Theatre News Wire

New Leaf Theatre, currently celebrating its 10th anniversary, announces the three new plays selected for its next Treehouse Readings Series to take place the last Wednesday of every month February through April 2011. The revamped series, which kicked off last fall, is dedicated to providing an incubator for new play development, specifically for plays that have received an initial reading and are in the more advanced stages of polishing before their premieres.

The three new works selected for the Winter/Spring series address the thematic element of "Home" and will take place at New Leaf Theatre's home at the Lincoln Park Cultural Center, 2045 N. Lincoln Park West. The staged readings will be followed by a talk-back. Admission is free to all readings.

The selected plays are:

Burying Miss America by Brian Golden
Wednesday, February 23 at 7 p.m.

Synopsis: When a legendary former beauty queen dies, her two children reunite at the funeral for the first time in six years. Divided by distance and their mother's mile-long shadow, Boxer and Jean banter, tease, and relive childhood memories while delaying the inevitable questions: with their mother gone, what happens next? A darkly funny and moving play about family, love and inheritance.

Dandelion Momma by Greg Romero
Wednesday, March 30 at 7 p.m.

Synopsis: A 100-year old woman reflects on her life through broken pieces of memory. An eight-year old girl takes care of wayward dandelions and sees the lights inside of people. A farm girl and a writer search for life while planting seeds in the hardened ground of the Great Depression. The ground becomes harder, the girl becomes tired, the air becomes heavier and something new must be born.

How We Got On by Idris Goodwin
Wednesday, April 27 at 7 p.m.

Synopsis: A classic American coming-of-age tale with a unique hip-hop treatment: domestic suburban life remixed. The Selector, our DJ/Narrator, samples and loops us through the lives of three Midwestern teen rappers who have yet to discover the power of harmony over discord.

MEET THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Brian Golden (Burying Miss America) is a playwright, director and the Artistic Director of Theatre Seven of Chicago. Brian's play Cooperstown premiered at Theatre Seven in 2009 and received nominations for one Joseph Jefferson Award and two Black Theatre Alliance Awards. His play Six Seconds in Charlack has received productions in St. Louis, New York and Philadelphia. His short work has been produced by Theatre Seven, Collaboraction, the side project and by small theatres in Los Angeles and St. Louis. He is one of twelve playwrights contributing World Premiere short plays to Theatre Seven's June production, The Chicago Landmark Project. Burying Miss America was previously workshopped at Chicago Dramatists. Brian is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, a two-time winner of the A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Contest, and recipient of the Leota Diesel Ashton Playwriting Prize and John J. Jutkowitz Award.

Greg Romero (Dandelion Momma) is a playwright/theater artist whose plays, site-specific projects and participatory live events have been produced in New York, Philadelphia, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Louisville, Phoenix and New Orleans. Romero's collaborations with electronic music composer Mike Vernusky have been produced live in New York, Philadelphia, Austin, and Phoenix, while also receiving airplay in Toronto, Canada and Zürich, Switzerland. Romero has been a finalist for the Heideman Award, a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award, nominated for the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theater Artist and was selected as the first-ever Resident Writer of the ArtsEdge Residency as well as one of the first three writers selected for the inaugural Philadelphia Dramatists Center/Plays & Players Playwriting Residency. His works are published by Heinemann Press and Playscripts, Inc. Romero received an MFA in Playwriting from The University of Texas-Austin where he held the James A. Michener Fellowship. Romero is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater at Drexel University and has also taught at the National Theater Institute.

Idris Goodwin (How We Got On) is an award-winning playwright, poet and performer who uses hip hop arts to create original genre defying performances. From Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater to Minneapolis' Pilsbury House Theater to Albuquerque's Kimo Theater, Goodwin's innovative work is showcased across the nation. In 2005, the NNPN New Plays Showcase at Stanford featured his play Braising; since then, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Ford Foundation, The Hip Hop Theater Festival and The Illinois Arts Council have supported his writing. He has performed on HBO, The Discovery Channel and garnered praise from The New York Times and National Public Radio. These Are The Breaks, his debut collection of hip hop prose will be widely released in March. Currently, Goodwin is a member of the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa.

NEXT SEASON'S SUBMISSIONS

Submissions for the 2011 - 2012 Treehouse Readings Series will be accepted now through March 20, 2011.

The thematic element for the next round of new works is "Critical Mass." The company described the theme as such:

"We experience 'Critical Mass' in moments when the inevitable begins to take shape, when what was starts to drift toward what is and what will be. We create 'Critical Mass' when individuals come together to initiate that moment of change, that momentum - and to maintain it. It's a turning point, a tipping point, the moment in which we begin or ways we find to carry on. We find 'Critical Mass' in moments of collectiveness and reflectiveness, in the moment of choice, of change, of free-fall before we take flight."

The Treehouse Readings series features six staged readings each year: three plays selected for the summer/fall and three plays selected for the winter/spring. For each submission period, all the new work submitted addresses a central thematic element.

All submitted plays must have received at least one previous public reading, but not yet have received a full production with any theatre. Playwrights are asked to include a cover letter that answers the following three questions: How does your play address "Critical Mass"; name three artists who inspire you and why; and share a moment in your life when everything changed.

At the end of the Treehouse Readings Series, the company will select one of the scripts to receive a full production as part of New Leaf Theatre's following season.

"For this year's Treehouse Readings Series, and for all future series, we are specifically interested in 'play polishing' - fine tuning work that has already received at least one initial reading, work with which we can more aggressively engage in the collaborative process," said Hutchinson.

For further information and to submit, visit www.newleaftheatre.org.