The Lilly Award Foundation Launches Inagural “(3) Plays From the Kilroys’ List: a Reading Series” I
Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Jaron Caldwell/ Philip Carrubba
rick@oandmco.com / jaron@oandmco.com / philp@oandmco.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
THE LILLY AWARDS FOUNDATION
PRESENTS THE INAUGURAL
“(3)PLAYS FROM THE KILROYS’ LIST: A READING SERIES”
WITH NEW WORKS BY FEMALE PLAYWRIGHTS AND DIRECTORS
PLAYWRIGHTS INCLUDE
LARISSA FASTHORSE, MEG MIROSHNIK AND LAURA SCHELLHARDT
DIRECTORS INCLUDE
LEAR DEBESSONET, LEIGH SILVERMAN, AND LIESL TOMMY
MONDAYS, MARCH 9, 16 AND 23 AT 7:00 P.M.
AT THE DUKE ON 42nd STREET
A NEW 42ND STREET® PROJECT
New York, NY – (February 9, 2015) The Lilly Awards Foundation proudly presents the Inaugural (3)Plays from The Kilroys’ List: A Reading Series featuring new works by female playwrights Larissa FastHorse, Meg Miroshnik and Laura Schellhardt, with female directors Lear deBessonet, Leigh Silverman and Liesl Tommy on three consecutive Mondays, March 9th, 16th and 23rd at 7:00 p.m. at The Duke on 42nd Street (229 W 42nd Street). Admission is free but reservations are strongly recommended and can be obtained at http://www.thelillyawards.org or https://www.artful.ly/the-lilly-awards-foundation.
(3)Plays from the Kilroys’ List: A Reading Series was created to support the Lilly Awards Foundation’s mission to promote gender parity at all levels of theatrical production, and develop and celebrate the work of women in the theater. Released by The Kilroys in 2014, THE LIST consists of the 46 plays most recommended by industry leaders in a national survey of the best underproduced plays by female and trans* playwrights. It was created as “a tool for producers committed to ending the systemic underrepresentation of female voices in the American theater.”
(3)Plays from the Kilroys’ List: A Reading Series Schedule
Monday, March 9th at 7:00 p.m.
The Comparables
A play by Laura Schellhardt
Directed by Lear deBessonet
In Laura Schellhardt’s play The Comparables three women vie for power in the cut-throat world of high-end realty. Bette runs her own female-dominated agency. Monica is her loyal second-in-command. Iris is the savvy new hire. When Bette's reputation falls under attack, the future of the agency is at stake. Who, if anyone, will survive the ordeal, and to what lengths will they go to ensure success? A dark comedy that begs the question: for women in the competitive world, is there more than one way to do business?
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Monday, March 16th at 7:00 p.m.
What Would Crazy Horse Do?
A play by Larissa FastHorse
Directed by Liesl Tommy
Set today, What Would Crazy Horse Do? by Larissa FastHorse, is about two Native Americans who are facing the extinction of their tribe while the first female leader of the KKK is poised to bring a gentler version of the Klan into the limelight. When the two groups are brought together, they find that sometimes they are asking the same questions. When is race separation racism? And when is it essential preservation? It’s a question both sides need to answer before it is too late.
* * *
Monday, March 23rd at 7pm
The Tall Girls
A play by Meg Miroshnik
Directed by Leigh Silverman
The Tall Girls takes place in Poor Prairie – the dusty, desolate town where fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Jean has been exiled as caretaker for her wild-child cousin, Almeda. It’s a grim, dangerous place to eke out an existence as a teenage girl—until a handsome man with a past arrives, a brand-new basketball in tow. As the town’s girls come together to form a team set on making it out of Poor Prairie, a murky committee of townspeople threatens to stamp out girls' sports altogether. Inspired by the flourishing and decline of high school girls' basketball teams in the 1930s rural Midwest, The Tall Girls asks: Who can afford the luxury of play? And what is the cost of childhood?
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The Lilly Awards were started in 2010 as a way to honor the work of women in the American Theater. The founders of The Lilly Awards are Julia Jordan, Marsha Norman and Theresa Rebeck. The Lilly Awards Foundation was named after Lillian Hellman, a pioneering American playwright who famously said, “You need to write like the devil and act like one when necessary.” The Lilly Awards have expanded their mission to promote gender parity at all levels of theatrical production, as well as develop, celebrate and advocate for the work of women in the theater. The Lilly Awards Foundation created the Inaugural (3)Plays from The Kilroys’ List: A Reading Series in order to support the sister mission of The Kilroys and their organization, and to put the work of women playwrights in front of the community that can produce and support them. For more information: www.thelillyawards.org, Like them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheLillyAwards or follow on Twitter at @thelillyawards.
Founded in 2013, The Kilroys are a group of LA-based female playwrights and producers committed to gender inclusivity in the American theater. They are creating positive initiatives to achieve field-wide change while working independently to advance the artistic and professional goals of their members. Their first national initiative, THE LIST, is published on their website and is a tool for producers committed to ending the systemic underrepresentation of female voices in the American theater. For more information, go to www.thekilroys.org or follow on twitter at @thekilroys13.
BIOS
Larissa FastHorse (Playwright, What Would Crazy Horse Do?) is an award-winning playwright and choreographer from the Sicangu Lakota Nation. Three of her commissions will be produced in 2015 with Cornerstone Theatre Company, AlterTheater and Eagle Project. Other productions include Cherokee Family Reunion at Mountainside Theatre, NC; Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders: A Class Presentation for Native Voices at the Autry; and Average Family for Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis where Larissa is developing her Untitled Ballet Play. Larissa is an alum of Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, Center Theatre Group’s Writers Workshop, the Playwright’s Union, and Café Bohemia at Arizona Theatre Company. She was awarded the Sundance/Ford Foundation Fellowship, Aurand Harris Fellowship, William Inge Residency and numerous Ford Foundation and NEA Grants as well as being an NEA Theatre Panelist and TCG Board Member.
Lear deBessonet (Director, The Comparables) is the Director of Public Works at the Public Theater. She directed Good Person of Szechwan for The Foundry Theatre and the Public Theater (Obie Award, Lilly Award, Drama Desk nomination, Lortel for Best Revival), and has directed Public Works’ productions of The Tempest and The Winter's Tale at the Delacorte (each featuring over two hundred New Yorkers from all five boroughs). Her previous large-scale community based projects include The Odyssey at the Old Globe in 2011 and Quixote, a collaboration with homeless shelter Broad Street Ministry in Philadelphia in 2009. She most recently directed Pump Boys and Dinettes for Encores! Off-Center, and has directed shows for LCT3, Clubbed Thumb, 13p, the Old Globe, the Intiman, the Guthrie, Joe’s Pub, Women’s Project, Ten Thousand Things, and Performance Space 122.
Meg Miroshnik (Playwright, The Tall Girls). Plays include The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, The Droll, The Tall Girls, and an adaptation of the libretto for Shostakovich’s Moscow, Cheryomushki. Her work has been produced and developed by Yale Rep, Alliance Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Center Theatre Group, South Coast Rep, McCarter Theatre Center, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, Lark New Play Development Center, Chicago Opera Theater, WET, and others. Awards: Whiting Award, Susan Smith Blackburn finalist, Alliance/Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award. Commissions: South Coast Rep, Steppenwolf, and Yale Rep. MFA: Yale School of Drama under Paula Vogel. Meg lives in Los Angeles and is a founding member of The Kilroys.
Laura Schellhardt (Playwright, The Comparables). Her plays have been produced in Ithaca, N.Y., and New York City, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Providence, Minn., Indianapolis, Orlando, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Charlottesville, N.C., and Provincetown, Mass. Original works include Air Guitar High, Auctioning the Ainsleys, The Apothecary's Daughter, The K of D, Courting Vampires, Shapeshifter, Inheritance and Je Ne Sais Quoi. Adaptations include The Phantom Tollbooth, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, The Outfit and Creole Folktales. She is also the author of Screenwriting for Dummies. Schellhardt is a recipient of the TCG National Playwriting Residency, the Jerome Fellowship, the New Play Award from ACT in Seattle and a Dramatist Guild Fellowship. She has participated in the SoHo Rep Writer/Director Lab, The Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices Festival, the Bonderman Symposium, the Women Playwrights Festival at SRC and the O'Neill National Playwrights Festival. Schellhardt earned an M.F.A. in playwriting from Brown University where she studied under Paula Vogel. She currently heads the playwriting program at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Leigh Silverman (Director, The Tall Girls) is a two-time Obie winner, directed the Encores! and Broadway productions of Jeanine Tesori’s Violet which garnered a Tony Award nomination. Other Broadway credits include David Henry Hwang's Chinglish and Lisa Kron's Well and over 30 Off-Broadway world premieres including American Hero (Second Stage and Williamstown Theater Festival); Kung Fu (Signature Theatre); The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Pulitzer finalist, Playwrights Horizons); The Call (Playwrights Horizons); The Madrid (MTC); Golden Child (Signature Theatre); No Place to Go (Public Theater; Two River Theatre); In the Wake (Center Theatre Group/Berkeley Rep and Public Theater, Obie Award, Lortel nomination); Go Back to Where You Are (Playwrights Horizons, Obie Award); From Up Here (MTC, Drama Desk nomination); Yellow Face (Pulitzer finalist, Center Theatre Group/Public Theater); Coraline (MCC/True Love); Hunting and Gathering (Primary Stages); Oedipus at Palm Springs (NYTW); The Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Hourglass Group); Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons/ Seattle Rep); Well (Public Theater; Huntington Theatre; ACT); Danny a two-time Obie winner.
Liesl Tommy (Director, What Would Crazy Horse Do?). Credits include Signature Theatre: Appropriate; Synchronicity, Performance Group; New Georges: Angela’s Mixtape, DanskDansk Theatre; Denmark: The White Man – A Complex Declaration of Love; Luminato Festival/Canadian Stage Toronto: Peggy Picket Sees the Face of God; Play Company/Romania Kiss Me! Festival: Bus, Family Ties. TOUR: Ruined. DC AREA: Woolly Mammoth: Appropriate; Eclipsed. REGIONAL: Berkeley Repertory Theater/Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Party People; Yale Repertory Theatre: Eclipsed; The Public Theatre/Dallas Theater Center: The Good Negro; Contemporary American Theatre Festival: A History of Light; Other: Les Misérables, Hamlet, A Raisin in the Sun, Piano Lesson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Affiliations: Associate Director, Berkeley Rep; Program Associate, Sundance Institute Theatre Program; Artist Trustee, Sundance Institute’s Board of Trustees. Awards: Obie award, Lillian Hellman award, Alan Schneider award, inaugural Susan Stroman Award from the Vineyard Theatre, NEA/TCG Directors Grant, New York Theatre Workshop Casting/Directing Fellowship. EDUCATION: Trinity Rep Conservatory. Upcoming: Trinity Rep: Melancholy Play.
The New 42nd Street
Founded in 1990, The New 42nd Street is an independent nonprofit organization charged with the continuous cultural revival of 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Committed to the transformational power of the arts, The New 42nd Street builds on the foundation of seven historic theaters to make extraordinary performing arts and cultural engagement part of everyone’s life. The New 42nd Street fulfills this purpose by ensuring the ongoing vibrancy of 42nd Street’s historic theaters; maintaining and fully using the New 42nd Street Studios and The Duke on 42nd Street to support performing artists in the creation of their work; and through The New Victory Theater, New York’s premier theater devoted to kids and families.
About The Duke on 42nd Street
The Duke on 42nd Street is an intimate black-box performance space in the heart of the theater district, available for rental to both nonprofit and commercial organizations. Featuring a gallery along all four walls and a custom, state-of-the-art seating system, The Duke on 42nd Street is a fully-staffed, full service facility that offers full light, sound and support systems in various configurations. Many performing arts companies have called the theater their home, including Primary Stages, The Royal Court Theatre, Transport Group, Theatre for a New Audience, Lincoln Center Theater, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Armitage Gone! Dance, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Naked Angels, Classical Theater of Harlem and the National Theater of Great Britain.
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