The Foundation for Jewish Culture and Brooklyn Playwrights. Collective Present a Staged Reading of: To the Orchard
Winner of a 2007 Foundation for Jewish Culture New Play Development Grant By Les Hunter
Directed by Jamie Winnick With. Maria McConville, Peter Treitler,* David Storck, and Lisa Wilkinson*
*Appearing as a courtesy of Actors. Equity Association.
Monday, May 12, 2008
7:30pm - 9:30pm
National Comedy Theater
347 W 36. Street. Btwn. 8th & 9th. New York, NY
Pre-show wine and cheese reception at 7:00pm
Dessert reception to follow performance
Info at: www.totheorchard.org
RSVP at totheorchard@yahoo.com
After the death of her mother, Rachel Bergman realizes it's time to change a few things. The only problem is that her father, Simcha, a former heavy-metal rocker turned Orthodox Jew, won.t have it. As Rachel grapples with her desire to become a writer and her budding homosexuality, she is forced to decide between her father or coming out and moving on. Through characters as diverse as an Orthodox Rabbi, a black Gender Studies Professor, and the ghostly apparitions of Robert Plant and Virginia Woolf, To the Orchard explores themes of loss, guilt, and forgiveness in a magically enhanced corner of modern-day Brooklyn.
To the Orchard was originally presented as the one-act play Funeral Arrangements at Brooklyn College's Building Bridges Play Festival. in 2005 (dir. Jamie Winnick). The play was developed at the Boston Playwrights. Theater during their 2006-2007 season, culminating in a reading there in May 2007 (dir. Fran Weinberg). In 2007 To the Orchard received a Foundation for Jewish Culture New Play Development Grant, which launched a year of play development, resulting in the May 12th reading.
Les Hunter's plays have been performed at venues around the country. Martin Denton, head critic of
nytheatre.com said of his Antonin Artaud: A Dream Play that it pushes .us outside our comfort zones of sense and order. Hunter has an MFA in playwriting from Boston University. He is a member of the Dramatists. Guild, America-In-Play, and Brooklyn Playwrights Collective.
Jamie Winnick has directed classical and contemporary plays in NY and regional theater and at the High School of Performing Arts (the "Fame" school) where she also taught Drama. She has an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College and an MA in Educational Theater from NYU. (SSDC, AEA, AFTRA, SAG).
"The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives." -Audre Lorde, Poetry is Not a Luxury.
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