Playwrights Theatre of NJ

January 14 and 15 Will Be Here Very Soon

2012-01-03T13:26:00.004-05:00

Attention playwrights in grades 4-12. The submission deadlines for the 2012 New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest & Festival are quickly approaching! Have your voice heard and submit your play today.

Submissions must be received by January 14, 2012 for playwrights in grades 10-12; and by January 15, 2012 for playwrights in grades 4-9.

Scripts will be reviewed by theatre professionals from across the country and a written critique will be provided to each playwright.

Select plays will be chosen for further development and a public reading in May and December.

Further information about the Contest and Festival may be found online at www.njypf.org.

Don’t miss out…. Have your voice heard! Submit a play today!

Summer Classes for Kids & Teens and Adult Winter Playwriting

2011-12-22T10:48:00.011-05:00

Our CAA classes are an opportunity for students at all levels of experience to bring their imaginations to life, while practicing basic performance and writing skills. Students will work collaboratively with their peers, creating characters and telling stories while building the confidence needed to enjoy creative freedom.

Our classes are taught by trained professional theatre educators who have years of experience as working actors, writers and directors. Since new skills are presented each session, the classes are designed to be taken multiple times. At the end of each kids and teen session, there is a "sharing" of class work for family and friends.

Classes for Pre-K & K (ages 4 & 5)
Creative Play
Fun drama exercises, storytelling and other activities use body, voice and imagination to develop students' creative expression. Build self-esteem and communication skills.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-11:30am, Tuition $225 per session
Session A (June 25 - July 6) - Registration deadline June 18
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session D (August 6 - August 17) - Registration deadline July 30
Click here to register

Classes for Grades 1-3
Playmakers
Theatre games, pantomime and improvisation provide exciting means for learning basic performance skills in movement, voice and imagination. An engaging and nurturing environment for children to create and express themselves.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-12:30pm, Tuition $275 per session ($250 for returning students)
Session A (June 25 - July 6) - Registration deadline June 18
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Session D (August 6 - August 17) - Registration deadline July 30
Session E (August 20 - August 31) - Registration deadline August 13
Click here to register

Classes for Grades 4-6
Acting Lab
Act, play and create in a supportive, process-oriented class with an emphasis on play building skills through improvisation, theatre exercises and group collaboration.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-12:30pm, Tuition $275 per session ($250 for returning students)
Session A (June 25 - July 6) - Registration deadline June 18
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Session D (August 6 - August 17) - Registration deadline July 30
Session E (August 20 - August 31) - Registration deadline August 13
Click here to register

Musical Performance (Grades 4-5/Grades 6-8)
Build skills in using the "actor's instruments" in an energized and encouraging environment. While exploring sound and movement through singing, dancing and acting, students learn about breathing, rhythm, projection and timing. Students create their own short musical for presentation to parents and friends on the last day of class.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-12:30pm, Tuition $275 per session ($250 for returning students)
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Session D (August 6 - August 17) - Registration deadline July 30
Session E (August 20 - August 31) - Registration deadline August 13
Click here to register

Full Day Theatre Academy (Grades 4-6)
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-4:30pm
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Students work with a team of artists and alternate daily through classes in acting, musical performance, playwriting and play production.

This summer, Playwrights Theatre is offering an Early Enrollment rate plan for the Full Day Camp classes in the Summer Theatre Camp. These special rates can be secured by enrolling students in a Full Day Camp session prior to the dates listed below. No other discounts apply.

Tuition $525 • When Enrolled BEFORE Jan 31 • With a deposit of $262.50
Tuition $550 • When Enrolled BEFORE Feb 28 • With a deposit of $275.00
Tuition $575 • When Enrolled BEFORE Mar 31 • With a deposit of $287.50

After March 31, Full Day Camp registration will return to the regular fee of $595.00 (a deposit of $297.50 is required at the time of enrollment). A deposit in the amount of ½ of the tuition due is required at time of registration. The remaining balance must be paid no later than May 30.

All Full Day Camp enrollments, whether made during the reduced enrollment period, or after, include a $100.00 non-refundable enrollment fee that will not be refunded unless Playwrights Theatre initiates a class cancellation of the session in which the student is enrolled.

To secure this reduced rate, enrollments must be made by phone ONLY. Please contact the Education Office at 973-514-1787, ext. 21. Leave a message if no one is available to take your call. Your call will be returned promptly.

Classes for Grades 7-9
Acting Workshop
Through exercises in voice, movement, and improvisation, students familiarize themselves with the fundamentals of acting. This class leads to further study in monologue and scene work.
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-12:30pm, Tuition $275 per session ($250 for returning students)
Session A (June 25 - July 6) - Registration deadline
June 18 Session E (August 20 - August 31) - Registration deadline August 13
Click here to register

Full Day Theatre Academy (Grades 7-9)
Monday - Friday, 9:30am-4:30pm
Session B (July 9 - July 20) – Registration deadline July 2
Session C (July 23 - August 3) - Registration deadline July 16
Students work with a team of artists and alternate daily through classes in acting, musical performance, playwriting and play production.

This summer, Playwrights Theatre is offering an Early Enrollment rate plan for the Full Day Camp classes in the Summer Theatre Camp. These special rates can be secured by enrolling students in a Full Day Camp session prior to the dates listed below. No other discounts apply.

Tuition $525 • When Enrolled BEFORE Jan 31 • With a deposit of $262.50
Tuition $550 • When Enrolled BEFORE Feb 28 • With a deposit of $275.00
Tuition $575 • When Enrolled BEFORE Mar 31 • With a deposit of $287.50

After March 31, Full Day Camp registration will return to the regular fee of $595.00 (a deposit of $297.50 is required at the time of enrollment). A deposit in the amount of ½ of the tuition due is required at time of registration. The remaining balance must be paid no later than May 30.

All Full Day Camp enrollments, whether made during the reduced enrollment period, or after, include a $100.00 non-refundable enrollment fee that will not be refunded unless Playwrights Theatre initiates a class cancellation of the session in which the student is enrolled.

To secure this reduced rate, enrollments must be made by phone ONLY. Please contact the Education Office at 973-514-1787, ext. 21. Leave a message if no one is available to take your call. Your call will be returned promptly.

Get Ready To Audition - High School
Auditioning for high school, college or community theatre? This is the class for you. Call the education department to schedule your dates and times 973-514-1787 X21.

Whether you’re auditioning for college theatre programs, professional theatres, high school or community theatre productions, good audition skills are a must, and practice with good guidance is the only way to get there. This four-session intensive will improve your ability to select and present monologues and songs that will show you off at your best. The final class will consist of a simulated audition and subsequent critique session.

Playwriting Workshop for Adults
Winter Class
January 9 - March 12
Mondays, 7:00pm-10:00pm
Tuition $275 ($250 for returning students) • Pro-rate options are available for late starts for this class only.

Spring Class
March 19 - May 21
Mondays, 7:00pm-10:00pm
Tuition $275 ($250 for returning students) • Pro-rate options are available for late starts for this class only

Summer Classes
June 11 - August 13
Mondays, 7:00pm-10:00pm
Tuition $275 ($250 for returning students) • Pro-rate options are available for late starts for this class only.

Click here to register for any of the Adult Playwriting Classes

5 Questions With Emilie Beck

2011-12-16T16:29:00.004-05:00

Our final reading of the FORUM series for 2011 is SOVEREIGN BODY by Emilie Beck. This reading will be held on Sunday, December 18, 7:00pm, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

Emilie Beck’s play, Sovereign Body, was a finalist for National New Play Network’s Smith Prize and Ashland New Plays Festival, and was seen in Road Theatre’s Summer Playwrights Festival. Number of People was in Playwrights Theatre’s 2010 Forum Series, with Len Cariou, having been previously developed at Pasadena Playhouse and Hartford Stage with Edward Asner. It received its world premiere at the Piven Theatre. As a director, Emilie directed the Jeff-Award winning production of Because They Have No Words in Chicago and LA, and won LA Weekly awards for Best Director and Production for Block Nine at the Elephant Theatre.

1. What inspired you to write Sovereign Body?
My aunt has been living with advanced Parkinson's Disease for about 30 years. She started getting symptoms when her second child was just a baby. The feelings and responses it brought up within our family were surprising and varied. For myself, I found that I was so angry on her behalf, with no one to whom I could direct that anger. I'd been wanting to write about it for a long time, but I knew I needed a portal that took me to a more layered place than writing about a woman who gets sick. I started to read literature that had been written by Parkinson's patients, and, to a person, they all wrote about the feeling of being invaded. They would use some form of that word, "invaded" or "invasion." And it got me thinking on a larger level about what that means and how that feels in all its nuances. And, of course, during this time, we Americans have been invaders. We have attacked people, their homes, their families, and we have done it in a way that's politically justified by our government. And people, nations, clans have done it throughout history. I became fascinated by the way we feel in control of our bodies (this is a recurring theme for me) , and by extension, our homes, our countries, and resentful of any "foreign invader." So Sovereign Body became a political play to me, even though on the surface it's about a woman and her family and an illness.

2. You are also a director, do you prefer one over the other?
I enjoy both writing and directing. I think they speak to the different sides of my personality. As a director, I love the collaboration involved. I love the process of discovery, and the interdependence of all the artists working to bring dimension to a script. It's an exciting journey, and I get a lot of fulfillment in seeing what the designers and the actors are able to mine, and then figuring out how all of it lives in one cohesive vision. It piques the social, gregarious side of me. On the other side, I love the process of squirreling myself away with a million books, researching, soaking up ideas, and then allowing those to play out in characters and a story that speak from within me. I am not a fast writer. Or rather, I start out of the gate with speed, and as I go along I realize how much I don't yet know, and the journey becomes sort-of like going through a maze, where you actually want to hit the dead-ends because you learn so much from going there. You want to explore the whole maze, even though 9 out of 10 of those paths take you in the wrong direction. It's only by going there that I find the story I actually want to tell. So it's solitary and slow, and allows me to feed the side of myself that craves isolation. I find that balancing the work of a director with that of a writer is actually healthier for me than leaning more one way or another. It gives me sort-of a heavy pendulum experience, where I can take a break from the challenges of one approach by diving into the complete opposite.

3. What was your first job? Did you learn any valuable lessons from it?
My first job of any substance was as a waitress in a local diner when I was 15. I had been a pretty shy kid, pretty down on myself most of the time. There was something romantic about being a waitress to me at that point. (I've now had enough experience with it that I don't remember why I ever felt that way.) And it was hard at first. I had a lot of trouble balancing my time and remembering what dressing someone asked for. But I would work the counter, and these characters would come in from a nearby halfway house, and I remember one guy in particular who you couldn't understand; there was no way to decipher his speech. At first he was really annoyed with me that I didn't know his order, and we had to go back and forth until I finally figured it out. But then I realized he came in every week at the same time, and I would have his order ready for him. We couldn't speak, but we could communicate, and I got that you could effectively change a relationship based on how much effort you were willing to put in. It took me a long time to take that lesson out of the restaurant, but it's something that I carry with me. That not all people are good communicators, and sometimes you just need to show some good faith to let them know that you'll listen until you get it.

4. Who was your childhood hero and why?
I could answer with Maria Tallchief, or Gene Kelly, and both of those would be true. But my constant hero -- someone I still admire -- is and was my next-door neighbor growing up: Liz Wittner. She's two years older than I am, so I think I was alternately a friend and a pest in her eyes, at least before we were adults. But to me she was the nicest, smartest, most beautiful person I knew. I wanted to be just like her. She had a way of making everyone around her feel comfortable. She was funny and warm and empathic. If a little bit of her has rubbed off on me in any way, I'm pretty happy about that. I know that I'm not nearly as nice as she is, and despite my best efforts I seem to have a much more threatening presence, but every once in a while my husband will say to me, "You sound just like Liz," and I'll feel really proud. She's still my dearest friend, and one of the best people I know.

5. What movie always makes you laugh out loud?
Sleeper. I actually haven't seen it in ages, but I have a really wonderful memory of my little brother and I, late one night, having dragged a tiny little black-and-white TV into his room, sitting with our pillows on our laps so that we could smother our laughs and not wake our parents up while we watched it. I'm also a big fan of Buster Keaton, and I think Woody Allen's work in Sleeper was reminiscent of Keaton's work. These days my laughs come mostly from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Eddie Izzard and Louis CK can also make me gasp for air.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see SOVEREIGN BODY at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

5 Questions with Frank Deford

2011-12-16T15:31:00.008-05:00

Our next to last reading of the 2011 FORUM series is TILL DEATH DO US PARTLY by Frank Deford. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

Frank Deford is author of seventeen books, ten of them novels, two filmed screenplays, hundreds of magazine articles. NPR commentator, Wednesdays on Morning Edition; senior correspondent on HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. Winner: Peabody Award, National Magazine Award, Emmy; member of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Former chairman, now chairman emeritus: Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. As they say in sports: out of Westport, Connecticut. Lovely wife: Carol. Two children: Christian and Scarlet. One grandchild: Annabel. Writes: right-handed. 6'4", 180. Huguenot-American.

1. What inspired you to write Till Death Do Us Partly?
I suspect "inspired" is too high-falutin' a word for what prompted me to write Till Death Do Us Partly. Without giving the ending away, let me just say that I read how somebody did something for posterity like what my hero pulls off in secret. Besides, I'm a romantic, and I love love stories and good old-fashioned drawing-room comedies (although I guess, with concessions to the modern: a "family-room" comedy).

2. You say you write right-handed. Do you also only type with your right?
No, I use both hands to type, but I probably use my right index finger for about three-quarters of the board (over to the "r" on the top row) and the left index finger the rest (including a;; those e's and s's). Unfortunately, I have terrible hand-eye coordination and almost no left-hand dexterity (or I would've been a much better basketball player as a kid).

3. In addition to being a playwright, you are also a book author, a screenwriter and a magazine article writer. Do you have the same process for each? If not, how does your process differ?
Process: pretty much the same for whatever I'm working on. Fiction, be it novel, movie, play, requires a more dedicated time. Because you need to get so immersed in the characters and the story you're creating, you can't just lay down fiction and pick it up again a few days later the way you can non-fiction. You have to stay in the story. When I'm writing a commentary for NPR or a script for HBO that I'll be speaking myself, then I'm more conscious of writing for the ear than the eye. Then I write as I talk –– which is very much how I write fictional dialogue, but, of course, then it will be someone else saying my words. Still, I don't just write out dialogue, but read it out loud to myself to hear how it sounds.

4. Who is your favorite sports team?
I grew up in Baltimore, so, hard as it is, I still stick with my Orioles. In Till Death To Us Partly, the two brothers want to own a small racing stable together. I wish I had the money for that. I did have a thoroughbred named after he once, but Frank Deford, the horse, was a loser.

5. What would people be surprised to know about you?
I don't play golf.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see TILL DEATH DO US PARTLY at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

5 Questions With Peter Bonilla

2011-12-16T11:15:00.004-05:00

The 21st reading in our FORUM series is A HUMAN EQUATION by Peter Bonilla. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

Peter Bonilla was literary manager of Philadelphia's InterAct Theatre Company from 2005 to 2008. Originally from Washington, D.C., Peter received his undergraduate degrees in theater arts and economics from the University of Pennsylvania. For A Human Equation, his first play, Peter received a 2008 playwriting fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. A Human Equation was developed at PlayPenn in 2008, with Academy Award-nominated actor David Strathairn reading the role of Kenneth Feinberg. A Human Equation was also a finalist for the National New Play Network's Smith Prize, and received its world premiere in September 2011 in an acclaimed production by the Winding Road Theatre Ensemble (Tucson, AZ).

1. What inspired you to write A HUMAN EQUATION?
September 11 happened on my third or fourth day of college, and very soon after I worked on a college production of the first part of Angels in America, which was my first taste of theatre's potential to be a mirror of society at a particular moment in time. So for years after September 11 I would casually wonder about how the playwriting community would respond to the tragedy, but it never really did. I think this is for a number or reasons. Firstly, I think that things in America just moved exceptionally quickly after 9/11, and from having worked as a literary manager, I can attest to the fact that playwrights became far more interested in the post 9/11 American experience, writing plays about Homeland Security, the War on Terror, and especially about the Iraq war. We largely skipped September 11, though not out of any ill-intent; I think it was a confounding topic from a playwriting perspective, how to get something that could get at the scale of the tragedy without being cliched and obvious, and telling a story people already think they know.

The story of the September 11 compensation fund, when I learned about it, seemed to provide the perfect window into America's 9/11 experience, with the experiences of thousands filtered through the lens of one person having to try and make some sense of it all. Better, it was something that I think most Americans were only minimally aware of, and I know I wasn't aware of it at all, so it had the potential to be a genuine learning experience. I remember exactly when I had the idea for it--it was September 11, 2005, when I caught a retrospective of the fund and of Kenneth Feinberg's experience as special master on 60 Minutes. This was incredibly naive to think at the time, given that I had never written a play, but it never occurred to me that anyone else would write it.

2. This is your first play. Do you plan to write more?
I am in the very beginning stages of conceptualizing a new play, which I think is my favorite part. The working idea is that the next play I want to write will be on one level about the political and economic forces involved in getting a history textbook approved by a state school board, but on a deeper level about the politicization of history and the enormous (and largely unseen) struggle just to decide how it should be presented, and how we compromise our standards in the process. I have ideas for a couple of others, but this is what's on my mind now. We'll see if I'm actually able to articulate all the thoughts on it that in my head seem so promising.

3. You have undergraduate degrees in theatre arts and economics, does this make you both right and left brained?
Maybe it does, though I guess you'd be better off asking someone who has known me a long time. In high school I was more oriented in the classroom towards math and science-related subjects. I started doing theater at my parents' suggestion, because I was pretty shy and very introverted then (I'm marginally less shy now, and every bit as introverted still) and it seemed like a good way to meet people. It took, and I ended up doing theater through college. Economics I added later because I missed exercising my quantitative side and wanted to push myself a little harder.

When it comes to a fundamentally creative activity like playwriting, I'm not sure from only having written one play which side of my brain is the driving force. I sketch out everything longhand on notepads because I've found that to be more organic and conducive to bursts of creativity and general free-association (that blinking cursor on the screen is just the loneliest thing on Earth), but I also know that to a great extent with A Human Equation I had to be very analytic (especially later in the process) when writing it, because it has so many small parts and short scenes and each of them has to work just right with all of the others. At many times it certainly didn't feel like a very creative process; it was a lot more like problem-solving, and seeing how changing certain variables affected the whole piece.

4. What is your favorite website?
The Onion, whose satire I think has more content than almost any other news site there is. The quality of much print journalism and nearly all television news not produced by the BBC is so appalling, dishonest, and content-free that I don't generally make much time for it, though somehow through osmosis I manage to stay decently informed. There are some good sites I do read regularly (Slate, The Atlantic, The Economist, and Reason, namely) but no question The Onion tops my list; it simultaneously captures the zeitgeist and is great escapism.

5. If you could tour with any band, who would that be?
I became a huge fan of the band Boston when I was younger, and saw them perform live in 2003. I'd have to say them. I would love to be on the keyboards for one of their epic organ solos. This would require me to learn to acquire some musical talent, though. Otherwise I'd do some relatively low-skills backup work for the alt-country/folk singer Neko Case, just to be able to listen to her every night. Great songwriter, great musician, unforgettable voice, and a lover of greyhounds. If I ran the Catholic Church, she'd have been a saint yesterday just on that last point.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see A HUMAN EQUATION at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

5 Questions With James Christy

2011-12-15T10:06:00.004-05:00

The 20th reading in our FORUM series is EGYPTIAN SONG by James Christy. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

James’ full length plays include Never Tell (published by Playscripts in 2007), Love and Communication (Playpenn Conference, produced by Passage Theatre in 2010), A Great War (reading at Luna Stage in 2010). His short play Creep won the Actors Theater of Louisville's Heideman Award for best short play in 2001. A reading of Egyptian Song was part of the Premiere Stages festival in June 2011.

1. What inspired you to write Egyptian Song?
I can’t point my finger at one thing that inspired Egyptian Song. My best friend growing up was from Lebanon, so I grew up around this house that had a middle eastern influence. Eventually I read about the singer Omm Kulthum, and I was fascinated with the idea of a female figure that loomed so large in a culture in which men hold most of the external power. I read more about her childhood and this story emerged, not about her life at all, but about a young girl with a similar gift whose life goes in another direction.

2. What do you enjoy most about playwriting?
Well, you’re sort of playing God when you write plays. You can create these little alternative worlds based on whatever you have kicking around in your head. But the fun part is when you get into a story and it takes on a life of its own, the characters start to surprise you and take you in different directions then where you expected.

3. What is your favorite play and why?
I’m a big fan of Stoppard and recently re-read Arcadia. I just really appreciate how deeply he gets into a subject, he’s unafraid of big ideas, but always theatrical. The way he uses spaces is pretty brilliant too.

4. What movie could you watch over and over?
Raising Arizona. Know that movie way too well.

5. What is the best new gadget you recently tried?
Playwrights can’t afford new gadgets. We buy other peoples 2nd hand gadgets on craigslist.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see EGYPTIAN SONG at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

5 Questions With Suzanne Bradbeer

2011-12-13T15:22:00.004-05:00

The 19th reading in our FORUM series is Suzanne Bradbeer's SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS. This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

Suzanne’s work has been developed and produced at theatres around the country, including Barrington Stage Company, the New Harmony Project, Stamford Center for the Arts, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Lark, and City Theatre of Miami. Current projects include Devil In The Details, God In The Game: an election year drama about the intersection of faith and politics; and Naked Influence, recently workshopped at the Dorset Theatre Festival. Her play Okoboji will shortly be published in a new Smith & Kraus anthology. Suzanne is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Actors Studio P/D Unit, the BMI Workshop, and the Dramatists Guild.

1. What inspired you to write Shakespeare in Vegas?
I was commissioned to write a short play with the theme of ‘theft’ for The Drilling Company in New York City. In thinking about theft, I decided to write about one actor stealing a scene from another and I felt that it should be an actor with a small role stealing a scene from the lead. Cleopatra and her handmaiden seemed like good candidates for this. That short play (FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE NILE) is now the second scene in SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS, and I so loved the characters in that original play that I decided to expand it to a full length.

2. What is your favorite Shakespeare play and why?
I think my favorite Shakespeare play is MACBETH – at least that’s the one that I go back and reread the most often. It’s a great play to learn from – a fast moving story with great stakes; it’s theatrical, exciting, there’s even a little humor, and it has some of the most gorgeous, gorgeous language. That said, I have seen about five different productions of MACBETH and none of them have quite lived up to what I imagine it could be. Someday.

My favorite Shakespeare that I’ve actually seen is probably Fiasco Theater’s CYMBELINE, currently being produced by Theatre for a New Audience. Go see it! It’s magical and surprising, and full of playful energy. Also, there was a fantastic production of TROILUS AND CRESSIDA at the Royal Shakespeare Company that I saw about 20 years ago: it was both desperately sad and side-splittingly funny. I still think about it sometimes.

3. What do you enjoy most about being a playwright?
A good day of writing is satisfying like almost nothing else I’ve ever known.

4. Have you been to Vegas? Did you win big?
I have been to Vegas and I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t even gamble. Okay, my friend Cat and I put one penny in a slot machine just as we were leaving. I meant to gamble, I really did! But we were so busy just exploring downtown and the Strip and finding places for cocktails…that we forgot to gamble. One of my favorite parts of Vegas is the Old Sign Graveyard – which is exactly what it sounds like.

Incidentally, Cat and I were in Vegas Easter weekend, which, that year, also happened to be the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. So Easter morning, April 4, we sat in our room at the Trump Hotel (thank you, Priceline) and played and replayed U2’s Pride (In The Name Of Love) and talked about MLK, and God, and loss and hope. It turned out to be an unusual but very moving and memorable way to spend Easter.

5. Do you prefer coffee or tea? Is it part of your creative process?
I PREFER COFFEE!!!! It is definitely part of my creative process. It’s the first thing I do in the morning and that first sip of the day never fails to make me happy. I love coffee so much, I’m going to go have some more right now.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

5 Questions With Dominique Cieri

2011-12-12T11:34:00.004-05:00

The 18th reading in our FORUM series is SAFE by Dominique Cieri which will be presented on Tuesday, December 13, beginning at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.

Domnique Cieri is the recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Playwriting Fellowship 2003, and 2009. A graduate of Rose Bruford College, England, and recipient of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Medal of Excellence for Scholarship and Creative Activities. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College, Vermont. Ms. Cieri’s plays have been produced and developed in New Jersey, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Pitz & Joe is currently under contract with Warner Brothers. Her newest play, Safe will have its first reading at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey where she is also developing a new play in New Jersey Women’s Playwrights Project.

1. What inspired you to write Safe?
The question of Nature verses Nurture and working with boys who struggle against all odds- are they going to make it?

2. You are also a teaching artist. What do you think is the most valuable lesson you can teach your students?
To fully realize their potential.

3. Pitz & Joe is currently under contract with Warner Brothers. What plans are underway for developing this?
The script has been penned and Josh Brolin will be directing and starring.

4. What is your favorite book and why?
This is the most difficult question because there are far too many. I love Julia Alvarez, Mikal Gilmore's Shot in the Heart. I just finished reading Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks - (The Sweet Hereafter - a great book and screenplay) his sentences move like a freight train and when reading his work you're on that train and you're not getting off- he portrays parts of America and its outcasts that nobody else will touch.

5. What is the oldest thing in your refrigerator?
Definitely the ices cubes.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see SAFE at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

CONNECTED by Lia Romeo - 17th Reading in FORUM Series

2011-12-12T11:09:00.005-05:00

The 17th reading is our FORUM series is CONNECTED by Lia Romeo. The reading will be held tonight, December 12, 7pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ.

Lia Romeo is a playwright, novelist, and humor book author. She earned her B.A. from Princeton University and her M.F.A in playwriting from Rutgers, ending up with staggering quantities of student loans and no marketable skills whatsoever. She managed to secure a part-time job writing standardized test questions, and spends the rest of her time writing plays and novels and daydreaming about pretty shoes.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see CONNECTED at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

A One Act Play by Nicky Glossman

2011-12-09T13:42:00.005-05:00

Our night of one-act plays on December 11, 2011, includes a new play from Nicky Glossman. His play DEVIL, the 16th in our FORUM reading series, will be held 7pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.

Nicky Glossman’s first full-length play, What About Waldorf?, was performed in workshop at Luna Stage, as was his play The Professional, with casts including Edward Asner & Jay O. Sanders; Legion, about a high-school student organization in crisis, will be performed at Luna in March 2012. He recently co-wrote his first film, and appeared as Tim in Eric Bogosian’s SubUrbia. He appeared at Playwrights in a reading of Orwell in Utica opposite Tony-award-winner Len Cariou. Devil won First Place in Samuel French Inc’s national young playwriting competition, and will be published this fall by Baker’s Plays, a division of Samuel French.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see DEVIL at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

5 Questions With Yasmine Rana

2011-12-09T10:47:00.005-05:00

On Sunday, December 11, 2011, we will have an evening of one-act plays. Two of those plays will be by Yasmine Rana. The 14th play in our FORUM reading series is HOW I THOUGHT THE MILONGA WOULD SAVE ME and the 15th is BLASPHEME. These plays will be presented on Sunday, December 11, 7:00pm, at Fairleigh Dickinson, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.

Yasmine's book The War Zone is My Bed and Other Plays was published this year by Seagull Books and University of Chicago Press. Other publications include Blackbird, The Kenyon Review, and TDR The Drama Review. The title play of the book, The War Zone is My Bed was recently produced in Los Angeles at Write Act Repertory Theater.

1. What inspired you to write How I Thought the Milonga Would Save Me & Blaspheme?
I studied Argentinian tango several years ago, enjoyed it, but later quit due to the time constraints life presents. Last year, I returned to tango with what I hoped would be a deeper commitment to learning this dance. I would attend milongas to practice and met many interesting partners, dance partners of course. The experience began to resemble personal relationships, particularly the idea of revealing a different side of oneself for a different partner; some preferred the close embrace while others the open one, though the close embracers were the majority of dance partners I had. Sadly, I have quit tango again and have now taken up boxing, perhaps as a result of tangoing. Maybe my next play will be about a boxer who also does the tango.

I wrote Blaspheme after Milonga. Though I do love the comedy discovered in romantic entanglements, my home base as a writer is human rights issues. I wanted to explore an interrogation and was intrigued by the notion of single word as the source of a blasphemous charge.

On further reflection I saw both plays as a dance: the former a dance of pleasure and a quest in seeking the "ideal" partner, and the latter being a dance for survival.

2. Can you tell us a little about your job as a registered drama therapist?
In addition to being a creative arts therapist, I am an English as a Second Language teacher, and it's been wonderful incorporating creative drama into language learning. The joy has been hearing my students respond to a piece of literature we read in class; there's a sense of gratitude in having read a particular work that is now part of their history as learners. As a writer, I've meditated on the meaning of gratitude and how it is a part of my craft and being: I am grateful to theater companies, directors, actors, publishers, and audience members for having given me their time and sometimes their trust.

3. How has working with refugees in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republic of Georgia and Switzerland played a role in your writing?
Although it's been twelve years since my time in Sarajevo, I know my experience practicing drama therapy in that environment is embedded in my writing. What I took away from that journey was a profound respect for resiliency and for the desire to uphold human dignity even in the most calamitous circumstances.

4. What do you enjoy most about being a playwright?
What I enjoy most about being a playwright is hearing and seeing the different interpretations of my work. I've heard actors and directors from the United States and Europe present my plays and each production or reading is a bit of an epiphany for me

5. If you could have a superpower what would it be and why?
I have just finished teaching my high school ESL students Ernest J. Gaines' quiet masterpiece A Lesson Before Dying. To me, Gaines' work is a meditation on equality and justice, with basic humanity at the core of everything. If I possessed superpowers I would eradicate injustice.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see HOW I THOUGHT THE MILONGA WOULD SAVE ME and BLASPHEME at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

5 Questions with Judah Skoff

2011-12-05T10:49:00.005-05:00

The 13th reading in the FORUM series is THE GRASSHOPPER WAY by Judah Skoff. The reading will take place on Saturday, December 10, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. The reading will begin at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

Judah Skoff graduated from Brown University where he studied English and playwriting. He won the National Playwriting Competition, two New Jersey Governor's Awards in the Arts, the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest, and has been a finalist in numerous competitions. His plays have been performed at theatres and festivals around the country, including Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey, the Abingdon Theatre, the State Theatre of New Jersey, the Salon, the Theatre-Studio, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, New York University, and Pace University. Judah's writing has been published in Red Ochre Lit and Red River Review.

1. What inspired you to write The Grasshopper Way?
The Grasshopper Way is about the abyss which opens up when loved ones leave. It begins after a mother, Lily, has inexplicably abandoned her young adult daughters. They must decide whether to look for her and try to repair their family, or move off on their own. But it’s also about the occult and the forbidden allure of ancient ritual. It features a rabbi who has lost his faith and a young woman who has psychic visions. Ultimately it’s about spiritual anxiety and the choices we must make in a cold and indifferent world.

In this respect I wanted to write a horror play, which is very hard to do. But it is not horror in the exploitative sense. Rather, I hope it has more in common with classic writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James, where the overwhelming feeling a reader walks away with is unspecifiable dread, along with fear and awe towards the vast, sometimes cruel unknown.

2. You are a former New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest winner, what was your play about that you entered into the contest?
Having won the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest, sponsored by Playwrights Theatre, and now all these years later coming full circle by having my third play performed at FORUM, is tremendously gratifying. I have to thank my great friend and mentor, Playwrights Theatre’s artistic director John Pietrowski, for that unique opportunity.

My winning play, a one-act called Two Boxes, was an absurdist piece about a man guarding an undefined space (for reasons he can’t remember), from another man who seeks to cross that space (for reasons he does not know). It was heavily influenced by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, two writers I read compulsively during high school. They were a kind of religion for me, and I studied their work as a rabbi studies the Talmud.

The play I am currently working on is called The Man From Box. It is an expansion and development of the themes and story of Two Boxes. It is set in the suburban house of a young couple. One day a stranger knocks on the door, claiming to have lived in their home and seeking to stay with them. I hope to bring The Man From Box to Playwrights Theatre when it is complete. I think that would really bring us full circle!

3. How many full length plays have you written? How many one-acts?
I have written four full-length plays and am about halfway through a fifth (the above noted The Man From Box). I’m pleased to say that three of the four have had (or will have) readings at Playwrights Theatre. Without anyone looking, Playwrights Theatre has become my artistic home. This is something that every playwright hopes to find. It’s a testament to how encouraging Playwrights Theatre is to new writers.

I can’t remember how many one-acts I’ve written, since I began writing them at age fifteen. But it was my success with one-act plays---their winning contests and getting produced at various theatres---that gave me the encouragement and confidence to continue playwriting.

4. What do you enjoy most about playwriting?
Enjoy is not a word I generally use to describe playwriting, but seeing a play up on stage in front of an audience is most satisfying.

5. What is the last book that you read?
I can’t name only one when so many recent books are still buzzing in my head. I’m a longtime student of theology, and so I recently read Rabbi Arthur Green’s marvelously heterodoxical Radical Judaism. Although I disagree with many of Green’s conclusions, his learned and insightful book is a powerful argument for religion in the scientific, modern world. It also has the best description of “religious experience” I’ve ever read. I also just finished Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. Count me among those who believe this book to be, perhaps, the finest English-language novel of the last twenty-five years. I am currently reading British playwright Mark Ravenill’s Collected Plays: Volume 2. Ravenhill came to prominence in the middle nineties amidst an explosion and revitalization of British theatre. This second collection of plays cements his reputation and supports the argument that he is filling the theatrical void left by Pinter. What can I say? He is, quite simply, one of the best.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see THE GRASSHOPPER WAY at at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (if you are going to attend at least 3 readings in the series---this is the best deal)

5 Questions With Dania Ramos

2011-12-01T11:24:00.003-05:00

The 12th reading in our FORUM series is ROOM 30 by Dania Ramos who has worked with Playwrights Theatre as a teaching artist, an actor and a director in the Madison Young Playwrights Festival and New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival.

The reading will take place on Friday, December 9, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. The reading will begin at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

Dania’s plays have been featured in the Rose City Project at PTNJ, the Playwrights Summer Institute at NJCU and Luna Stage's On the Road educational series. She’s a current participant in the NJ Emerging Women’s Playwriting Project at PTNJ. Dania received a 2003 NJSCA Playwriting Fellowship and a 2011 Norman Mailer Center Young Adult Fiction Workshop Scholarship. She’s a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, and Actors Equity Association. Dania holds an MA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University and a BFA in Theatre Performance from Montclair State University.

1. What inspired you to write Room 30?
I’ve stayed at several old-fashioned inns and I’ve always felt as if each guestroom held stories of others who had spent time there. I started picturing unexpected characters in these quaint settings—desperate misfits seeking refuge for various reasons. Eventually three connected storylines emerged, each set in a different decade, with characters reaching across time to affect one another.

2. Being a teaching artist, what do you think is the most valuable attribute you bring to the students that you teach?
Validation of their creativity. I find it fascinating to see where their imaginations lead them—often my students are surprised at how excited I get about some wild idea or a wacky character they’ve created.

3. You also direct and act. Do you think when you are writing that you come at it from a writer’s perspective, an actor’s or a director’s?
I think having a background in other areas of theatre informs my writing but I don’t deliberately approach playwriting with an actor’s or director’s perspective. I’ve found that being concerned with interpretation and production elements too early in the process can hinder the development of a play. When I’m drafting a script, the story and characters rule.

4. What is the worst advice you ever received?
Just wing it.

5. When you were 10, what did you want to be?
Olympic gold-medalist in gymnastics and an astronaut.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see ROOM 30 at at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)

5 Questions with Ben Clawson

2011-11-30T11:05:00.004-05:00

Our 11th FORUM reading playwright is no stranger to fans of StrangeDog. Theatre Company, a small group of award-winning young theater artists intent on developing and performing original, diverse work in a variety of genres and mediums, drawing new audiences throughout the New Jersey and New York areas.

THE BLAIRSBURG FAMILY PICNIC by Ben Clawson will be presented on Thursday, December 8, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ. The reading will begin at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

Ben Clawson received his B.F.A. in Theater from Montclair State University, NJ in May of 2007. He is the author of numerous full length and one act plays that have had professional productions, readings and workshops in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. and New Orleans. He has been an evening winner and finalist in the Samuel French Short Play festival, finalist for the Princess Grace Award in playwriting, and recipient of the Kennedy Center's David Mark Cohen award. He is a founding member of the StrangeDog. Theater Company, with whom he has produced many of his plays.

1. What inspired you to write Blairsburg Family Picnic?
The town of Blairsburg depicted in the play is very loosely based on where my grandparents live in Western Pennsylvania. I spent a lot of time there as a kid, so that area has a very particular and unique feeling for me. It seemed the match well with the story of the play.

2. You are a founding member of StrangeDog.Theatre Company. What are the advantages/disadvantages of working with friends and fellow Montclair State University graduates?
The advantage is that we've really grown to having a specific style of how we work together, and everyone trusts in each other very much. It's of course a lot of of fun to go to work with your friends, and when you make as little money as we do at StrangeDog it's important to be having fun. While I wouldn't quite call it a disadvantage, it's also nice to have opportunies to branch out and work with other people and theatre companies, to keep everything fresh.

3. What is your favorite play or book and why?
That's a tough one. No way I could name a single play. I really like American Buffalo by David Mamet. And Becket's Godot. And the plays of Martin McDonagh, Jez Butterworth. Tennessee Williams. And the book Jurassic Park is awesome.

4. What advice would you give to young playwrights?
Uh. Write. Write, write, write, write, write. Once you do it enough you start to figure out what exactly that means to you and how you want to go about it.

5. What is the App that you wish you could invent?
I can sometimes be a bit of a Luddite, so by "app" I'm going to choose that you mean appetizer. And I'd like to invent an appetizer that kind of combined buffalo wings and jalapeno poppers. Maybe the jalapeno popper is inside the buffalo wing? Could some one work that out? Or french fries filled with mashed potatoes and gravy. That'd be pretty brilliant too.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see BLAIRSBURG FAMILY PICNIC at at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)

5 Questions with Richard Reiss

2011-11-28T17:21:00.005-05:00

The 10th reading in the FORUM reading series is DESPERATE LOVE by Richard Reiss.

This reading will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ on Wednesday, December 7 at 7:00pm. Click here for directions. Click here for a printable map of the campus (the Dreyfuss Theatre is located in Building 9).

Richard Reiss is the Senior Vice President for University Advancement at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His writing has been published in the New York Times, ADDitude Magazine, Perigee Literary Journal, and in the anthology, Upstart Crows II: True Stories, published by Wide Array Press. In 2008 Reiss collaborated with director and lyricist, Martin Charnin, to create the musical revue Love is Love. In the 1990’s his column, Reiss’s Pieces, for Forbes Newspapers, was recognized by the New Jersey Press Association. Desperate Love, the play, is based on the memoir of the same name and will be published by Serving House Books in fall 2011.

1. What inspired you to write Desperate Love?
I wanted to tell my story so that people could understand what it was like to live with an oppositionally defiant child. And I wanted the parents of a child like mine to know that they are not alone. As parents we struggle as much as our children. We confront love and faith and God, and there isn’t always an answer or even resolution. It’s a subject that’s not really talked about a lot, and I wanted to confront it head on.

2. You collaborated with director and lyricist, Martin, Charnin, to create the musical review Love is Love, can you tell us a little about how that collaboration process worked?
Martin had seen a piece I had written in the Modern Love column of the New York Times about my son called Sending a Lost Boy to the Wilderness to Find Himself. He approached several writers of his favorite Modern Love columns and asked some of us to write new pieces for a new musical revue he was creating. I was in the middle of working on my memoir and sent him some chapters that I thought might work once he described the concept of the show to me, which was a combination of songs and soliloquies about different aspects of love. So we edited one of the chapters I had written from the memoir and it became a very moving soliloquy in the show, paired with a very beautiful song.

3. What compelled you to become a playwright?
It was actually Martin Charnin, who had read an early draft of my memoir of the same name, that suggested I write a play. I told him I knew nothing about play writing, and he told me that I should just start writing and he would help me with the structure. I floated a lot by Martin once I conceptualized the play in my head. I really enjoyed writing the play. Everything in the book is 100% true, but the play is a fictionalized version of events so I could play with the characters and the dialogue. And, of course, I learned that prose does not always or easily translate into interesting dialog. I’m still learning.

4. What was your column about in the Piscataway Dunellen Review?
The Piscataway Dunellen Review was a small town newspaper owned by Forbes. At the time, Forbes owned more than twenty local newspapers in New Jersey. I don’t believe that’s still the case. I wrote a humor column called Reiss’s Pieces. It often appeared in all of the papers so after a while I had a nice following in Central New Jersey. It was a great experience and taught me how to be disciplined as a writer. It not so easy writing a 750 word humor column every week.

5. What is the best play or musical you have ever seen?
I still love West Side Story. I think I was ten when I first saw it. If only all gangs could sing and dance?

Click here to purchase a ticket to see DESPERATE LOVE at at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)

5 Questions With Carrie Louise Nutt

2011-11-17T13:44:00.004-05:00

The 9th reading in our FORUM series is LSD by Carrie Louise Nutt which will be presented on Tuesday, December 6, beginning at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ.

Carrie Louise Nutt’s play Agua was a 2010 O’Neill semi-finalist. It was developed during her NNPN Emerging Playwright Residency at PNTJ. When Gods Walk the Earth was part of the Great Plains Theatre Conference PlayLabs, received Tulsa University’s “Best New Works for Young Women” award, and was recently produced at Manhattan Rep. Carrie is published in One on One: The Best Men’s Monologues for the 21st Century by Applause. She is a member of DGA and PWC. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers. Recently, she received a new play commission from MCTVS. http://web.me.com/carrienutt/Site/About_Me.html

1. What inspired you to write LSD?
I became interested in government drug experimentation while I was researching for a different play. I ended up stumbling across two stories in particular that jumped out at me. One was centered around a young scientist who died under unclear circumstances and the other story was about a patient admitted to a psychiatric hospital who reported being experimented on. I began to get a picture of a time where Cold War paranoia drove people to do things to others that they should not have. It set up a dynamic where anything was permissible for the greater good. I felt that had resonance for us today.

2. Can you tell us a little about your new play commission from MCTVS?
MCTVS has commissioned me to write a one-act play for their theatre students. I was asked to come onboard for this school year as a Guest Artist. I will teach as well as put together a play for the students to perform. This play will go up in March alongside several other commissions and a handful of student plays in a festival that MCTVS is producing.

3. What is your favorite play or book and why?
My favorite book is Blindness because Jose Saramago understand the difference between civility and savagery. The only difference between the civilized and the uncivilized is the availability of resources. You take that away and it is surprising what people will do.

4. How long have you been writing?
Since I was in elementary school. I used to read Nancy Drew, and then stay up late writing my own mystery novels.

5. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
The Hunger Games. It's a great trilogy. It's total pop culture, adrenaline junkie trash, but I love it for how well it wraps the reader into the action and the love triangle.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see LSD at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)

5 Questions with Russell Davis

2011-11-16T16:42:00.003-05:00

THEATRE FOR YOUR MOTHER: THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SHOW is appropriate for the entire family.

This FORUM reading will be held at The Growing Stage on Sunday, December 4 at 1:00pm and later that day at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Russell Davis' plays have been produced at various theatres, including People's Light & Theatre, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Yale Repertory, Long Wharf and Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. He was resident playwright at People's Light for the Theatre Residency Program of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group. He was a recipient of a 2008-10 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and has received playwright fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, McKnight Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He is also a juggler.

1. What inspired you to write Theatre For Your Mother: The Little Red Riding Hood Show?
People's Light & Theatre Company produced an English Pantomime some years ago and I loved how the actors talked and argued with the audience. This seemed to fit nicely with the Little Red Riding Hood story, where the Wolf, Little Red, the Mother and Grandmother could all have contesting versions of the same story. It seemed an excellent opportunity to tell a tale for children and also to question it as an adult.

2. Can you tell our audience what it means to be a resident playwright?
It means that rehearsal space is available when I need it as a playwright or juggler. It means that once in awhile they'll produce a play of mine, or certainly think about it. It's a tremendous resource actually in terms of having folks, such as actors, designers, directors, to talk with about the various projects we're each working on.

3. How does your juggling help your playwriting process?
I would not be a functioning playwright if I had not learned to juggle. It sounds silly but juggling taught me how to be disciplined. It taught me how to work on something, and to keep at it over and over. You can't kid, or lie to, yourself as a juggler. Either you're learning and progressing or you're not and, either way, it's plainly visible.

4. What do you love most about being a playwright?
I love how never ending it is. The more you think you know the more you realize actually you don't know.

5. Which do you prefer chips or pretzels?
Neither, actually. But if I were in prison and had to choose, I'd choose pretzels.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see THEATRE FOR YOUR MOTHER: THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SHOW at The Growing Stage.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see THEATRE FOR YOUR MOTHER: THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SHOW at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
Children attend free (with a paying adult) to the December 4 reading at Fairleigh Dickinson.
THEATRE FOR YOUR MOTHER: THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SHOW is appropriate for the entire family.

5 Questions With Anne Negri

2011-11-15T15:11:00.006-05:00

The family friendly FORUM series of readings continues with Anne Negri's WITH TWO WINGS.

This reading will be held at The Growing Stage in Netcong, NJ on Saturday, December 3 at 1:00pm and again on that same day at 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Anne Negri is currently living in Evanston, Illinois working as a full-time drama teacher in the Evanston/Skokie School District 65, teaching 4th-8th grade students. She is a graduate of Arizona State University’s M.F.A. Theatre for Youth program. With Two Wings is her first full-length play, but other works include The Dancing Dog! and Faithful Adaptation. In addition to teaching and playwriting, Anne is a dramaturg, film buff, and puppet enthusiast.

1. What inspired you to write With Two Wings?
The original idea for With Two Wings came from realistic relationships in my immediate family. However, the world of the play, with humans who have wings and the ability to fly, came to me in a dream. I remember waking up and running to find a piece of paper to write down the ideas. I was also inspired by one of my favorite Greek myths, Icarus and Daedalus.

2. What do you love most about being a playwright?
There are two things that I really love about being a playwright. The first is that I love writing creatively, thinking of new stories that have never been told before. Second, I love collaborating with a creative team who have a passionate vision of how my plays can come to life.

3. What advice would you give to young playwrights?
Don’t stop writing creatively! At a certain point in high school and college, I was writing so many academic papers that I completely lost sight of the creative writer in me until my late 20s. My advice is to embrace and share your creative stories with others and to seek out local organization that might support your work.

4. What is your favorite play or book and why?
This is a really difficult question because I have so many favorites. One of my favorite books is The Little Prince. I’ve read, studied, and taught it in English and in French. I love the Prince as our protagonist and the strange journey he embarks upon. I think the story appeals to both adults and children in equal measure.

5. Given the choice between cake, cookies or candy, which would you choose?
Unfortunately for my teeth, I love candy. I love chocolate, licorice, caramel, and Lemonheads most of all!

Click here to purchase a ticket to see WITH TWO WINGS at The Growing Stage.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see WITH TWO WINGS at FDU.

You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
Children attend free (with a paying adult) to the December 3 reading at Fairleigh Dickinson.
WITH TWO WINGS is appropriate for the entire family.

5 Quesions with Joan Cushing

2011-11-09T17:17:00.007-05:00

Our FORUM series this year features three plays which are appropriate for the entire family. Joan Cushing's LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY kicks it off.

You can catch the reading of this play at The Growing Stage in Netcong, NJ, at 7:00pm on Thursday, December 1 or at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ at 7:00pm on Friday, December 2.

Joan Cushing is best known for writing and performing political satire in Wash, DC, more recently Cushing is adapting children's books as musicals, receiving over 350 productions. Works include Miss Nelson Is Missing! (winner, Nat’l Children’s Theatre Festival), Field Day, Junie B. Jones, Petite Rouge (NY Musical Theatre Festival), George and Martha, all commissioned by Imagination Stage, and Diary of a Worm, A Spider & a Fly, commissioned by Oregon Children’s Theatre. Others: The Christmas Doll, Nat’l Youth Theatre Award for Outstanding New Musical, Tussaud, based on Madame Tussaud’s bloody pursuit of art, and Breast In Show, a brand new musical about breast cancer. Representation by The Susan Gurman Agency. See http://www.joancushing.com/.

1. What inspired you to write Lizzie Bright And The Buckminster Boy?
The book had a really interesting title, it had won several prizes, and the synopsis was intriguing, including the fact that it was based on a true event. At the time, I was adapting “hot” children’s books as musicals for young kids. I was also raising a son and we listened to tons of audio books in the car. The books for young adults were the ones that grabbed us the most. After reading this book, I couldn’t get the story out of my head. At first, I didn’t see the book as a candidate for the musical stage. How would I capture the gorgeous descriptive language? And the main characters didn’t seem to me like characters who would sing. But over several months, I decided to try my hand at adapting it as a play.

2. What is your process for adapting children’s books as musicals?
In the early days, we worked by the seat of our pants. I just wrote the show, with some help from the theatre, in terms of plot synopsis, character development, the journey of the characters, cast size, and what we wanted to accomplish. Now I am commissioned two years out, and we always do a 4 to 5 day workshop a year in advance. That way we can work out the problems and make every line work. I develop most of my scripts with Imagination Stage. Janet Stanford (art. dir/playwright) and Kate Bryer (assoc. prod. dir.) are masters of development.

3. You have written and performed political satire in Washington, DC,do you prefer one over the other?
I never meant to stop writing satire, but my director (of 13 years) died and I was commissioned by Imagination Stage to write my first children’s musical, based on a popular children’s book, Miss Nelson Is Missing. To my great surprise, it was a huge hit. Then I adapted Junie B. Jones, which was an even bigger hit. Since then I have had nonstop commissons to write new musicals, but mostly for young kids. I keep meaning to get back to the satire, and occasionally perform, but mostly political roasts.

4. Tell us a little about your new musical about breast cancer?
A local woman interviewed 200 hundred breast cancer survivors and asked a playwright to write a script from the material, and me to write music and lyrics. Several months into the project, my husband Paul was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I dropped everything to take care him. The producer put off the project for a year to keep me on board, and after my husband died – 4 months later – I had something to say. I brought in Kate Bryer from Imagination Stage to direct and dramaturg. We mounted an initial production with sets, costumes, and orchestra for 2 nights. It got an overwhelming response, and requests for productions are multiplying. It was very healing for me, as I was able to take my husband’s death and turn it into something positive which will touch a lot of people.

5. Do you prefer coffee, tea or soda for your caffeine fix?
I go to Starbucks every day and order a tall skim no water chai. No coffee for me.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY at The Growing Stage.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY at FDU.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
Children attend free (with a paying adult) to the December 2 reading at Fairleigh Dickinson
LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY is appropriate for the entire family.

5 Questions with R. N. Sandberg

2011-11-09T11:35:00.012-05:00

As we gear up for the FORUM Roundtable Reading Series (November 29 - December 18, 2011), we asked our playwrights five questions to get to know them and the readings that will be presented a little better.

R. N. Sandberg's play CONVIVENCIA will be presented on Tuesday, November 29, 7:00pm at Fairleigh Dickinson, Dreyfuss Theatre in Madison, NJ and on Wednesday, November 30, 7:00pm at The Growing Stage, Netcong, NJ.

Sandberg’s plays have been seen in Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Panama, South Korea and throughout the U.S. He’s been commissioned by, among others, McCarter, Seattle Rep and Seattle Children’s Theatre. Current work includes IRL for George Street Playhouse, What Can’t Be Seen, developed at Passage Theater and Provincetown Playhouse, and Judgment of Bett, at Kennedy Center’s New Visions/New Voices. His plays are published by Playscripts and Dramatic Publishing. He teaches playwriting, acting and dramatic literature at Princeton University.

1. What inspired you to write CONVIVENCIA?
I'd been interested in Spanish history since I started studying Spanish as a teenager. A number of years ago, I was talking to a theater about writing a piece focused on the conflict in the Middle East when I came across a book entitled Convivencia. I was fascinated reading about the interactions among the cultures and religions in medieval Spain. It seemed an exciting way to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict from a different point of view.

2. How many full length plays have you written? How many one-acts?
About 25 full lengths and 20 short pieces.

3. What do you believe is the most valuable attribute you bring to the students you teach?
I set high standards but give them tons of support. But really you should ask them.

4. You've had plays produced outside of the USA, what is the major difference in production values that you experienced?
Unfortunately, I haven't seen almost any of the productions I've had overseas.

5. Do you have a favorite ice cream flavor?
No. If it's ice cream, I love it and I'll eat as much as you'll give me.

Click here to purchase a ticket to see CONVIVENCIA at FDU.
Click here to purchase a ticket to see CONVIVENCIA at The Growing Stage.
You can also find additional information on our website about the entire FORUM reading series.

$10 per reading
$25 for a FORUM pass (attend all 23 readings in the series)
Children attend free (with a paying adult) to the November 29 reading at Fairleigh Dickinson.
CONVIVENCIA is appropriate for teen audiences.

2012 New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest & Festival

2011-10-25T15:58:00.003-04:00

For 29 years, the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest & Festival (NJYPF) has been deepening the writing experience for young writers by providing detailed feedback from theatre professionals about students' plays. For the 7th year in a row, winning plays will be presented during the New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival, a partnership between Playwrights Theatre and Premiere Stages at Kean University.

Through a series of rounds, a team of readers may select plays from each division to be honored as statewide winners. These plays will receive a staged-reading performance by professional actors during the Festival. Date to be determined. This is certain to be a must-see event!

Plays are accepted in the following divisions:
Elementary (grades 4-6)
Junior High School (grades 7-9)
High School (grades 10-12)

High School play submission deadline - January 14, 2012
Elementary and Junior High School submission deadline - January 15, 2012

Are you working on your play? For more details visit, our website

New Items and New Rummage Sale Dates

2011-10-14T15:26:00.002-04:00

Playwrights Theatre is leaving its space at 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ and is selling excess articles it has acquired over the past 25 years.

New things have been addeded since the previous rummage sale dates. We've cleaned out all extraneous items, so only the really useful and interesting ones are left. Everything will be tagged with a price. There are no costumes, lighting, sound equipment or theatre seats.

The rummage sale dates are:
Saturday, October 22 from 9am-2pm
Sunday, October 23 from 9am-2pm

The sale will take place on the first floor of 33 Green Village Road. Cash and checks gladly accepted. Playwrights Theatre regrets it cannot accept phone calls or e-mail inquiries about sale items. All business to be conducted in person.

Need directions? http://www.ptnj.org/pages/directions-and-getting-around

25th Anniversary Gala Photos

2011-10-03T15:50:00.027-04:00

On Saturday, September 17, 2011, Playwrights Theatre had a benefit celebrating 25 years of creativity and community at the Hartley-Dodge Memorial building in Madison, NJ.

The evening included music with Jerry Vezza and a performance by Sahirah Johnson and The MoMs (from MoM A Rock Concert Musical) -- Donna Jean Fogel, Jane Keitel, Bekka Lindstrom, Dana Loren McCoy, Stefanie Seskin.

There was a silent auction, new plays from improbably playwrights Hon. Mary-Anna Holden, Mayor of Madison and Hon. Jon M. Bramnic, NJ State Assemblyman as well as Collaborative Play written that evening by the guests and performed by Duncan Rogers and Bev Sheehan.

Playwrights Theatre honored:
Lawrence S. Feinsod, Executive County Superintendent, Essex County
Lisa Ellis, President, Madison Board of Education
Jeannie Tsukamoto, Council Member, Madison Borough Council
Arthur Wilson, Poet/Playwright/Teaching Artist
Shamsuddin Abdul-Hamid, 2010 NJ State Poetry Out Loud Champion

Photo Credit: Walter Rodriguez

To view more photos, visit our website

We're Having a Rummage Sale

2011-09-26T17:59:00.000-04:00

Playwrights Theatre is leaving its space at 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ and is selling excess articles it has acquired over the past 25 years. Items for sale include: props, furniture, dishware, knickknacks, costumes and office supplies including filing cabinets and desks. All items will be priced to move. Lighting and sound equipment will not be available and the theatre seats have already been claimed.

The rummage sale dates are:
Saturday, October 1 from Noon-6pm
Sunday, October 2 from 9am-6pm
Saturday, October 8 from 9am-6pm
Sunday, October 9 from 9am-6pm

The sale will take place on the first floor of 33 Green Village Road. Cash and checks gladly accepted. Playwrights Theatre regrets it cannot accept phone calls or e-mail inquiries about sale items. All business to be conducted in person.

Meredith Sue Willis, Playwrights Theatre Teaching Artist, Releases New Book

2011-09-16T12:51:00.003-04:00

Hamilton Stone Editions Presents NEW BOOK OF SHORT STORIES BY MEREDITH SUE WILLIS

Re-Visions: Stories from Stories
By Meredith Sue Willis

Re-visions: Stories from Stories is a collection of spin-offs from myth, fiction, and the Bible. From a new look at Adam and Eve and why they left the Garden to a grown-up Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin to the confessions of Saint Augustine's concubine- each story offers a gloss on the original as well as insights into how we can live today.

The palimpsestic and generative sub-title , Stories from Stories, says it all when it comes to the genesis of tales. There is an unbroken, though far from straight, chain of tellers and listeners, repeatedly borrowing and spending in an economy of beginnings, in principios voiced around a fire whose skyborne sparks ever dim. The debt is paid off again and again, willingly, knowing that there's no such thing as something new, but rather it's a matter of what's owed and sowed by women in the first tales to children; the real heroes' tales.

Take the case of the first speaker, Monica, Augustine's teen concubine in "Sermon of the Younger Monica," who warns her charges, "the Vandals always come." Sometimes they are in the guise of warriors, other times court plotters, or serpents (isn't there always one down the hall?)– saints even, such as Augustine, who can't let one young girl be. Good, bumper-sticker-worthy advice, from women to women everywhere, which accounts for the often minatory tenor of these nine engaging stories, narrated in the first person by women of myth and legend, with Monica succeeded by Scheherazade and others, such as Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin.
--The Bloomsbury Review

The stories were so vivid and natural that after a while I forgot of them as based on actual classic myths and felt them alive in my modern world, real as any other stories. My favorite was the one about Lazarus (for the wonderful imagery about fire and moths and desire) --but so many engaged and moved me.
-- Leora Skolkin-Smith

ISBN 978-0-9801786-6-1 $14.95
To read a sample story, click here.
To order Re-Visions by mail, click here .
To order from Barnes & Noble, click here.
To order from Amazon.com, click here .

SAVE THE DATE! September 17, 2011

2011-07-27T11:19:00.005-04:00

Save the Date! September 17, 2011 - Playwrights Theatre Benefit Celebrating 25 Years of Creativity and Community http://www.ptnj.org/miscpage/playwrights-theatre-benefit

Honoring:

Lawrence S. Feinsod, Executive County Superintendent, Essex County

Jeannie Tsukamoto, Council Member, Madison Borough Council

Lisa Ellis, President, Madison Board of Education

Dave Carver and Playwrights Theatre’s Champion Girls Softball Team

Arthur Wilson, Poet/Playwright/Teaching Artist

Shamsuddin Abdul-Hamid, 2010 NJ State Poetry Out Loud Champion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Featuring the Improbable Playwrights:

New plays by

Hon. Jon M. Bramnick, NJ State Assemblyman

Hon. Mary-Anna Holden, Mayor of Madison

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Music by:

Jerry Vezza

Sahirah Johnson with Jane Keitel

and...

The MoMs (from MoM A Rock Concert Musical)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Collaborative Play Written by You

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silent Auction

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Menu: Heavy Hors d’oeuvres, Wine, Light Refreshments, Dessert and Coffee

Dress: Business Casual

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We hope you will join us! Tickets are $75 and you can get yours today by mail, phone or online.

By Mail: Make checks payable to Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey and send to:
Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey
PO Box 1295
Madison, NJ 07940

By Phone: Call 973.514.1787 x10 to charge your credit card

Online: You can book through Eventbrite http://ptnj25.eventbrite.com

Tickets will also be available at the door on the day of the event.

YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN Comes To Madison

2011-07-12T11:28:00.003-04:00

The Madison Recreation Department and Playwrights Theatre Presents
YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN
Based on Comic Strip “Peanuts” by Charles M. Schulz
Book, Music and Lyrics by Clark Gesner
Additional dialogue by Michael Mayer
Additional Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa
The original direction for this version of YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN by Michael Mayer
Originally Produced in New York by Arthur Whitelaw and Gene Persson

The production (appropriate for all ages) will have three performances: July 21 and July 22 at 7:30pm and July 23 at 2:00pm. The production will be directed by Danielle Constance with musical direction by Jane Keitel. The cast features all Madison youth performers: Brian Lang, Kasey Colligan, Katharine Brundage, Sharlys Leszcuk, Tori Peterson, Alex Post, Ally Dupree, Mary Meyer, Grace VanCleef, Patty Doyle. Single tickets are on sale now $10 for adults and $5 for students/child. For tickets, visit http://www.ptnj.org/mainstage/youre-a-good-man-charlie-brown or call the box office at 973-514-1787 X31. Performances take place at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road in Madison, NJ.

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown is the first co-production between The Madison Recreation Department and Playwrights Theatre, which has been located in Madison for 25 years. This summer, 10 talented young people from the town will take the stage to bring Charles Schulz’s Peanuts characters to life on Playwrights Theatre’s stage in the Green Village Road School building — this will be the last full production in the space. We are pleased that this exceptional play celebrating the joy of growing into a unique individual will be the final show in a place where so many young people have developed their own imaginations and sense of self.

It's a Wrap--2011 NJYP Festival

2011-05-27T15:42:00.013-04:00

The 28th Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival has come to an end. It was an amazing time and you can read all about it on the NJYP Blog.

In the meantime, here are some photos from the festival.2011 New Jersey Young Playwrights Elementary School Winners

2011 New Jersey Young Playwrights Junior High School Winner with the Cast

2011 New Jersey Young Playwrights High School and Honorable Mention Winners

Actor Jack Moran portrays Issac in "For The Sake of America: A Story of Patriotism" by Sam Gelman

Actors Tim Regan and Shannon Sullivan in "The Prologue to After" by Jenna Postiglione

Actors Daniil Krimer and Shannon Sullivan played Devon and Bianca in "Wacky Wednesday" by Justine DeSilva

Actors Daniel Bartkewicz and Jack Moran in Sam Gelman's play "For the Sake of America: A Story of Patriotism"

Actors Noelle Cristiano and Daniil Krimer as Patty and Billy in "The Prologue to After" by Jenna Postiglione

Welcoming the College Student Back Home Challenges and Solutions

2011-04-20T12:07:00.004-04:00

Wednesday, May 4, 2001, 7:30-9:00pm
Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ 07940

Chores ~ Friends ~ Job ~ Laundry ~ Drinking ~ Curfews ~ Car Issues ~ Meals ~ Money ~ Sleeping In

Actors will use “Playback Theatre” to enact stories from real families’ lives. The goal is to help parents address possible challenges with their student children before they occur, paving the way for an enjoyable reunion.

A FREE collaborative presentation sponsored by the Playwrights Theatre, Drew University Drug and Alcohol Services, MAASA and MACC (the Municipal Alliance Committees of Madison and the Chathams) with funding from the Governor’s Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (GCADA).

We Have A New Website!

2011-04-12T12:58:00.003-04:00

You can still find us at http://www.ptnj.org/

With all kinds of new information and ways to connect with us! Click on LOGIN NOW to register for a free account. Once you register, that is all there is to do. You can buy tickets, sign up for a class or make a donation and never have to enter your information again. Be sure to take a look around. But if you want to get to a particular area quickly, here are some links:

Click here to register for summer classes

Click here for information and residency applications for the New Jersey Writers Project

Click here for more information on our New Play Development Program -

Click here for an overview of all of our Education Programs including NJ Young Playwrights Program and Poetry Out Loud

Click here to make a donation

Playwrights Theatre Receives State Arts Award

2011-03-02T17:32:00.002-05:00

Playwrights Theatre has been designated a Major Arts Organization by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for demonstrating a solid history of artistic excellence, substantial programming, leadership, and broad public service, receiving superior review through the Council’s peer panel grant review process. Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno along with State Arts Council leadership held an awards reception on January 25, 2011 in Trenton to recognize the importance of the work of Playwrights Theatre.

“Major Arts Organization designation from the Arts Council is a very prestigious award,” said John Pietrowski, Artistic Director. “We are very grateful that the panel has recognized Playwrights in this manner, and are proud to be amongst the other New Jersey theatres chosen.”

This award, the State Arts Council’s most prestigious mark of distinction, is designated based on grant application review and conferred upon Playwrights Theatre for the duration of the grant period for which funding is received.

The New Jersey State Council on the Arts is a division of the NJ Department of State. It receives funding in direct appropriations from the State of New Jersey through a dedicated Hotel/Motel Occupancy fee and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Since 1966, its volunteer members and professional staff have worked to improve the quality of life in New Jersey by helping the arts to flourish. For more information about the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, visit http://www.njartscouncil.org/.

Pictured (left to right): Elizabeth Mattson, Council Member, NJ State Council on the Arts; Sharon Burton Turner, Chair, NJ State Council on the Arts; Rebecca Fields, Board Member, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey; John Pietrowski, Artistic Director, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey; Kim Guadagno, NJ Lieutenant Governor/Secretary of State; Germaine B. Trabert, Council Member, NJ State Council on the Arts; Steve Runk, Executive Director, NJ State Council on the Arts.

Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre brings DISTRACTED to Madison

2011-02-28T10:52:00.006-05:00

Dreamcatcher presents the New Jersey premiere of Distracted, a smart and serious off-Broadway hit that Time Out New York proclaimed "my favorite comedy of the year!" Due to repairs at the Baird, Distracted will play at Playwrights Theatre.

In Distracted, does nine-year-old Jesse have ADHD or is he just being a kid? Is it even a problem at all? As his parents navigate the complicated world of medical and alternative treatments, they confront the possibility that it's not just Jesse who's distracted--it's our entire culture.

Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre says, "Distracted is the kind of play we do best: serious intimate drama that's filled with witty funny dialog and emotional issues that touch the heart." Get your tickets now!

All performances are at Playwrights Theatre in Madison, NJ.

Event: DISTRACTED Info

Dates: March 4-20, 2011

Times: Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm

Location: Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road

Price: $30 adults, $25 seniors & students w/ ID
Save $3 in advance Buy tickets now no fees!

Discounts: Students pay just $15 on Saturday March 5 only
Seniors pay just $15 on Sunday March 6 only

Groups save 10% or more. The bigger your group, the more you save! Group sales

Don't miss the informative Q&A with Distracted artistic director Laura Ekstrand on Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre's website!

2008 Playwright in Residence has World Premiere

2011-02-09T11:24:00.004-05:00

Playwrights Theatre 's 2008 playwright-in-residence, Samuel Brett Williams, will have the world premiere of his play "The Woodpecker" at Mutineer Theatre Company in Los Angeles on March 5, 2011. The show will run through April 3, 2011.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm; Sundays at 7:00pm. Ticket prices are $20.00 for all performances. Tickets are available online at www.mutineertheatre.com or by calling 1-323-871-5826.

Samuel Brett Williams hails from Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he was raised by strict Southern Baptist parents. His plays use Arkansas as a background to explore issues of global importance-religion, racism, war, and family. Williams received his B.A. in English and Political Science from Ouachita Baptist University and his M.F.A. in Playwriting from Rutgers University, where he studied with Lee Blessing. His plays have been produced at Cherry Lane Theatre, Ars Nova, Project Y Theatre Company, Mile Square Theatre, XIII Pocket, Readers Theatre Repertory, District of Columbia Arts Center, and New Orleans Theatre Experiment. Brett received commissions from the National New Play Network and Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, where he was the resident playwright in 2008, and is a past winner of the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award.

Yasmine Rana's The Fallen Published

2011-02-04T11:46:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Yasmine Rana for having "Anais' Monologe" from THE FALLEN published in BLACKBIRD'S latest issue!

http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v9n2/

THE FALLEN was presented as part of the FORUM Reading Series at Playwrights Theatre on December 2, 2010.

Last Chance to Enter

2011-01-21T17:32:00.002-05:00

Today at 11:59pm is the last day for all Elementary School and Junior High School entries into the 28th Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest.

For complete details and to submit your script, visit the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest and Festival blog.

Play Continues On

2011-01-18T14:28:00.004-05:00

The Fallen by Yasmine Beverly Rana was first presented as a staged reading in the FORUM reading series at Playwrights Theatre on December 2, 2010.

The play continues its journey with a staged reading at Write Act Repertory in Los Angeles on February 25th and 26th with a Q and A on the 25th. Kenneth Cosby of Write Act and USC will be directing.

It was also selected by New Stage Performing Arts Center in Massachusetts for a staged reading and Q and A to coincide with the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers and the International Women's Day Conference at Bard College.

Summer Program for Kids & Teens - BIG DISCOUNTS for Early Enrollment

2011-01-10T14:51:00.007-05:00

Playwrights Theatre’s Creative Arts Academy summer camp for kids and summer theatre program for teens will begin on June 20, 2011 and run all summer long in two-week sessions. For more information and to register, visit www.ptnj.org or call 973-514-1787 X21.

The Full-Day Theatre Academy (Monday through Friday, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm) is designed for grades 4-6 and 7-9. Students work with a team of artists and alternate daily through classes in acting, musical performance, playwriting and play production. Students explore each skill and learn how to weave the various elements together into an engaging, original performance piece presented to family and friends. Full-Day sessions are available for Session B (July 5-July 15) and Session C (July 18-July 29). Each session concludes with a presentation for family and friends.

This summer, Playwrights Theatre is offering an Early Enrollment rate plan for the Full Day Camp classes in the Summer Theatre Camp. These special rates can be secured by enrolling students in a Full Day Camp session prior to the dates listed below. No other discounts apply.

Tuition $525 • When Enrolled BEFORE January 31 • With a deposit of $262.50
Tuition $550 • When Enrolled BEFORE February 28 • With a deposit of $275.00
Tuition $575 • When Enrolled BEFORE March 31 • With a deposit of $287.50

After March 31, Full Day Camp registration will return to the regular fee of $595.00 (a deposit of $297.50 is required at the time of enrollment). A deposit in the amount of ½ of the tuition due is required at time of registration. The remaining balance must be paid no later than May 30.

All Full Day Camp enrollments, whether made during the reduced enrollment period, or after, include a $100.00 non-refundable enrollment fee that will not be refunded unless Playwrights Theatre initiates a class cancellation of the session in which the student is enrolled.

To secure this reduced rate, enrollments must be made by phone ONLY. Please contact the Education Office at 973-514-1787, ext. 21.

The Half-Day Summer Camp for kids and the Half-Day Summer Theatre Program for teens is an opportunity for students at all levels of experience to discover new facets of creativity while developing their theatrical skills. Tuition is $275 per two-week session, $250 for returning students with the exception of the Creative Play class, which is $225.

Each session concludes with a presentation for family and friends and is designed to have a slightly different emphasis so students can take the same class several times and still have a high-quality learning experience.

Session A (June 20 - July 1) – Registration deadline June 13
Morning classes from 9:30am-12:30pm include: Playmakers (grades 1-3), Acting Lab (grades 4-6), Acting Workshop (grades 7-9), Musical Performance (grades 4-5/6-8). The Creative Play class (ages 4 & 5) will meet from 9:30-11:30am.

Session B (July 5 - July 15) – Registration deadline June 27
Morning classes from 9:30am-12:30pm include: Playmakers (grades 1-3), Acting Lab (grades 4-6), Musical Performance (grades 4-5/6-8). The Creative Play class (ages 4 & 5) will meet from 9:30-11:30am. Full-Day Theatre Academy (grades 4-6 and 7-9) is from 9:30am-4:30pm.

Session C (July 18 – July 29) – Registration deadline July 11
Morning classes from 9:30am-12:30pm include: Playmakers (grades 1-3), Acting Lab (grades 4-6), Musical Performance (grades 4-5/6-8). The Creative Play class (ages 4 & 5) will meet from 9:30-11:30am. Full-Day Theatre Academy (grades 4-6 and 7-9) is from 9:30am-4:30pm.

Session D (August 1 – August 12) – Registration deadline July 25
Morning classes from 9:30am-12:30pm include: Playmakers (grades 1-3), Acting Lab (grades 4-6), Acting Workshop (grades 7-9), Musical Performance (grades 4-5/6-8). The Creative Play class (ages 4 & 5) will meet from 9:30-11:30am.

Session E (August 15 – August 26) – Registration deadline August 8
Morning classes from 9:30am-12:30pm include: Playmakers (grades 1-3), Acting Lab (grades 4-6), Acting Workshop (grades 7-9), Musical Performance (grades 4-5/6-8). The Creative Play class (ages 4 & 5) will meet from 9:30-11:30am.

SPECIAL SESSION - PLAYWRITING WORKSHOP (grades 6-12)
(June 22 - August 24) • Registration deadline: June 15
Wednesdays from 9:30am-12:30pm • $275

Playwrights Theatre Creative Arts Academy teaches classes year-round for children, teens and adults. The Creative Arts Academy is committed to nurturing independent thinking, artistic and personal development through the literary and performing arts. At the Creative Arts Academy, students are part of a community where self-expression and creativity thrive and every person is a valuable member of the whole. Playwrights Theatre’s Creative Arts Academy strives for artistic excellence while emphasizing the creative process, both of which are vital to the personal, social and academic evolution of students of all ages. Creative Arts Academy instructors are highly experienced professional artists who are perceptive and dynamic in the classroom. Creative Arts Academy teachers are committed to developing their own skills, as well as those of their students, and to refining their artistry through continued practice and education.

For more information including class descriptions and to register, visit www.ptnj.org or call (973) 514-1787.

2011-01-06T16:17:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Playwrights Theatre's Volunteer Guild Coordinator, Norma Mortimer, for winning the Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence!

Spring Classes for Kids, Teens and Adults

2011-01-04T17:38:00.003-05:00

Playwrights Theatre’s Creative Arts Academy spring classes for kids, teens and adults will begin in February. All classes are held at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ. For more information and to register visit http://www.ptnj.org/ or call 973-514-1787 X21.

Playwrights Theatre Creative Arts Academy classes are an opportunity for students at all levels of experience to bring their imaginations to life, while practicing basic performance and writing skills. Students work collaboratively with their peers creating characters and telling stories while building the confidence needed to enjoy creative freedom. Most classes conclude with a “sharing” of class work for family and friends.

Playwrights Theatre’s classes are taught by practicing theatre artists who are working actors, directors, and writers. The intimate class size allows individuals to explore in a safe, non-judgmental environment and insures individual attention is given to each participant.

The Adult Playwriting Workshop, taught by Playwrights Theatre’s Artistic Director, John Pietrowski, is a basic workshop class where students share work in a supportive environment. Enrollment is open to students of all levels of experience; classes will provide exercises to beginners working on their first play as well as experience writers who are further down the road.

Tuition per class is $275 and $250 for returning students with the exception of Creative Play. Tuition is $225 for this class only. Registration deadline for all kid and teen classes is February 18.

Spring 2011 classes for kids and teens include:
Creative Play (Pre-K and K, ages 4 & 5)
February 24 – April 21
Thursdays, 3:30pm – 4:45pm
10 classes

Playmakers (grades 1-3)
February 26 – May 7 (no class April 23)
Saturdays, 10:30am-12:00pm
10 classes

Acting Lab (grades 4-6)
March 1 – May 3
Tuesdays, 4:30pm-6:00pm
10 classes

Musical Performance (grades 4-6)
February 24 – April 28
Thursdays, 4:30pm-6:00pm
10 classes

Musical Performance (grades 7-9)
March 1 – May 3
Tuesdays, 4:30pm-6:00pm
10 classes

Creative Play, Playmakers, Acting Lab and Musical Performance are process-oriented classes that teach age-appropriate theatre skills. Each class culminates in a student-generated performance for family and invited guests. Each session is designed to have a slightly different emphasis so students can take the same class several times and still have a high-quality learning experience.

Spring 2011 class for adults:
Playwriting Workshop
January 3 – March 7
March 21 – May 23
Mondays, 7:00pm-10:00pm
Pro-rate options are available for late starts for this class only.

For more information and to register, visit http://www.ptnj.org/ or call the Education Department 973-514-1787 X21.

Playwrights Theatre Creative Arts Academy teaches classes year-round for children, teens and adults. The Creative Arts Academy is committed to nurturing independent thinking, artistic and personal development through the literary and performing arts. At the Creative Arts Academy, students are part of a community where self-expression and creativity thrive and every person is a valuable member of the whole. Playwrights Theatre’s Creative Arts Academy strives for artistic excellence while emphasizing the creative process, both of which are vital to the personal, social and academic evolution of students of all ages. Creative Arts Academy instructors are highly experienced professional artists who are perceptive and dynamic in the classroom. Creative Arts Academy teachers are committed to developing their own skills, as well as those of their students, and to refining their artistry through continued practice and education.

THE LAW OF THE MONKEYS by Ken Scarborough

2010-12-16T10:57:00.004-05:00

Dani has a lot of love to give, and she gives it freely in this dark comedy by former SNL writer Ken Scarborough.

Ken Scarborough has won four Emmys for his television writing—as a staff writer for Saturday Night Live, as the Head Writer for the PBS series Arthur, and as a writer for Between the Lions. Ken served as Head Writer for the Nickelodeon series Doug and currently serves as Head Writer and Creative Producer for Martha Speaks, a children’s television series he developed for PBS.

Directed by John Pietrowski and featuring Eilis Cahill, Daniel Sullivan, Stacie Lents, Clark Carmichael, David Mason.

Tickets $10 or $25 for a FORUM pass and see all the readings through Sunday. Order online or by phone 973.514.1787 X10.

ARTIST AS A MAN by Joe Sutton

2010-12-15T10:23:00.003-05:00

Author Joe Sutton explores the tangled relationship between an author and his agent. Not based on a true story, or is it?

Directed by James Glossman and featuring Paul Murphy, David Mason and Evelyn McGee Colbert.

Joe Sutton’s plays include Voir Dire, As It is in Heaven, Complicit, and Restoring the Sun. They have been produced by such theatres as the New York Theater Workshop, BAM and the Old Vic. Joe is a recipient of fellowships from NYFA and the NEA, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Last season Joe developed his mystery television show Scales of Justice for the USA network. Joe resides in Montclair, NJ with his wife Anne and their sons James and Nicholas.

$10 for tonight's reading for buy a FORUM pass for $25 and see all the readings this week.

To secure your seat, order online or call the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

JACKASS FLATS by John Simon & C.C. Lovehart

2010-12-14T10:55:00.007-05:00

Tuesday, December 14 at 7pm

It's Las Vegas, 1951, and an unusual trio of women take a road trip to a sunrise picnic at the dawn of the Nuclear Age. Funny and relevant, JACKASS FLATS is a heart-warming story of survival in a time and place both mythical and real.

C.C. Loveheart Jackass Flats was first inspired by the personal reminiscences of C.C. Loveheart who grew up in Las Vegas. In her checkered career, she has acted on stage and screens of all sizes from coast to coast. She is a Clio award winner and created the character of Coco for Nickolodeon’s Pinwheel House for which she still gets fan mail. She is a Lifetime Member of The Actors’ Studio. In New Jersey, she appeared in The Gin Game.

John Simon C.C.’s husband and frequent collaborator, is a self-described “compulsive musician”. As a record producer and performer, he has worked with Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, The Band, Taj Mahal, Gil Evans, Marshall McLuhan and many others. He has released several albums of original songs. John and C.C. have appeared in a self-penned cabaret act called Alone Together For The First Time Again.

Directed by Brendan Burke

Kay..................................................Denise Lute
Ginny...............................................Olivia Gilliatt
Lana Dee..........................................Lucy Eller

The reading will be held at:
Playwrights Theatre
33 Green Village Road
Madison, NJ 07940
Need directions?

$10 for the reading for reserve a FORUM pass and see all the remaining readings for $25. Purchase your tickets online or by calling the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

Week Three of FORUM

2010-12-13T10:28:00.008-05:00

The third and final week of FORUM begins tomorrow. $10 for one reading or $25 for a FORUM pass. Order online or by calling the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

Tuesday, December 14 - 7:00pm
JACKASS FLATS by John Simon & C.C. Lovehart
It's Las Vegas, 1951, and an unusual trio of women take a road trip to a sunrise picnic at the dawn of the Nuclear Age. Funny and relevant, JACKASS FLATS is a heart-warming story of survival in a time and place both mythical and real

Wednesday, December 15 - 7:00pm
ARTIST AS A MAN by Joe Sutton
Author Joe Sutton explores the tangled relationship between an author and his agent. Not based on a true story, or is it?

Thursday, December 16 - 7:00pm
THE LAW OF THE MONKEYS by Ken Scarborough
Dani has a lot of love to give, and she gives it freely in this dark comedy by former SNL writer Ken Scarborough.

Friday, December 17 - 7:00pm
NUMBER OF PEOPLE by Emilie Beck
In this one person show, a Holocaust survivor whose encounter with a German family after his release from the camps comes to define the essence of his life.

Saturday, December 18 - 7:00pm
MARLOWE by James Glossman
An ensemble adaptation of Raymond Chandler's classic film-noir tales of iconic private eye Philip Marlowe, among the sun burnt, violent streets of 1940s Los Angeles.

Sunday, December 19 - 7:00pm
THE EXCEPTIONALS by Robert Clyman
In a new version of last year’s reading, and prior to it’s production at Merrimack Theatre in Massachusetts, this play takes place in the Coordinator for Parent Liaison’s office of a donor insemination research program for “exceptional” children and their parents.

A User’s Guide to Hell, Featuring Bernie Madoff by Lee Blessing

2010-12-10T08:19:00.004-05:00

Staged reading tonight at 7:00pm, part of the FORUM reading series.

Directed by John Pietrowski and featuring Al Mohnmann, Jim Ligon, Daniel Sullivan, Andrea Bianchi.

In the time after his downfall, Bernie Madoff is taken on a tour of hell (New York City) by Verge and encounters its various denizens before he learns the truth.

$10 for tonight's reading or purchase a FORUM pass for $25 and see all the remaining readings in the series. Purchase online or call the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

Lee Blessing has written for stage, film and TV for over thirty years. His play A Walk in the Woods ran on Broadway and in the West End. He’s had roughly a dozen plays produced off-Broadway, including A Body of Water and Going to St. Ives in recent years. Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey produced his play Whores in their 2004-05 season, in conjunction with the New Jersey Repertory Theatre.

THE LAST DAYS OF MICKEY AND JEAN by Richard Dresser

2010-12-09T12:38:00.003-05:00

A “retired” American couple on the lam in Paris reach the end of the line. A new play from the author of Rounding Third.

Reserve your ticket online or by calling the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

Richard Dresser’s plays have been produced in New York, regional theater, and Europe. His recently published trilogy of plays about happiness in America includes AUGUSTA (working class), THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (middle class), and A VIEW OF THE HARBOR (upper class). Other plays are: ROUNDING THIRD, which started in Chicago and appeared off-Broadway and has had over one hundred productions, BELOW THE BELT and GUN-SHY, started at the Humana Festival before moving off-Broadway. His most recent play is THE HAND OF GOD.

Directed by John Pietrowski and featuring Eli Ganias, Bonnie Black, Dan Domingues.

TRESPASSER IN A PROMISED LAND by Russell Davis

2010-12-08T10:48:00.004-05:00

Tonight kicks off the 2nd week of the FORUM reading series with a new play from Russell Davis, "Trespasser In A Promised Land."

The reading begins at 7pm with an intimate discussion with Russell immediately following. $10 for the reading or get a FORUM pass for $25 and see all the remaining readings in the FORUM series. Tickets available online or by calling the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

From the author of Mahida’s Extra Key to Heaven, Karnik has gone to the house of a cult in a remote countryside to retrieve a friend who has ended up there. Here he comes face-to-face with the elusive cult leader.

Russell Davis’ plays have been produced previously at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. He is a 2008-10 recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He was resident playwright at People’s Light & Theatre for the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program. He has received grants and fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, McKnight Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, as well as two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Directed by John Pietrowski and featuring Ryan Shams, Prentiss Benjamin, Mariam Habib, Daniel Sullivan.

Join Us for Week Two of FORUM

2010-12-06T16:35:00.004-05:00

FORUM
Roundtable Reading Series
Week Two: December 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12

FORUM brings playwrights, actors and audience members together to enjoy the creative process of bringing a play to life. Staged readings of 17 innovative new plays by some of the country's best writers with intimate discussions between author and audience following each performance.

$10 per reading or get a FORUM Pass for $25 and attend all the readings.

Wednesday, December 8 - 7:00pm
TRESPASSER IN A PROMISED LAND by Russell Davis

Thursday, December 9 - 7:00pm
THE LAST DAYS OF MICKEY AND JEAN by Richard Dresser

Friday, December 10 - 7:00pm
A USER'S GUIDE TO HELL, FEATURING BERNIE MADOFF by Lee Blessing

Saturday, December 11 - 7:00pm
TEXAS BOOT by Jeffrey Sweet

Sunday, December 12 - 7:00pm
FURIES by Matt Bukovac

To reserve your tickets, visit our website or call the Box Office at 973.514.1787 X10

Playwrights Theatre
33 Green Village Road
PO Box 1295
Madison, NJ 07940
973.514.1787 X10

http://www.ptnj.org/

Directions to our theatre

Good Things to Do

2010-12-03T14:40:00.002-05:00

For the 7th year in a row, Playwrights Theatre will be collecting toys for the Marine Corps Reserve Toys For Tots, gently used coats for Jersey Cares and pet items for Randolph Township Municipal Pound.

In the lobby of Playwrights Theatre, there are three marked collection boxes. Items can be dropped off at 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ, Monday-Friday from 10am-6pm. The last day for donations is Wednesday, December 15, 2010.

Marine Corps Reserve TOYS FOR TOTS
The mission of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program is to collect new, unwrapped toys and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted. Please donate new and unwrapped toys.

14th Annual Jersey Cares Coat Drive
The goal of the 14th Annual Coat Drive is to collect and distribute 35,000 "gently used" winter coats to at-risk men, women, children and infants. Please donate your gently used winter coats.

Randolph Township Municipal Pound
The Randolph Township Municipal Pound makes every effort to find homes for their animals, including placing them with no-kill shelters. Items the shelter needs: dry or canned dog or cat food, dog runs, rabbit hutches, used clean blankets, towels and small rugs, toys for cats and dogs.

REVELATION by Samuel Brett Williams

2010-12-03T10:28:00.004-05:00

Tired of the same old, same old holiday shows? Come see an exciting new play!

REVELATION by Samuel Brett Williams

From the author of Fraternity and The Revival, and a National New Play Network-commissioned play, this comic picaresque imagines the End Times as they might occur in New York City.

Performance is tonight at 7pm at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ. Need directions?

Make your reservation online or call the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

Samuel Brett Williams hails from Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he was raised in a strict Southern Baptist environment. He received his BA in English and Political Science from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and his MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers University, where he studied under Lee Blessing. REVELATION is the fourth play he has been lucky enough to develop with Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. In 2008, he was the resident playwright at PTNJ.

Directed by James Glossman and featuring Will Manning, Stacie Lents, Liam Joynt, Erin Mortensen.

We'll see you at the theatre!

THE FALLEN by Yasmine Beverly Rana

2010-12-02T11:37:00.006-05:00

Week One of the FORUM reading series: A Celebration of New Jersey Writers

continues this evening at 7pm with THE FALLEN by Yasmine Beverly Rana

Survivors of the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia confront their past and assess their future. An expanded version and further development of the play read in last year’s series.

Reserve your seat to tonight's reading online or by calling 973.514.1787 X10.

Performance takes place at:
Playwrights Theatre
33 Green Village Road
Madison, NJ 07940

Directions can be found here

HUNGRY by Lia Romeo

2010-12-01T14:27:00.006-05:00

FORUM roundtable reading series continues tonight at 7pm with HUNGRY by Lia Romeo.

In this black comedy by the author of Green Whales and Super, a high school “misfit” trying out for the dance team takes on the dysfunction of her home and community, getting assistance from an unlikely source.

Tickets $10 or buy a FORUM pass and get into all the readings for only $25. To reserve your seat, call the box office at 973.514.1787 X10 or visit our website.

Playwrights Theatre
33 Green Village Road
Madison, NJ 07940
Directions

AGUA by Carrie Louise Nutt

2010-11-30T14:44:00.005-05:00

The FORUM reading series kicks off tonight at 7pm with AGUA by Carrie Louise Nutt.

The privatization of water rights leads to a violent uprising in a Central American country that ensnares the American businesswoman heading up the plan.

FORUM brings playwrights, actors and audience members together to enjoy the creative process of bringing a play to life. Staged readings of 17 innovative new plays by some of the country's best writers with intimate discussions between author and audience following each performance.

$10 per reading or purchase a FORUM Pass for $25 and attend all 17 readings.

To reserve your tickets, visit our website or call the Box Office at 973.514.1787 X10.

♦ Playwrights Theatre's Season Subscribers receive a FORUM Pass for FREE ♦

Playwrights Theatre
33 Green Village Road
Madison, NJ 07940
973.514.1787 X10
http://www.ptnj.org/

Directions to our theatre

Final Performances at Playwrights Theatre

2010-11-18T12:02:00.006-05:00

Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie
by Julie Jensen

"The gap that often exists between children's theater and theater considered satisfying/acceptable entertainment for mature adults has been gainfully closed by playwright Julie Jensen. In her adventurous and appealing Across The Wide and Lonesome Prairie we share the experiences as well as the hopes and aspirations of Hattie and Pepper as they make their way from Missouri to Oregon. Mostly, it is a tale about courage." -- Simon Saltzman, Curtain Up

Final Performances This Week:
Thursday, November 18 at 3:00pm
Thursday, November 18 at 8:00pm
Friday, November 19 at 8:00pm
Saturday, November 20 at 8:00pm
Sunday, November 21 at 3:00pm

directed by John Pietrowski

featuring Jane Keitel and Lori Lawrence

appropriate for ages 8 and up

In association with The Growing Stage in Netcong, NJ, Playwrights Theatre is pleased to present Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie November 4 - 21, 2010. All performances will take place at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison.

Migrating with their parents on the Oregon Trail in 1847, two thirteen-year old girls become fast friends as they grow up together on their humorous and harrowing journey.

The Growing Stage will be touring the production and performing the piece at its home - The Historic Palace Theatre in Netcong throughout March and May and information can be received by contacting the theatre directly at http://www.growingstage.com/.

Ticket Prices:
$25.00 for Adults
$22.50 for Seniors
$20.00 for Book Clubs and Groups of 10+
$15.00 for Students

Tickets on sale on our website or by calling the box office at 973-514-1787 X10.

FORUM: Playwrights Theatre Reading Series -- 16 New Plays

2010-11-03T15:21:00.003-04:00

Playwrights Theatre’s roundtable reading series FORUM will take place at 7pm each evening on November 30, December 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.

FORUM brings playwrights, actors and audience members together to enjoy the creative process of bringing a play to life. Staged readings of 16 innovative new plays by some of the country’s best writers with intimate discussions between author and audience following each performance.

The readings will be held at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ. You can attend one reading for $10 or purchase a FORUM PASS which gives you access to the entire festival for $25. Playwrights Theatre’s season subscribers receive a FORUM PASS as a free added bonus.

Reservations can be made online at http://www.ptnj.org/ or call (973) 514-1787 X10.

FORUM Schedule:
Tuesday, November 30 – Auqa by Carrie Louise Nutt
Wednesday, December 1 – Hungry by Lia Romeo
Thursday, December 2 – The Fallen by Yasmine Rana
Friday, December 3 – Revelation by Samuel Brett Williams
Saturday, December 4 – The Sticks by John Wooten
Sunday, December 5 – The Thread of Story by Judah Skoff
Wednesday, December 8 – Trespasser In A Promised Land by Russell Davis
Thursday, December 9 – Mickey and Jean by Richard Dresser
Friday, December 10 – A User’s Guide to Hell Starring Bernie Madoff by Lee Blessing
Saturday, December 11 – Texas Boot by Jeffrey Sweet
Sunday, December 12 – Furies by Matt Bukovac
Wednesday, December 15 – Artist As A Man by Joe Sutton
Thursday, December 16 – The Law Of The Monkeys by Ken Scarborough
Friday, December 17 – Number of People by Emilie Beck
Saturday, December 18 – Marlowe by James Glossman
Sunday, December 19 – The Exceptionals by Robert Clyman

Programs are subject to change, based on artistic need. Please visit the website www.ptnj.org for up-to-the-minutes details.

StrangeDog Theatre returns to Playwrights Theatre

2010-10-29T11:10:00.004-04:00

StrangeDog Theatre returns to Playwrights Theatre on November 26 and 27 at 8pm.

We'll See Tomorrow (appropriate for ages 17 and up) depicts a variety of people struggling with their place in a world altering and growing faster than any other time in history, trying to discover where responsibility and the human spirit factor on this exponential curve.

A futuristic, cutting edge, state of the art meld of comedy and drama featuring fifteen characters portrayed by three actors, We'll See Tomorrow promises to be a whirlwind of science, madness, and whatever happens to fill the space in between.

For tickets call 201.500.SDOG (7364) or visit their website.

One-Day Playwriting Intensive for Adults

2010-10-28T11:05:00.002-04:00

One-Day Playwriting Intensive for Adults
with Carolyn Hunt, playwright and teaching artist

This one-day playwriting intensive is for beginners and those looking to brush up on their skills. Individual instruction may also exist.

When: Saturday, November 13 from 9:30am-12:30pm

Cost: $125

To Register: Contact our Education Department at 973.514.1787 X21.

A Dream Cast

2010-10-07T11:06:00.004-04:00

"If “Menopause” can be a runaway musical success, then perhaps a pre-menopausal musical at Playwrights Theatre in Madison can too.

It’s called “MoM A Rock Concert Musical.”

Because the script requires each of the women to be ace musicians, casting must have been a nightmare. But the result is a dream cast. As accomplished as these five women are as singers, they’re every bit as astonishing as musicians.

Bekka Lindstrom (Melissa) and Jane Keitel (Nancy) each play a mean guitar. Dana Loren McCoy (Ingrid) is terrific in assaulting her keyboard. Donna Jean Fogel (Karen) expertly plays a housewife who’s taking out her sexual frustration on her drum set. And while Stephanie Seskin (Catalina) can slap that bass, she can also play saxophone and flute, too. "

--Peter Filichia, The Star Ledger

Read Peter's entire review.

To purchased your tickets, visiti www.ptnj.org or call the box office at 973-514-1787 X10

Kicking Out the Jams

2010-10-06T10:57:00.004-04:00

"Oh, mama, they're kicking out the jams at Playwrights Theatre in Madison.

Harvested from the fertile grounds of a workshop production in the 2009 FringeNYC festival (where it was voted Outstanding Musical), Playwrights has transplanted the one-of-a-kind "MoM A Rock Concert Musical" to where it belongs: the suburbs.

In between, we get memorable songs of rebellion and celebration, sadness and uncertainty. Numbers like "Why Can't He Take Care of the Kids for a Change?" will make you laugh, while the dramatic "Don't Hold Back" speaks to the core of this story, which encourages us to follow our own dreams, come what may."

--William Westhoven, Daily Record

Click here to read the entire review

Get to Know the Cast of MoM

2010-10-05T16:37:00.004-04:00

Stefanie Seskin (Catalina) is the founder of blue number nine, a Jersey City based group formed in 1995 that has toured regionally and across the midwest. Seskin is a recipient of ASCAP’s ASCAPLU$ Songwriter Award in the “Popular” category since 2001. Prior to forming blue number nine, Seskin played bass with Bill Popp and the Tapes, sang back-up vocals in several projects, and is credited on 14 albums, on bass, sax, flute, vocals and as engineer.

Jane Keitel (Nancy) Recent Credits: PTNJ: The Good German by David Wiltse (NY/NJ Premiere), Where the Sun Never Sets; American Globe She Bop; Garage Theatre, 7 Good Ways. Jane loves her other work as a teaching artist and director. Directing credits: Les Miserables, School Ed., Pirates of Penzance, WASP. Love and thanks to John, Dani & Richard. Dedicated with love to her mom, Helen, the original ‘Single Mom’. Contact: Facebook: ‘EJ Keitel’ or keitelmusic@aol.com.

Donna Jean Fogel (Karen) has appeared in numerous plays in NYC and regionally as well as in the independent film Nine and Law & Order. Some favorite roles: Sara in Stop Kiss, The Barrow Group; Lady Layle Wingate in Rain from Heaven, Reckless Theatre Co; Supporta in Scenes From an Execution, Blue Light/Atlantic Theatre/Olney; Sister Jane in As It Is in Heaven, Stonington Opera House on Deer Isle, ME; Frankie/Francis in The Voice of the Prairie, Cape May Stage.

Bekka Lindström (Melissa) recently played Sister Betsy in As It Is In Heaven at the Stonington Opera House in Deer Isle, Maine. She last appeared in the NY Fringe as Lori in The Lightning Field, which then went on to a run in London. Other New York credits: Medea in A Jar In The Forest (The Samuel French Play Festival); the suffragette Ellen Gates Star in Jane’s House (The Neighborhood Playhouse); and Sylvia in Stacked (The Bank Street Theater).

Dana Loren McCoy (Ingrid) is a graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music and Berklee College of Music, Performance and Composition Majors. Dana has performed and written songs for Virgin, EMI, Netwerk and Empire Records. Dana loves the girls in “MoM” and Richard more than Nutella, and blows everlasting kisses to the producers and team at PTNJ for supporting this wonderful project. Special thanks to Tracy Wells who has been all our MoM on this journey.

Think Pink - Moms Are Free

2010-10-02T13:42:00.003-04:00

In Honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, all MoMs get free tickets this weekend!

Calling all Moms! To kick off the first weekend of "MoM A Rock Concert Musical", we're giving away free tickets to all Moms. All you have to do is wear pink to the show tonight or tomorrow and you'll get in for FREE*.

Performances This Weekend:
Saturday, October 2 at 8pm
Sunday, October 3 at 3pm

Ruth Ross, NJ Arts Maven, thinks the show is great! Read her entire review.

Five "soccer moms" form a rock band to play at a High School benefit. Then they get really famous. Beautiful and terrible things happen to them. MOM A ROCK CONCERT MUSICAL chronicles their rise and rise. The workshop production won Outstanding Musical at FringeNYC 2009.

Appropriate for ages 16 and up, adult language and situations

Call the Box Office at 973-514-1787 X10 to reserve your tickets

*Not valid on previously purchased tickets. No retroactive discounts.

Playwrights Theatre
33 Green Village Road
PO Box 1295
Madison, NJ 07940
www.ptnj.org
973-514-1787 X10

MoM A Rock Concert Musical Opens This Week

2010-09-28T17:04:00.004-04:00

MoM A Rock Concert Musical

Book, Music and Lyrics by Richard Caliban

September 30 - October 24, 2010

(appropriate for ages 16 and up, adult language and situations)

directed by Richard Caliban

featuring:
Donna Jean Fogel
Jane Keitel
Bekka Lindström
Dana McCoy
Stefanie Seskin.

Five "soccer moms" form a rock band to play at a High School benefit. Then they get really famous. Beautiful and terrible things happen to them. MoM A Rock Concert Musical chronicles their rise and rise. The workshop production won Outstanding Musical at FringeNYC 2009.

Tickets on sale now! Adults $25, Seniors $22.50 Groups of 10+ and Book Clubs $20.

To reserve your tickets, click here or call the box office at 973-514-1787 X10.

All performances take place at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ.

Click here for directions.

Fall Classes for Kids

2010-09-13T13:33:00.006-04:00

Fall Classes for Kids at Playwrights Theatre

Playmakers (grades 1-3)
October 2 - December 11, 2010 (no class November 27)
Saturdays, 10:30am-12:00pm

Acting Lab (grades 4-6)
October 5 - December 14, 2010 (no class November 23)
Tuesdays, 4:30pm-6:00pm

Musical Performance (grades 4-6)
October 7 - December 16, 2010 (no class November 25)
Thursdays, 4:30pm-6:00pm

Parents interested in the Creative Play class (Pre-K and K), should call the Education Department at 973-514-1787 X21.

Tuition per class is $275 and $250 for returning students.

For more information and to register, visit our website or call our Education Department at 973-514-1787 X21.

Adult Playwriting Workshop

2010-09-09T10:14:00.002-04:00

Playwriting Workshop with John Pietrowski

Oct 18 - Dec 20, 2010
Mondays, 7-10pm
$275 ($250 for returning students)

This will be a basic workshop class where students share work in a supportive environment. Enrollment is open to students of all levels of experience, classes will provide exercises to beginners working on their first play as well as experienced writers who are further down the road.

To register, call the Education Department at 973.514.1787 X21.

Are you wanting to know more about the ABC's of playwriting? Not sure where to start? Looking for the basics? If you are interested in taking a one-day, basic playwriting class, let us know. Drop us an email or contact our Education Department at 973.514.1787 X21.

Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods A Must See

2010-09-08T16:53:00.008-04:00

Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods
by Tammy Ryan

a co-production between Playwrights Theatre and Premiere Stages, in partnership with Kean University Human Rights Institute

directed by John Pietrowski

September 2 - 19, 2010

"See. This. Play." Sherri Rase, [Q]onStage

"If you like excellent drama...you must see new, powerful, timely play Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods."Rick Busciglio, Examiner.com

"Almost everything comes together extraordinarily well in director John Pietrowski's crisp production."
Peter Filichia, The Star-Ledger

Click here to purchase tickets online or call the box office at 908-737-7469. Please note: All performances take place at the Zella Fry Theatre on the campus of Kean University.

Performances This Week:
Thursday, Sept 9 at 8pm
Friday, Sept 10 at 8pm
Saturday, Sept 11 at 3pm and 8pm
Sunday, Sept 12 at 3pm

Special Events This Week:
Sunday, Sept 12 - "Sunday Scholars" post-show discussion with Dr. Jay Spaulding, expert on Sudanese History

An optimistic former "Lost Boy" from Sudan meets a suburban mother in desperate need of adventure. What begins as an unlikely friendship soon becomes an unbreakable bond that leads them toward a better understanding of their place in the world.

Click here for directions to Premiere Stages at Kean University

Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods Opens Today

2010-09-02T12:35:00.005-04:00

Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods by Tammy Ryan is a co-production between Playwrights Theatre and Premiere Stages in partnership with Kean University Human Rights Institute. The production which previews tonight, September 2, 2010 at 8pm runs through September 19, 2010.

Directed by John Pietrowski
Appropriate for ages 11 and up.

An optimistic “Lost Boy” from Sudan meets a suburban mother in desperate need of adventure. What begins as an unlikely friendship soon becomes an unbreakable bond that leads them toward a better understanding of their place in the world.

Please note: All performances of this production will be held at the Zella Fry Theatre on the Campus of Kean University.

A host of special events will occur in conjunction with the production. For more information, click here.

September 2 - "Pizza Preview" with $10 student tickets and free pizza in the lobby before the show.

To order tickets call the box office at 908-737-7469 or order online.

Daily Record review of Mahida's Extra Key To Heaven

2010-04-30T11:08:00.004-04:00

Check out Bill Westhoven's review of "Mahida's Extra Key to Heaven" by Russell Davis in today's Daily Record.

"Mahida's Extra Key to Heaven" is the kind of play you won't want to see alone, because you'll need someone to discuss it with on the way home. That sort of entertainment is torture for some people, but for others, this food for thought will be a gourmet meal." -- Bill Westhoven, Daily Record

Mahida's Extra Key To Heaven by Russell Davis

2010-04-01T11:27:00.003-04:00

Mahidas Extra Key To Heaven by Russell Davis
April 22 - May 9, 2010
Directed by John Pietrowski
Featuring Mariam Habib, Jack Moran, Jane Blass and Ryan Shams

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online or by calling the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

Thomas, a young painter, is visiting Edna, his comfortably conservative and opinionated mother in a small ocean town on an island near the Canadian border. Out walking, he discovers Mahida, an Iranian exchange student who has missed the last ferry back to the mainland. Mahida’s brother, Ramin, an Islamic fundamentalist, seems to have left her after she refused to come back to Iran with him after the death of their father, but she can’t be sure. She reluctantly agrees to stay at Edna’s house for the night. When Ramin shows up for her the next day, two extreme worlds collide thousands of miles from the center of the perceived conflict.

Set Design - Drew Francis
Lighting Design - Richard Currie
Costume Design - Sarah Cubbage
Props Design - Dani Pietrowski
Sound Design - Jeff Knapp
Production Stage Manager - Danielle Constance
Assistant Stage Manager - Walter F. Rodriquez

Calling All Young Writers

2010-02-19T14:57:00.005-05:00

If you are a young writer, be sure to check out Script Frenzy's Young Writers Program. The adventure is writing pages of scripted material (screenplay, stage play, TV Script or comic book) between April 1 - 30, 2010. There is no cost to participate and every writer that reaches their page-count goal can celebrate knowing they completed the amazing journey of writing.

To find out more, visit their "How Script Frenzy Works for Young Scriptwriters in Ten Easy Steps" page.

It's not too late...Youth Troupe Deadline Extended to December 13

2009-11-25T12:00:00.004-05:00

Back by popular demand, Playwrights Theatre's Youth Troupe will return to our class offerings this year!

Youth Troupe (for students in grades 6-8) is a long-term production and performance project for students with a strong interest in creating theatre.

During Troupe sessions, students will work collaboratively, under the direction of Jim DeVivo, Playwrights Theatre's Director of Education, to conceive, write and present an original performance piece based on a predetermined theme. Youth Troupe is in part a training program, as students will build skills that prepare them for continued involvement in theatre. It is also a unique forum for exploring thoughts and opinions, and expressing them creatively through a structured art form.

Above all, the process is fun, rewarding, and requires a great deal of dedication, discipline, and energy. The ideal Troupe candidate is a young person who is enthusiastic about theatre, interested in growing as an artist, eager to learn, has a cooperative spirit, and believes that he/she has something valuable to contribute to the company.

Applications are available online via our account with the website SurveyMonkey - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=3W3d_2bXvW6CzTHlIuQRcsdA_3d_3d

Applications must be received by December 13, 2009. After that time, Jim DeVivo will contact applicants to schedule an interview with both the student and parent(s) to further discuss the program and the applicants' interested in joining.

Youth Troupe is scheduled to run for 15 Saturdays beginning January 23, 2010 and ending with a public presentation on May 8, 2010. (No class on April 3.) Troupe meets from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm on those days; however, the final day will also include the presentation at 2:00 pm. The cost for the prorgam is $475.00 for the 15 sessions and performance. Scholarships for students with financial need may also be available.

Questions? Contact Jim DeVivo at 973.514.1787 X14 or jdevivo@ptnj.org

Murder, Too by David Wiltse

2009-11-20T10:55:00.003-05:00

A staged reading of "Murder, Too" by David Wiltse will take place on Saturday, November 21 at 7pm. Real life husband and wife, Jay O. Sanders (John Goodman’s biker buddy “Ziggy” on Roseanne) and Maryann Plunkett (Tony-winner, Me and My Girl) will play a husband and wife in Wiltse’s new murder comedy.

About the Playwright: David Wiltse is the author of 13 plays and 12 novels. A production of Sedition starring Playwrights Theatre’s John Pietrowski, was done at Playwrights Theatre in 2008. Another Wiltse play, The Good German, was produced in this theater in 2006.

About the Director: For Playwrights Theatre: Sedition, The Good German, Circumference of a Squirrel, Sunrise at Monticello, adapted & directed Jim Lehrer’s Flying Crows and The Special Prisoner (w/William Schallert). Elsewhere: Death of a Salesman (w/Frankie Faison), Bluff (w/John Astin), The Value of Names (w/Jack Klugman), The Price (w/Orson Bean & Stephanie Zimbalist), All My Sons (w/Richard Benjamin & Paula Prentiss), The Gin Game (w/William Schallert), Mrs. Warren’s Profession (w/Paula Prentiss & Prentiss Benjamin), Macbeth (w/Frankie Faison), Spread Eagle (w/Ed Asner, Sharon Gless, Jamey Sheridan, Fred Savage).

The Light by Ken Scarborough

2009-11-20T10:30:00.003-05:00

Tonight's FORUM reading of "The Light" by Ken Scarborough will be directed by John Pietrowski. It begins at 7pm with a discussion to follow with Ken and John.

About the Playwright: Ken Scarborough has won four Emmys for his television writing: as a staff writer for Saturday Night Live, as the Head Writer for the PBS series Arthur, and as a writer for Between the Lions. Ken currently serves as Head Writer and Creative Producer for Martha Speaks, a children’s television series he developed for PBS. The Light is his first play.

About the Director: John Pietrowski is the Artistic Director of Playwrights Theatre, where he has directed numerous world premiere productions of plays in his 19-year tenure. A winner of the Agnes E. Nixon playwriting award at Northwestern University for two of his plays, he has had readings and productions of plays at theatres in New Jersey and New York. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Performance Studies Department, he also holds an Masters of Public Administration in non-profit management from Seton Hall University, and teaches at both Fairleigh Dickinson and Seton Hall University.

Class Dismissed by Jeffrey Sweet

2009-11-19T10:22:00.005-05:00

"Classed Dismissed" by Jeffrey Sweet continues the FORUM reading series tonight at 7pm.

About the Playwright: Jeffrey Sweet has had 13 plays produced at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theatre of Chicago where he is a resident writer. He has previously worked with director James Glossman on productions of The Value of Names (at George Street), Bluff and Immoral Imperatives. Jeff’s play, With and Without, played at the Bickford. He wrote Something Wonderful Right Away, an oral history of Second City. He serves on the Council of the Dramatists Guild.

About the Director: For Playwrights Theatre: Sedition, The Good German, Circumference of a Squirrel, Sunrise at Monticello, adapted & directed Jim Lehrer’s Flying Crows and The Special Prisoner (w/William Schallert). Elsewhere: Death of a Salesman (w/Frankie Faison), Bluff (w/John Astin), The Value of Names (w/Jack Klugman), The Price (w/Orson Bean & Stephanie Zimbalist), All My Sons (w/Richard Benjamin & Paula Prentiss), The Gin Game (w/William Schallert), Mrs. Warren’s Profession (w/Paula Prentiss & Prentiss Benjamin), Macbeth (w/Frankie Faison), Spread Eagle (w/Ed Asner, Sharon Gless, Jamey Sheridan, Fred Savage).

Beggar at the Feast by Fengar Gael

2009-11-18T10:42:00.004-05:00

The third week of FORUM continues tonight at 7pm with "Beggar at the Feast" by Fengar Gael, directed by John Pietrowski. FORUM is a staged reading series featuring the work of some of the country's best writers with intimate discussions between author and audience following each performance.

About the Playwright: Fengar Gael plays have been produced at the InterAct Theatre, New Jersey Repertory, Moxie Theatre, Seanachi Theatre, and MultiStages. She is a recipient of the Craig Noel Award for Outstanding New Play for Devil Dog Six, the Playwrights First Award for Opaline, and commissions from South Coast Repertory and the National New Play Network. She is working on a musical, Soul on Vinyl, and her play, The Usher’s Ball, will be produced in New York at CAP 21 next summer.

About the Director: John Pietrowski is the Artistic Director of Playwrights Theatre, where he has directed numerous world premiere productions of plays in his 19-year tenure. A winner of the Agnes E. Nixon playwriting award at Northwestern University for two of his plays, he has had readings and productions of plays at theatres in New Jersey and New York. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Performance Studies Department, he also holds an Masters of Public Administration in non-profit management from Seton Hall University, and teaches at both Fairleigh Dickinson and Seton Hall University.

Red Masquerade by Jack Wade

2009-11-13T17:57:00.004-05:00

Join us for a reading on Saturday, November 14 at 7pm of Jack Wade's Red Masquerade. Make your reservations online or contact the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

About the Playwright: Jack Wade's previous plays include Blood Ties (Hedgerow Theatre) and Last Stand on the Miracle Mile (Actor’s Center, of Washington, D.C.) He has designed lighting and /or scenery for over 200 theatrical and dance productions An Associate Chair and Professor of Theatre at SUNY New Paltz, he is a recipient of the Theatre Crafts International Award for outstanding achievement in theatrical design and technology and is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829.

About the Director: James Glossman - For Playwrights Theatre: Sedition, The Good German, Circumference of a Squirrel, Sunrise at Monticello, adapted & directed Jim Lehrer’s Flying Crows and The Special Prisoner (w/William Schallert). Elsewhere: Death of a Salesman (w/Frankie Faison), Bluff (w/John Astin), The Value of Names (w/Jack Klugman), The Price (w/Orson Bean & Stephanie Zimbalist), All My Sons (w/Richard Benjamin & Paula Prentiss), The Gin Game (w/William Schallert), Mrs. Warren’s Profession (w/Paula Prentiss & Prentiss Benjamin), Macbeth (w/Frankie Faison), Spread Eagle (w/Ed Asner, Sharon Gless, Jamey Sheridan, Fred Savage).

The Toymaker's War by Jennifer Fawcett

2009-11-13T11:02:00.004-05:00

Come in from the cold tonight and see a staged reading of "The Toymaker's War" by Jennifer Fawcett. It begins at 7pm with a discussion to follow with the playwright. Tickets can reserved by calling 973.514.1787 X10 or online. $10 for tonight's reading or purchase a FORUM pass for $25 and see all the remaining FORUM readings (Nov. 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21 and Dec. 16).

About the Playwright: Jennifer Fawcett's work has been developed and produced at theatres in the US and Canada including the Kennedy Center, the Lark Play Development Center (NYC), Halcyon Theatre (Chicago), Waterfront Theatre (Vancouver), Summerworks Theatre Festival (Toronto) and the Adirondack Theatre Festival. She was the NNPN Emerging Playwright-in-Residence at Curious Theatre Company (Denver), and is the recipient of the National Science Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center ACTF and a Creation Fund Award from the National Performance Network.

Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods by Tammy Ryan

2009-11-12T10:47:00.005-05:00

Tammy Ryan's "Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods" continues the FORUM reading series tonight at 7pm.

About the Playwright: Tammy Ryan’s plays include A Confluence of Dreaming (finalist, 2008 Julie Harris Playwriting Award), The Music Lesson (2004 AATE Distinguished Play Award), and Dark Part Of The Forest (winner 2006 Premiere Stages Playwriting Festival). Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods was developed at the New Harmony Project and Premiere Stages Playwriting Festival this summer and will be presented at the National New Play Network’s 2009 National Showcase of New Plays in Atlanta in December.

About the Director: John Pietrowski is the Artistic Director of Playwrights Theatre, where he has directed numerous world premiere productions of plays in his 19-year tenure. A winner of the Agnes E. Nixon playwriting award at Northwestern University for two of his plays, he has had readings and productions of plays at theatres in New Jersey and New York. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Performance Studies Department, he also holds an Masters of Public Administration in non-profit management from Seton Hall University, and teaches at both Fairleigh Dickinson and Seton Hall University.

Risk by Yasmine Beverly Rana

2009-11-11T09:30:00.004-05:00

The second week of the FORUM reading series begins tonight at 7pm with "Risk" by Yasmine Beverly Rana. Tickets are $10 for one reading or purchase a FORUM pass for $25 and see all the plays you want in the FORUM series. Reserve online or call the box office at 973.514.1787 X10.

About the Playwright: Yasmine Beverly Rana's The War Zone is My Bed and Other Plays will be published by Seagull Books. The volume will include Blood Sky, Returning, and Paradise, all presented in Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey’s Reading Series. Yasmine is a founder and Resident Playwright at Nora’s Playhouse in New York, a new theater company celebrating the voices and stories of women artists. www.norasplayhouse.org. Her plays have been produced at Johns Hopkins University, Brooklyn College, Second Stage Theater, La MaMa E.T.C, among others.

About the Director: is the Artistic Director of Playwrights Theatre, where he has directed numerous world premiere productions of plays in his 19-year tenure. A winner of the Agnes E. Nixon playwriting award at Northwestern University for two of his plays, he has had readings and productions of plays at theatres in New Jersey and New York. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Performance Studies Department, he also holds an Masters of Public Administration in non-profit management from Seton Hall University, and teaches at both Fairleigh Dickinson and Seton Hall University.

Spread a Little Good Will This Season

2009-11-10T11:14:00.003-05:00

For the 6th year in a row, Playwrights Theatre will be collecting new, unwrapped toys for Marine Corps Reserve Toys For Tots, gentlly used coats for Jersey Cares and pet items for Randolph Municipal Pound. In the lobby of Playwrights Theatre, there are 3 marked collection boxes. Items can be dropped off Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm. The last day for donations is Friday, December 11, 2009.

Marine Corps Reserve TOYS FOR TOTS
The mission of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program is to collect new, unwrapped toys and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted. Please donate new and unwrapped toys.

Randolph Municipal Pound
The Randolph Township Municipal Pound makes every effort to find homes for their animals, including placing them with no-kill shelters. Items the shelter needs: dry or canned dog or cat food, dog runs, rabbit hutches, used clean blankets, towels and small rugs, toys for cats and dogs.

14th Annual Jersey Cares Coat Drive
The goal of the 14th Annual Coat Drive is to collect and distribute 35,000 "gently used" winter coats to at-risk men, women, children and infants. Please donate your gently used winter coats.

Youth Troupe at Playwrights Theatre

2009-11-09T17:14:00.001-05:00

Back by popular demand, Playwrights Theatre's Youth Troupe will return to our class offerings this year!

Youth Troupe (for students in grades 6-8) is a long-term production and performance project for students with a strong interest in creating theatre. During Troupe sessions, students will work collaboratively, under the direction of Jim DeVivo, Playwrights Theatre's Director of Education, to conceive, write and present an original performance piece based on a predetermined theme. Youth Troupe is in part a training program, as students will build skills that prepare them for continued involvement in theatre. It is also a unique forum for exploring thoughts and opinions, and expressing them creatively through a structured art form.

Above all, the process is fun, rewarding, and requires a great deal of dedication, discipline, and energy. The ideal Troupe candidate is a young person who is enthusiastic about theatre, interested in growing as an artist, eager to learn, has a cooperative spirit, and believes that he/she has something valuable to contribute to the company.

Applications are available online via our account with the website SurveyMonkey - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=3W3d_2bXvW6CzTHlIuQRcsdA_3d_3d

Applications must be received by November 20, 2009. After that time, Jim DeVivo will contact applicants to schedule an interview with both the student and parent(s) to further discuss the program and the applicants' interested in joining.

Youth Troupe is scheduled to run for 15 Saturdays beginning January 23, 2010 and ending with a public presentation on May 8, 2010. (No class on April 3.) Troupe meets from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm on those days; however, the final day will also include the presentation at 2:00 pm. The cost for the prorgam is $475.00 for the 15 sessions and performance. Scholarships for students with financial need may also be available.

Questions? Contact Jim DeVivo at 973.514.1787 X14 or jdevivo@ptnj.org

NOT WHAT YOU THINK by Joe Sutton

2009-11-06T17:32:00.004-05:00

On stage Saturday, November 7, join us for a reading of "Not What You Think" by Joe Sutton. Among the scheduled performers are Len Cariou (Tony-winner, original Sweeney Todd, Little Night Music) who will play George Orwell.

About the Playwright: Joe Sutton's plays about topical issues include Voir Dire (nominated for the Pulitzer), As It is in Heaven, and Restoring the Sun. Joe’s plays have been produced by such theatres as the New York Theater Workshop, Seattle Rep, and, most recently the Old Vic which produced his play Complicit. Joe is a recipient of fellowships from NYFA, the NEA, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. When not in rehearsal, Joe resides in Montclair, NJ with his wife Anne and their sons James and Nicholas.

About the Director: For Playwrights Theatre: Sedition, The Good German, Circumference of a Squirrel, Sunrise at Monticello, adapted & directed Jim Lehrer’s Flying Crows and The Special Prisoner (w/William Schallert). Elsewhere: Death of a Salesman (w/Frankie Faison), Bluff (w/John Astin), The Value of Names (w/Jack Klugman), The Price (w/Orson Bean & Stephanie Zimbalist), All My Sons (w/Richard Benjamin & Paula Prentiss), The Gin Game (w/William Schallert), Mrs. Warren’s Profession (w/Paula Prentiss & Prentiss Benjamin), Macbeth (w/Frankie Faison), Spread Eagle (w/Ed Asner, Sharon Gless, Jamey Sheridan, Fred Savage).

Reserve your tickets online or by calling the box office at 973.514.1787 X10

THE EXCEPTIONALS by Robert Clyman

2009-11-06T17:15:00.006-05:00

On stage tonight, 7pm, a reading of Robert Clyman's "The Exceptionals."

About the Playwright: Robert Clyman's plays have been produced Off-Broadway and at regional theatres, including the Alley Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Repertory Theatre at George Street Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey and L.A. Theatre Works in addition to touring Scotland. His awards include a Eugene O’Neill Summer Conference Fellowship, Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award Geraldine Dodge Fellowship, New Jersey State Arts Council Award and an Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship He was nominated for an Outer Circle Critics Award for best script in 2008.

About the Director:
John Wooten is the Producing Artistic Director of Premiere Stages, a professional Equity theatre dedicated to the development of American dramatists. He has directed numerous world premieres and is a resident director for the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. John’s plays have been produced Off-Broadway, in London, Australia, India, South Africa, Canada and in regional Equity theaters across America. Published by: Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, Playscripts Inc. and Dramatic Publishing Company. John teaches Playwriting and Inside Television at Kean University. His film Cat in the Pan recently premiered at the Montreal Film Festival.

FRATERNITY reading tonight

2009-11-05T17:17:00.004-05:00

Come see the staged reading of "Fraternity" by Samuel Brett Williams tonight at 7pm, directed by John Pietrowski.

About the playwright: Samuel Brett Williams hails from Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he was raised in a strict southern Baptist environment. His plays have been developed at the Eugene O'Neill National Playwright's Conference, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Lark Play Development Center, Naked Angels, Yale University, and P73 Productions. Brett's plays have been produced at Cherry Lane Theatre, Ars Nova, Stageworks/Hudson, Mile Square Theatre, the D.C. Center and New Oreleans Theatre Experiment.

About the Director: John Pietrowski is the Artistic Director of Playwrights Theatre, where he has directed numerous world premiere productions of plays in his 19-year tenure. A winner of the Agnes E. Nixon playwriting award at Northwestern University for two of his plays, he has had readings and productions of plays at theatres in New Jersey and New York. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Performance Studies Department, he also holds an Masters of Public Administration in non-profit management from Seton Hall University, and teaches at both Fairleigh Dickinson and Seton Hall University.

FORUM begins this week

2009-11-04T11:17:00.008-05:00

FORUM: 14 Staged Readings of New Plays

All readings begin at 7pm

Attend 1 reading for $10 or attend up to all 14 readings with a FORUM pass for only $25

Playwrights Theatre announces the return of the popular roundtable reading series FORUM with staged readings of 14 innovative new plays by some of the country's best writers with intimate discussions between author and audience following each performance.

On tonight's schedule is "Super" by Lia Romeo, directed by Artem Yatsunov.

About the Playwright: Lia Romeo earned her B.A. from Princeton University and her M.F.A. in playwriting from Rutgers University. She was last year's Emerging Playwright-In-Residence at Playwrights Theatre. Her short plays have been produced in fourteen different states and internationally, and she has world premieres of two new full-lenth plays coming up this season in Kansas and California. She is also the author of the humor book 11,002 Things To Be Miserable About, available in bookstores nationwide.

About the Director: Artem Yatsunov is one of the founding members of the troupe StrangeDog Theatre, http://www.strangedogtheatre.com/, with whom he has been directing for over a year now. Some of his past credits include: subUrbia by Eric Bogosian (Jersey City); Bootstraps (Luna Stage) and New.Tricks! (Playwrights Theatre) by Ben Clawson. Up next, he's directing the world premiere of Omnivores by Ben Clawson, opening the day after Thanksgiving, right here at Playwrights Theatre. Montclair State University Alum.

To reserve your tickets, call our box office at 973.514.1787 X10 or reserve online.

Click here for directions to the theatre.

NaNoWritMo Is Coming....

2009-09-10T17:10:00.003-04:00

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a month-long adventure where your goal is to write a 175-page (50,000) word novel between November 1-November 30. It's a wild, crazy and extremely fulfilling process. It's fun. It's free. It's fabulous. Click here to find out all the details.

Blocking Scenes, Measuring Costumes and Handling Props

2009-09-10T11:03:00.004-04:00

Rehearsals are going well for "Our Dad Is In Atlantis". The first seven scenes have been worked through and blocked. The actors will be measured for their costumes today and the Assistant Stage Manager has become the "official paper airplane engineer & contractor". Bet you didn't know that such a position existed in theatre?

William Westhoven's Jersey Stages

2009-09-09T12:02:00.003-04:00

Be in "the know" of what is happening on the plethora of stages in New Jersey by following theatre columnist and business editor of the Daily Record, William Westhoven's Jersey Stages blog.

Adult classes

2009-09-09T11:10:00.003-04:00

Are you looking for a creative way to express yourself? Well, then look no further. Playwrights Theatre has classes for adults that will let your inner artistic side shine.

Playwriting Workshop September 14 - November 23 and November 30 - February 1

Acting & Performance Workshop October 6 - December 15 and March 2 - May 11

Writing Prose Narrative October 15 - November 12

Reading, Writing, Response February 25

Click here for all the details and to register

New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival Contest & Festival

2009-09-02T11:20:00.008-04:00

We are accepting submissions for the 27th Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival and Contest. We have a new category this year---PODSTAGES!

Plays are accepted in the following divisions:

Elementary (4-6)
Junior High (7-9)
High School (10-12)
Rewrites (10-12)
Podstages (10-12)

Did you know that we have an entire blog dedicated to the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest & Festival? Yup. Click here to check it out!

Questions? Contact Jim DeVivo, Director of Education at Playwrights Theatre at 973.514.1787 X14 or via email at jdevivo@ptnj.org

NNPN

2009-09-01T16:56:00.004-04:00

Did you know that Playwrights Theatre is part of NNPN (National New Play Network) which consists of nonprofit theatres across the US that develop, produce and advocate for the continued life of new plays.

Check out the NNPN member theatres by clicking here.

Be sure to take in a show at one of these theatres if you are in the area and tell them that Playwrights Theatre says "hi".

Plays Without Borders: 2009-2010 Season

2009-08-06T16:53:00.001-04:00

Our 24th Mainstage season is being called "Plays Without Borders" and opens in October with the NJ premiere of Our Dad Is In Atlantis from Mexican playwright, Javier Malpica (translation by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas).

The season continues with the East Coast premiere of a comedy Two Jews Walked Into a War...by Seth Rozin.

The final show of the season will be Mahida's Extra Key To Heaven by Russell Davis.

For complete details visit our website: http://www.ptnj.org/NPD/SeasonScheduleA.htm

Volunteer!

2009-06-29T11:39:00.000-04:00

Volunteering is a great way to give back to your community. We have lots of different volunteer opportunities available: data entry, ushering, postcard distribution, concession stand, maintaining the theatre and much more! Why not give us a call (973.514.1787 X10) or an email today to find how you can help kick off our 24th season. We'll see you at the theatre!

2009-06-17T14:35:00.000-04:00

Interesting blog perspective on Off-Broadway.

Tony Nom Videos

2009-06-08T15:47:00.000-04:00

Watch short videos of the 2009 Tony nominated plays and musicals.

Jazzfest 2009

2009-06-03T11:11:00.000-04:00

The New Jersey Jazz Society presents Jazzfest this weekend June 5 and June 6, featuring Curtis Sigers and The DIVA Jazz Orchestra. Also performing are Houston Person Quartet, Trio da Paz, Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks, Allan Vaché, Benny Goodman Tribute Big Band, Rio Clemente Trio with Laura Hull.

Jazzfest 2009 will be held at the Drew University campus in Madison, NJ.

Documentary on Hal Prince

2009-06-02T10:10:00.000-04:00

On June 6, check out the documentary on Hal Prince director and producer extraordinaire. In 2006, Harold Prince received a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater. He has won 21 Tonys (no other individual has accomplished this) and is credited with more than 50 plays, musicals and operas.

Madison Artist Studio Tour

2009-05-22T15:49:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, June 14, 2009 the Madison Arts and Culture Alliance (MACA) will sponsor the "Madison Artist Studio Tour". This event will take place from 11:00am to 5:00pm, rain or shine. Twenty artists, photographers and fine craftspeople who live and/or work in Madison will be participating in this event. The Madison Artist Studio Tour, organized to introduce and promote the visual artists in the borough, will cover the participating artists' studio and exhibition spaces throughout the Rose City. Visit the MACA website for more details.

More Fun Than Bowling

2009-05-20T10:47:00.000-04:00

What could be more fun that bowling? Find out in 12 Miles West Production by Steven Dietz through June 7. 12 Miles West is in residence at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ.

NJYP in the news

2009-05-14T12:12:00.000-04:00

The New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival will be held at Kean University on Monday and Tuesday, May 19-20. Elizabeth Martin of The Neighbor News just did an article on two of the young playwrights, Salonee Shah and Lindsay Wang. Check it out!

Orlando International Fringe Festival

2009-05-12T16:39:00.000-04:00

If you have never been to a Fringe Festival---GO!!! Buy the pass and see tons of original theatre pieces in a plethora of cool venues. Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival is going on May 14-25. For more info, visit their website.