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INDO-AMERICAN ARTS COUNCIL AND THE LARK PRESENT PLAYWRIGHTS’ WEEK 2008
NEW YORK, NY – The 15th Annual Playwrights’ Week as presented by the Indo-American Arts Council and the Lark Play Development Center will take place from September 22nd – 28th at the Lark Studio in midtown. This year’s writers include: Mark Borkowski, Kathleen Cahill, Steven Gridley, David Jenkins, Lila Rose Kaplan, Ismail Khalidi, Motti Lerner, Dano Madden, James McLindon, Allison Moore, and Lina Patel.
In addition to the readings of these new plays, there will be three events to help celebrate Playwrights’ Week 2008. To start off the festival will be Meet The Writers with host Morgan Jenness (Abrams Artists) on Monday, September 22 at 8pm, where each writer will talk a bit about themselves and read an excerpt from their play.
On Tuesday, September 23, following the reading of Motti Lerner’s BENEDICTUS, there will be a panel moderated by Catherine Coray (hotINK International Festival Director) entitled “A Discussion About Intercultural Collaboration” with the playwright and his collaborators Dr. Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Roberta Levitow, Torange Yeghiazarian, and Daniella Topol (Director).
To celebrate the close of the Playwrights’ Week 2008 on Sunday, September 28th, the Indo-American Arts Council will host a celebration following the reading of Lina Patel’s SANKALPAN (Desire), which will also feature the announcement of the 2008-09 Indo-American Arts Council - Lark Playwright-in-Residence. All Playwrights’ Week 2008 readings and events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule and reservation information, please visit: www.larktheatre.org.
The Playwrights’ Week selection process started in November of 2007. Hundreds of scripts were submitted through the Lark s open submission policy. Finalists were chosen through a rigorous process involving the Lark’s Literary Wing, comprised of dozens of theatre artists and community members. The final eleven playwrights were selected by a group of esteemed industry professionals including: Catherine Coray, John Clinton Eisner (Lark Producing Director), Suzy Fay (Lark Associate Program Director), Daniel Jaquez (Calpulli Danza Mexicana), Morgan Jenness , Katori Hall (playwright, HOODOO LOVE), Miles Lott (Lark LitWing Chair), Aroon Shivdasani (Indo-American Arts Council), and Rob Urbinati (Queens Theatre in the Park), and Jose Zayas (Immediate Theater Company).
Playwrights Week 2008 is generously supported, in part, with public funds by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and with major support from Jerome Foundation, NYC Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Time Warner’s Diverse Voices Fund and MetLife Foundation. Playwright fees are supported by The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation.
A laboratory for new voices and new ideas, the LARK PLAY DEVELOPMENT CENTER provides playwrights with indispensable resources to develop their work. The Lark brings together actors, directors, playwrights and the community to allow writers to learn about their own work by seeing and hearing it, and by receiving feedback from a dedicated and supportive community. The company reaches into untapped local populations and across international boundaries to seek out and embrace unheard voices and diverse perspectives, celebrating differences in language and worldviews. The Lark also plays a leading role in advancing unknown writers and their works to audiences through carefully stewarded partnerships with a host of theaters, universities, community-based organizations, and NGOs, locally, nationally and globally. The Lark is led by Producing Director, John Clinton Eisner and Managing Director, Michael Robertson. For more information, www.larktheatre.org or www.iaac.us.
Plays developed at the Lark regularly go on to full productions at theaters across the country. This past year Theresa Rebeck’s MAURITIUS was produced on Broadway by Manhattan Theatre Club, and David Henry Hwang’s YELLOW FACE premiered at Center Theatre Group and at the Public Theater. Rajiv Joseph’s BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO will be presented at Center Theatre Group this spring.
INDO-AMERICAN ARTS COUNCIL is a registered 501(c) 3 not-for-profit, secular service and resource arts organization charged with the mission of promoting and building the awareness, creation, production, exhibition, publication and performance of Indian and cross-cultural art forms in North America: in the performing, visual, literary and folk arts. The IAAC supports all artistic disciplines in the classical, fusion, folk and innovative forms influenced by the arts of India. IAAC works cooperatively with colleagues around the United States to broaden our collective audiences and to create a network for shared information, resources and funding. IAAC’s focus is to work with artists and arts organizations in North America as well as to facilitate artists and arts organizations from India to exhibit, perform and produce their works here. The IAAC presents annual festivals of Art, Dance, Playwrights & Film as well as several book launches and individual concerts and readings. For more information on the Indo-American Arts Council, visit: www.iaac.us.
All events take place at The Lark Studio
939 8th Avenue (btw 55 & 56) 2nd Floor
1, A, B, C, D, to Columbus Circle
N, Q, R, W to 57th Street
For information: visit www.larktheatre.org or call 212-246-2676, x24
BECAUSE OF THE DEVELOPMENTAL NATURE OF THIS WORK, THESE PRESENTATONS ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW. FOR A COMPLETE SCHEDULE, VISIT
WWW.LARKTHEATRE.ORG
