terraNOVA Collective’s 10th Season to Include Plays by
Robert Askins, Adam Szymkowicz & Ken Urban,
plus Groundbreakers Playwrights Group and soloNOVA Arts Festival
terraNOVA Collective, now in their 10th year, is excited to announce its season for 2012-2013. Producing Artistic Director, Jennifer Conley Darling says, “This is terraNOVA’s biggest and most daring season yet. We are thrilled to be presenting an exciting line-up of new work by Robert Askins, Adam Szymkowicz and Ken Urban, as well as partnering with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and One-Eighth. From a new comic book superhero story to a steak-eating tyrant to a ghost inhabiting another’s body, this season promises to spark imagination and push boundaries!” For more information visit www.terranovacollective.org.
Highlights of the season include the World Premiere of P.S. Jones and The Frozen City by Robert Askins (Hand to God – TimeOut NY Top 10 Play of the Year, Matthew and the Pastor’s Wife at EST), directed by José Zayas (House of the Spirits with Repertorio Espanol & Denver Center, Southern Promises at PS122). This epic, comic-book superhero adventure runs December 5 – 23 at the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher St.).
The World as we know it is long gone. Appetite and hubris have divided the world in three. Our hero, the diminutive and unassuming P.S. Jones, dreams of visiting The Frozen City, a utopian world just visible beyond the forbidden Burning Waste. Only thing worse than knowing he’ll never set foot in The Frozen City is finding out that his handsome and incurably vapid brother is about be deified there on account of being so darn pretty. Soon after his brother’s departure, P.S. stumbles upon something that will change his life forever. What will he do when the fate of all three worlds rests in his hand?
The creative team includes Jason Simms (Scenic Design), Ryan O’Gara (Lighting Design), Carla Bellisio (Costume Design), Jane Shaw (Sound Design), Imaginary Media (Video Design) and The Puppet Kitchen (Puppet Design).
Also in December, a return engagement of UBU by Adam Szymkowicz (The Why Overhead with Zootopia Theater, Pretty Theft with Flux Theater Ensemble), the hit show from soloNOVA 2012, directed and performed by Daniel Irizarry (Cho H Cho with Mabou Mines, The Orphans at La MaMa). UBU is presented in partnership with One-Eighth (founded by Daniel Irizarry and Laura Butler Rivera) and runs December 4 – 16 at the IRT Theater (154 Christopher St.).
Inspired by Ubu Roi, UBU is the King of the Great Expanding Universe who will allow a privileged few into his mansion to watch him eat steak. Along the way, he may play music, read you poetry and tell of his lost loves and purchased politicians – it all depends on the mood of the King. UBU is a kinetic romp through the absurdist world of the most powerful CEO in the universe.
The creative team includes Laura Butler Rivera (Assistant Director), Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams (Scenic Design), Frankenstudio (Puppet Design), Lucrecia Briceno (Lighting Design), Marea Judilla (Costume Design), Marcelo Añez (Sound Design), Alexandra Filipe (Composer) and Zina Goodall (Stage Manager).
In spring 2013, terraNOVA Collective presents the World Premiere of The Correspondent by Ken Urban (The Happy Sad at Playwrights Horizons/SPF, The Wasps with Target Margin), in partnership with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. The Correspondent is directed by Stephen Brackett (After with Partial Comfort, American River with Lesser America) and runs March 20 – May 4 (opens April 4) at Rattlestick (224 Waverly Place).
A grieving husband hires a dying woman to deliver a message to his recently deceased wife in the afterlife. When he receives letters signed by his wife, describing events that only she could know, he’s faced with determining if the correspondence is from a con artist or actually from a ghost.
Now in its 4th year, terraNOVA’s Groundbreakers Playwrights Group is a playwriting intensive that puts six innovative voices in a room once a week for eighteen weeks to work on each individual writer’s play. Each writer receives three opportunities to bring their play to the group to be read by professional actors and receive feedback from the writers group and terraNOVA’s artistic staff. Each playwright will have a workshop and staged reading of their play in terraNOVA’s Groundworks New Play Series in spring 2013.
“After the most competitive selection process in the history of Groundbreakers, we are thrilled to have the opportunity to cultivate a relationship with six talented playwrights and to be involved in the development of their wonderful new plays. We’ve assembled a group writing in a variety of styles and we’re eager to share this varied collection of exciting work with terraNOVA audiences in the spring,” says Jessi D. Hill, Associate Artistic Director. Playwrights in this year’s group are Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Lynn Rosen, Andrew Rosendorf, Jen Silverman, Susan Soon He Stanton and Anna Ziegler.
To round out the season, terraNOVA will present their 10th Annual soloNOVA Arts Festival in May 2013. Stay tuned for this 10th Anniversary celebration of New York City’s premier solo performance festival.
terraNOVA is an ever-expanding collective of artists devoted to nurturing distinct and innovative theatrical voices. They are dedicated to cultivating environments where the art of storytelling thrives, and actively seek stages for the new theatre they develop.
