SIX SCRIPTS SELECTED FOR NATIONAL SHOWCASE OF NEW PLAYS: NOVEMBER 18-20 IN PHILADELPHIA

WASHINGTON, DC, October 3 - The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, will produce six new plays in staged reading format at its National Showcase of New Plays, hosted November 18 – 20 in Philadelphia by InterAct Theatre Company. A committee of artistic, managing and literary leaders from across the country selected plays by Robert Caisley, James Christy, Jr, William Missouri Downs, Tony Fiorentino, Deb Laufer, and Robert O'Hara for the ninth annual showcase.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL SHOWCASE OF NEW PLAYS

The National Showcase of New Plays is a traveling new-play festival that presents six plays in staged reading format to an intimate gathering of theater professionals. With artistic leadership from most of our 26 member theaters in attendance, the Showcase creates a unique, invaluable opportunity for production-ready scripts to be heard by the people most willing to produce them. In addition to artistic and managing directors, we welcome a group of 100 playwrights, literary managers, playwright agents, and other colleagues from around the country to network with us on behalf of the plays and playwrights we present. The vast majority of the scripts read at the Showcase go on to professional productions within and outside the Network.

Tickets for NSNP readings are $5 for the General Public; please see below for box office procedures. These readings are not open for review.

ABOUT THE SELECTED PLAYS

Egyptian Song by James Christy, Jr., submitted by Playwrights' Theatre of New Jersey. Christy's moving and urgent play follows the adolescence of an Egyptian brother and sister between the world wars. While the gifted young Zahia tries to sing her way to personal liberation following the example of Josephine Baker, her brother Nahal falls in with a group of radicals bent on liberating Egypt from foreign influence. Two actors play almost a dozen characters in this very theatrical story of two world views colliding.

The Etiquette of Vigilance by Robert O'Hara, submitted by Woolly Mammoth, Washington, DC. A searing two-hander from the writer of Antebellum and Bootycandy, The Etiquette of Vigilance explores changing definitions of freedom in the decades since Martin Luther King, Jr. In the Clybourne Park house made famous by Raisin in the Sun, Travis and his daughter Lorraine struggle to answer the question, what do you owe to the generation that fought to give you freedom? The play masterfully alternates Travis and Lorraine’s forward-moving narrative with backward-moving scenes from the play Lorraine is trying to write about her family’s history.

The Exit Interview by William Missouri Downs, submitted by Orlando Shakespeare Theatre. Dick Fig, a Professor with a PhD in the works of Bertolt Brecht, is getting the hatchet from Eunice, an unctuous HR pawn at a nameless university. His exit interview gets off to a rocky start, though, when a masked gunman starts rampaging through the campus. From there, Downs' witty, delirious play caroms through Brechtian interludes, a pair of politically-radicalized cheerleaders, a pompous newsman, a mysterious past, and two German doctors debating science and religion on C-SPAN before reaching its surprising conclusion.

The Feast by Tony Fiorentino, submitted by PROP Thtr, Chicago. Tony Fiorentino takes ferocious, funny aim at the healthcare industry with his dysfunctional-family Thanksgiving Day play. Vincent Baker, the CEO of a major healthcare company, is hosting the kids this year: Lawrence, the company’s often-drunk and far-too-liberal medical director, and Brady, the company’s farther-right General Counsel, and their assorted family members. When a brick comes through the window demanding a liver-transplant for a terminally-ill patient, the plot thickens and the turkey gets thrown out the window.

Happy by Robert Caisley, submitted by New Theatre, Coral Gables, FL. Alfred is happy about his life. He’s happy with his job. He’s happy with his fourteen year marriage. He’s even happy raising his special needs daughter, who’s confined to a wheelchair. But when his bohemian artist best friend Eduardo invites him to dinner to meet the latest woman in his life, a dour twenty-two year-old art student suspicious of anything ‘upbeat,’ things spin out of control. Alfred begins to doubt the authenticity of his happiness, and in turn, makes everyone’s lives utterly miserable. Happy is a play about how vicious and enviable we can be of people possessed with a natural joie de vivre.

Leveling Up by Deb Laufer, submitted by the playwright. How do you straddle the fuzzy line between reality and virtual reality when you’re playing video games 20 hours a day? Ian, Zan, and Chuck are two years out of college when the government comes looking for expert gamers to launch remote missiles. And the bombs and the guns and the screams and the victories look so much like the ones on their Xbox. Laufer, whose play End Days was an NNPN Rolling World Premiere, returns to the Network with this funny, jarring look at what constitutes “reality” in a remote-control world.

TICKETS

All readings will take place at InterAct Theatre Company, 2030 Sansom Street. Tickets for all readings are $5, and can be either purchased at the door or via the box offices.