, they are struggling to recover from a painful event in their past.  They must find a way to hold everything together as they welcome to dinner the one man who might help them heal – or reopen their wounds