Arts District Winterfest 2012
Play Readings
The 2012 Arts District Winterfest is the latest in a series of projects back through 2008 marking an ongoing collaboration by Padua Playwrights with LADAD Space and the Downtown Los Angeles arts community. To one degree or another, each of these productions has been an exploration of the possibilities for artistic cross-pollination between playwrights, visual artists, and musicians. Looking forward, we hope to focus and deepen these explorations in the years ahead ... hopefully, as a part of an actual community arts center - an "incubator" in the Los Angeles Downtown Arts District. By attending these events, the public joins in this collaborative effort at its most crucial focal point, providing invaluable feedback and inspiration.
~ Guy Zimmerman, Artistic Director, Padua Playwrights
PLAY READINGS
by Padua Playwrights • www.paduaplaywrights.org
Produced by Guy Zimmerman and Corryn Cummins
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Thursday, January 5 @ 8 PM
Encyclopedia
Written by Rachel Jendrzejewski • Directed by
Shishir Kurup
Bio: Rachel Jendrzejewski is based in Minneapolis as a
Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center. Texts include Meronymy; Bacteria; Grace Note; Bluebird; DUMB; and Harpsichord Capable of Playing at the Normal
Level, and More Strongly. Her work has been developed and/or produced by
Padua Playwrights, A.R.T.’s New Voices Series, Playwrights Horizons, Rhode
Island School of Design, Pell Chafee Performance Center, Granoff Center for
Creative Arts, and the Conflux Festival, among others. Honors include a Wendy
Wasserstein Prize nomination and a Lucille Lortel Playwriting Fellowship, as
well as residencies with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Poland) and Eugene
O'Neill Theater Center's National Theater Institute. Rachel is a former
resident of the Los Angeles Downtown Arts District and has worked closely with
Cornerstone Theater Company and Padua Playwrights since 2004 and 2007,
respectively. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brown University.
Awake,
or I Slept For Miles
Written by Theo Goodell
Bio: Theo Goodell is a playwright and
multi-disciplinary performance maker originally from Boston, MA. His work has
been developed, produced, or shown by Playwrights Horizons, KC/ACTF, The A.R.T.
Institute, FeverFest Boston, The Cloud Club, Brown University, Suffolk
University, and National Theatre of Allston, among others. He has collaborated
as a writer, performer, and/or deviser with Boston area fringe groups Imaginary
Beasts, Whistler in the Dark, New Exhibition Room, and the Providence RI-based
Awesome Collective. Plays include: The
Darkson Chronicles, How to Kill a
Robot, The Preserving Machine
(with electronic prformer/composer Blevin Blectum), Echo Fragments, Three Wise
Monkeys, Pottymouth, and Linoleum. He holds an MFA from Brown
University.
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Friday, January 6 @ 8 PM
Bethesda
Written and Directed by Chris Rossi with Anna Khaja
and Mike Wiles
Bio: Chris Rossi is a screenwriter, playwright and
actor who is making his feature directing debut this spring with his film
"Lives of The Saints." The script, which he also wrote, was selected
into Film Independent's Screenwriters, Directors and Producers Labs, as well as
the No Borders film market in New York. He has also developed both film and television
scripts with a number of production companies. His action-horror script
"Day 38," which he co-wrote, was optioned and is in development at
McG's Wonderland Sound and Vision. Chris is a nationally known voice-over and
promo actor whose work can be heard on TV and radio. He is also a proud member
of John Steppling’s Gunfighter Nation collective whose In the Desert, A Highway is coming soon to a radio near you.
Eminence
by Heidi Darchuk
Synopsis: Melody and John have not been the same since the
dark event that may or may not have happened. Eminence presents an opportunity for Melody to become who she is
truly meant to be and Paul the painter is going to get the whole thing on tape.
But Melody's sister wants a piece. She just might get it. Eminence is more than a system of health and beauty, it's a life-changing
worldview. Not only does it literally change lives, it destroys them and puts
them back together again. Unhappy? What does that really mean? Are you? I
thought so.
Bio: Heidi Darchuk is an actor and writer living in
Los Angeles. She was a prose finalist for the 2011 Missouri Review audio
competition (design by Katie McMurran!) and her micro-fiction is published in
the literary anthology, Pontoon. Her
play, Hotel Bardot, will appear in
the upcoming Padua Playwrights anthology, Fever
Dreams. Her plays have been “workshopped” and produced by Padua Playwrights,
Virginia Avenue Project, Sharon's Farm, Seattle Fringe Festival, and A
Contemporary Theatre in Seattle.
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Saturday, January 7 @ 8 PM
The
Black Glass
Written and Directed by Guy Zimmerman
With Jan
Johnson, Gray Palmer, Brenda Varda, Shirley Anderson, and Diana Wyenn
Music
and Sound by Brad Culver and Andrew Gilbert
Synopsis: In return for the CEO position at his LA-based
corporation, Bentham offers his daughter to the sinister McGivern. McGivern’s
two female cohorts have very different ideas.
Bio: Award-winning writer, director and producer, Guy Zimmerman
has served as artistic director of Padua Playwrights since 2001. Under his
direction, this LA-based company has staged over 25 productions of new plays,
including three in New York City and three abroad, that have garnered a host of
awards and nominations from LA Weekly, Ovation, Garland, and Los Angeles Drama
Critics Circle. Zimmerman has edited a six-volume anthology series for Padua
Press, distributed nationally by TCG. He has also produced and directed a
series of digital media productions of original plays including Pronghorn, Girl on a Bed, Gary’s Walk,
and Snout. Previously, Zimmerman
wrote for network television, including the shows Cracker, The Pretender, and
Wonderland. His own plays include La Clarita, The Inside Job, and Vagrant.
His articles and essays about film, theater, art, science and politics have
been published in the LA Weekly, LA Theater Magazine, Backstage West, LA
Citizen, Cyrano’s Journal, Bedlam Magazine, and Times Quotidian. Zimmerman
received a B.A. in History from the University of Pennsylvania, is currently
enrolled in the doctoral program in Theater and Dramatic Arts at UC Irvine. He
currently lives in Silverlake with his wife, Jenny Bright and their daughter,
Eliza.
Belt
Line Road
Written and Directed by Gray Palmer
with Hank
Bunker, Annie Weirich & Wesley Walker
Music and Sound by Brad Culver and
Andrew Gilbert
Synopsis: Belt Line Road is an account of travels on a loop
road in Dallas County, Texas.
Bio: Gray Palmer has always preferred to make new
theater. He trained at Juilliard (Group VII) & HB Studio in NY, then worked
as puppet-builder, electrician & actor with Jean Erdman's Theater of the
Open Eye; he was affiliated with Appaloosa Productions in Dallas, as director
and performer in many plays written by the late Scott Mathews; with Padua
Playwrights, Gray has directed work by Sharon Yablon, and appeared in plays by
Mednick, Walker, Valencia, Darchuk and others. Three of his pieces have been
produced in collective shows by Gunfighter Nation, and he is at work on the
Gunfighters' upcoming radio serial.
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Sunday, January 8 @ 7 PM
The
Fever
Written by Wallace Shawn • Directed by Guy
Zimmerman with Paul Mackley
Synopsis: This tale is described as "the tortured
consciousness of an angst-ridden, well-to-do American traveler [who
finds] himself worshiping the porcelain throne in a poverty-stricken
country [and] is forced to confront his liberal values and concepts of poverty,
the fairness of wealth distribution and his superior sense of
entitlement."
Bio: Paul Mackley has been a resident of the Downtown Arts District since 1995. In addition to his Los Angeles performances, his work has been seen in New York, San Francisco, Vienna, Frankfurt, Prague, Bermuda and Zurich. He also has extensive directing, producing and teaching credits. "Serenade," an oratorio inspired by his poem of the same name, was recently recorded by The Prague Symphony. He currently serves on the board of the Los Angeles River Artists and Business Association (LARABA), an Arts District community betterment organization.
