by Karen Azenberg, artistic director
Tonight begins the first of our new-play readings for this season with Perpetual Girl—a modern fairy tale about the most taboo thing a woman can do in Hollywood: age
This is our fifth season of Play-By-Play—hard to believe that! I’m so proud of the success and the growth of this program, and so pleased by the ongoing support we’ve received from both our sponsors and audiences.
Play-by-Play was started to not only support new-play development, but also to increase the opportunities for our local acting community to shine and develop their craft by working with our out-of-town guest directors and playwrights. For Perpetual Girl, we have seven locals: Anne Cullimore Decker, Robert Scott Smith, Nicole Marks, Brandt Garber, Anne Brings and student Gavin Yehle.
In the previous four years, we’ve produced 12 new-play readings. Two plays have moved on to full productions here at PTC, Alabama Story and “i.” (“i” is on our season this year, opening January 22nd and running through February 16th. Single tickets went on sale this week!) Alabama Story, which premiered on our mainstage in the 2014–2015 season, will be seen in at least 11 cities in the 2017–2018 season alone. It has rung up more than 17 productions nationwide since its premiere! Three of our more “alumni” have had full productions elsewhere, including The Ice Front, which will go into rehearsal soon at Salt Lake’s Plan-B Theatre Company, and Honor Killing, which has been announced as part of the 2017–2018 season at Florida Studio Theatre.
This season we have three more wonderful new plays: The Envelope by Alex Lewin; ASS by Ellen Simon; and, tonight’s
reading, Perpetual Girl by Wendy Weiner.
For theatre lovers, there is nothing better than being able to “be in the room
where it happens.” (We all can’t afford tickets to Hamilton, but for a much more reasonable price you can be at UMFA in the room where new plays happen.)
I hope to see you there!