Philadelphia Theatre Company will present PTC@Play, a two-week festival of new work on February 29-March 11 at PTC’s home at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (Broad and Lombard Streets). The Festival will feature staged readings of four new plays from around the country, a new musical in development with music and lyrics by a collection of Broadway giants, and an evening of short plays by eight local playwrights. Each playwright will be in-residence at PTC for their reading, and every reading will conclude with a reception where audiences and artists can meet. All events are free with curtain time at 7:00 PM. A highlight of PTC@Play will be the March 5th announcement of the winner of the Terrence McNally New Play Award, a $10,000 cash prize given annually to recognize a new play that celebrates the transformative power of art.
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PTC@Play is made possible with generous two-year grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation.
"Philadelphia Theatre Company has always maintained a deep commitment to providing opportunities for writers to develop their work in a nurturing environment. Over the years, we have also cultivated a community of theater-goers who appreciate the excitement and discovery of new plays and musicals and who can provide a knowledgeable response to this evolving work,” said PTC’s Producing Artistic Director Sara Garonzik. “PTC@Play fosters this connection in ways that are not only helpful to the playwrights who are present each night but fun and energizing for the audience as well."
About the event: PTC@Play is an outgrowth of PTC’s annual STAGES program, established in 1986, which also includes commissions, workshops and the Terrence McNally New Play Award. Through STAGES, PTC has developed 90 plays, half of which have gone on to production or publication. Readings that have made it on to the PTC mainstage include the world premieres of Jeffrey Hatcher's A Picasso and Bruce Graham's According to Goldman. Two of PTC’s commissions have been After Ashley by Gina Gionfriddo which premiered at Humana and Bruce Norris' The Pain and the Itch which premiered at Steppenwolf. On the mainstage PTC has produced 38 new plays and musicals. Recent world premieres include Red Hot Patriot by Margaret Engel and Allison Engel, Terrence McNally’s Golden Age, and Bill Irwin's The Happiness Lecture.
"Due to the generosity of the Knight and Wyncote Foundations we've been able to expand the Festival this year and support new work at every level of development, from work by young people still in school to work by emerging and established professionals currently practicing in the field," said Festival Director Jacqueline Goldfinger. "I don't think there's another Festival like it in the country."
The Festival begins with the PTC Education Department's Philly Reality program on February 29.
On Monday, March 5 the professional events begin with a reading of Hope and Gravity by local playwright Michael Hollinger. Directed by Aaron Posner, Hope & Gravity is a new comedy consisting of eight interconnected short plays, bookended by stories in an elevator. Intersecting lives collide to create a narrative on the highs and lows of the human experience.
The Terrence McNally Award presentation will also be held on Monday, March 5 immediately prior to the reading of Hope & Gravity. The reading will be followed by a Champagne Reception in celebration of new work.
Michael Hollinger is the author of Ghost-Writer, Opus, Tooth and Claw, Red Herring, Incorruptible, An Empty Plate in the Cafe Du Grand Boeuf, and Tiny Island, all of which premiered at Arden Theatre Company and have enjoyed numerous productions around the country, in New York City, and abroad. His new musical A Wonderful Noise (co-authored with Vance Lehmkuhl) has received the Frederick Loewe Award for Musical Theatre, the “In the Spirit of America” Award from the Barbara Barondess MacLean Foundation, and a developmental production at Creede Repertory Theatre. His new translation/co-adaptation (with Aaron Posner) of Cyrano De Bergerac premiered in 2011 at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C. Other awards include a Harold & Mimi Steinberg New Play Citation from the American Theatre Critics Association, a Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays, a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award, an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist, two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, nominations for Lucille Lortel and John Gassner Awards, and fellowships from the Independence Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
