PWC writers at PRELUDE festival

Two current Playwrights' Center writers will have work featured at the 2014 PRELUDE festival, taking place October 8-10, 2014 at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, CUNY Graduate Center, NYC.

Many Voices Fellow Harrison David Rivers presents And She Would Stand Like This, A Play in Drag on October 9 at 5:15 p.m. And She Would Stand Like This uses the conventions of ‘drag’ and ‘ball culture’ to dramaturgically re-contextualize Euripides’ epic play, The Trojan Women, to tell the story of a family fighting for survival. As a modern day examination of HIV/AIDS, the play explores the complicated issues of gender, sexuality, health, and family within and among the LGBTQ community of color.

Core Writer Joe Waechter's headphone opera Howard Gap Road can be seen October 10 at 6:15 p.m. In his artist statement, Waechter writes, "I began experimenting with auto-theatrical forms out of frustration with traditional rehearsal processes. I wanted to make a performance that required no rehearsal and where the roles of author, performer, and character become completely indistinct. I call this form 'headphone opera,' because they use headphones, and I liked the epic connotations of opera – the grandeur of giant emotions with tragic consequences. In opera, characters step forward and belt out arias, which are really just very dramatic feelings organized into poetry, and then set to beautiful music."