PlayLabs is one of the nation’s most celebrated annual festivals of new work. For over 25 years, more than 175 playwrights have come together with over 1,000 theater artists from across the US to develop plays at PlayLabs. The 2-week conference culminates in a weekend of public readings in The Playwrights’ Center’s Waring Jones Theater. As many as 300 playwrights each year vie for a spot on the PlayLabs playbill, and ten of the last fifteen PlayLabs plays have gone on to enjoy full production at theaters nationwide.

PlayLabs
July 16-20, 2008

Wed. July 16
8 pm - Forgetting

Thu. July 17
5 pm - Slasher
8 pm - Notari, Notari

Fri. July 18
2 pm - Panel: Quo Vadis?
5 pm - Mother Earth
8 pm - The Secret Lives of Coats

Sat. July 19
2 pm - Forgetting
5 pm - Notari, Notari
8 pm - Slasher

Sun. July 20
1 pm - The Secret Lives of Coats
4 pm - Mother Earth

Trista Baldwin

Wed., July 16, 8 pm

Sat., July 19, 2 pm

Director TBA
Sarah Gioia, dramaturg

Three women who have lost their brothers weave through a city on the brink of violence.

Tickets:
call 612/332-7481 x16

Allison Moore

Thurs., July 17, 5 pm

Sat., July 19, 8 pm

Directed by Josh Hecht
Liz Engelman, dramaturg

When she’s cast as the “last girl” in a low-budget slasher flick, Sheena thinks it’s the big break she’s been waiting for. But news of the movie unleashes her malingering mother’s thwarted feminist rage, and she’s prepared to do anything to stop filming—even if it kills her.

Tickets:
call 612/332-7481 x16

Shigefumi Fukatsu

Directed by Michael Bigelow Dixon
Victoria Stewart, dramaturg

In an apartment by the sea lies a man whose desperate act of love has left him teetering between life and death. His friends swirl about him in an orgy of liquor and drugs, unaware of his condition, in this exploration of the sad, foolish, and beautiful nature of love.

This play is being developed as part of the U.S.-Japan Contemporary Plays and Playwrights Exchange Project, an international project organized by The Playwrights’ Center and the U.S./Japan Cultural Trade Network, Inc., in association with The Saison Foundation, with additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Japan Foundation's Performing Arts Network Japan.

Tickets:
call 612/332-7481 x16

Panel Discussion

In this election year of hope and change, this provocative topic brings together a foundation officer, a critic, two artistic leaders and a playwright to discuss how change happens in American theatre. How do critics, lobbyists, and foundation officers use their carrots and sticks? How can arts supporters exercise their muscle to effect change at the ballot box? And how do new dreams of playwrights and artistic directors become manifest as our destiny?

Featuring:

• David Dower, Producing Artistic Associate, Arena Stage


• Chris Jones, Theatre Critic for the Chicago Tribune


• Daniel Alexander Jones, Playwright


• Diane Ragsdale, Associate Program Officer, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation


• Bill Rauch, Artistic Director, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Moderated by Polly K. Carl, Producing Artistic Director of The Playwrights’ Center

FREE

Andy Bragen

Directed by Jackson Gay
Lauren Ignaut, dramaturg

A twenty-something living in New York City’s Lower East Side, Leo takes on global warming by trying to mobilize his neighbors into giving up their home appliances. But Leo’s idealism and go-getter enterprise mask an inability to cope with his ailing mother.

Stephanie
Fleischmann

Directed by Hayley Finn
Michael Kinghorn, dramaturg

Three coatcheck girls in cahoots while away a long night in their booths, confiding in each other their hopes and dreams. A riff on class and identity, on silver spoons and starlets in the making, on photographic memory and foundlings and the holes in the pockets of our coats.

This play is one of ten new plays being developed in a special collaboration between The Guthrie Theater and The Playwrights’ Center.

Tickets:
call 612/332-7481 x16