Accused by an unreliable student of inappropriate behavior in her New York Public School, Evelyn is dismissed to a small forgotten classroom to await her hearing and her fate. There she encounters colleagues trapped in the same limbo. Paralleling the great diversity of their classrooms, the educators couldn’t be more different. As days turn into weeks and months, fights and friendships reveal their plans, hopes and secrets. It’s like detention for teachers. Not exactly hell, it’s Evelyn in Purgatory.

With Bobbie Elzey, Mark Gray, Megan Hayes, Shelly McCook, Stacy Melich and Matt Myers. Directed by Patricia Henritze with dramaturgy by Suehyla El-Attar.

There will be a talkback with the playwright immediately following the reading. This series is made possible through a grant from the Hellen Ingram Plummer Charitable Foundation.

Tickets are $10 at the door or available for purchase online. Call (404) 949-7160 or email rsvp<at>workingtitleplaywrights.com.

As you may recall from earlier blog posts, The Ethel Woolson Lab brings together the top playwrights, directors, and actors in the Atlanta theatre community for meaningful collaboration in the creation of new, full-length plays for the stage. 

 We are immeasurably grateful to the Hellen Ingram Plummer Charitable Foundation for this grant, and its recognition of the importance new works bring. This funding will enable WTP to provide arts education through new play and playwright development. The competitively selected playwrights participating in the Lab as well as the public audiences attending these staged readings will benefit.

As Hank Kimmel, our WTP Board President said, “The feedback from our Ethel Woolson Lab has always been resonantly positive, and, thanks to the Plummer Charitable Foundation, we have the chance to do a lot more through the program.”

This fabulous news comes on the heels of an eventful month for WTP, during which we produced a wildly-popular 24-Hr. Plays Festival (where plays were written, directed and produced within 24 hours); hosted a standing-room-only Playwrights Slam at the Decatur Arts Festival; and developed and presented a playwrights’ educational workshop with Celise Kalke of the Alliance Theatre. Whew!

Mark your calendar now, so you can have an opportunity to see how the Hellen Ingram Plummer Charitable Foundation grant is supporting Working Title Playwrights as well as theatre in Atlanta. Plan to attend the Ethel Woolson Lab public staged readings coming for the remainder of the year:

July 27, 2010 – Topher Nixon Payne’s EVELYN IN PURGATORY
Sept 21, 2010 – Theroun Patterson’s AMERICAN DISMANTLE
Oct 26, 2010 – Glen Slattery’s VON WHO?
Dec 14, 2010 – Patricia Henritze and Shawna Tucker’s ANTONY+CLEOPATRA REDUX

All readings will take place at Academy Theatre—you know the one—at 7:30 p.m. with $10 tickets available at door. 

THANK YOU, Hellen Ingram Plummer Charitable Foundation. You indeed help us make new plays happen! 

With Kate Donadio, Louis Gregory, Tess Malis Kincaid, Mark Kincaid, Bill Murphey, and Mike Niedzwiecki.

When a married, closeted music minister brings a young drug addict home for personal rehabilitation, tragedy leads to a surprising redemption in this triangle of love, lust, and violence.

THE SMILES is based on a murder trial the playwright covered as a reporter for The Raleigh News & Observer. Working on State Desk, she covered many stories in small southern towns, places that, to the reporter,- seemed stranded and bleak, but, to the people interviewed, it was home, it was safe, and it held everything that mattered. The murder occurred in one of those towns.

THE SMILES is an exploration of some of the many forms of desire and attachment, how darkly they can be exploited, how violently they can transform, and how dangerous they can be. THE SMILES received the 2009 national Pillars Playwriting Award.

Betty Hart will moderate a talkback with the playwright following the reading. Your participation is greatly appreciated.

WHEN: Monday, March 22, 2010
TIME: 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Academy Theatre, 119 Center St., Avondale Estates, Ga.
Directions: http://academytheat re.org/Directions.asp
PRICE: FREE to WTP members, $5 suggested donation all others.

For more information please contact Jill Patrick, WTP Managing Artistic Director, at 404.441.2716 or via e-mail to managing<at>workingtitleplaywrights<dot>com.

7:30 p.m., Academy Theatre, 119 Center St., Avondale Estates, GA. Free to Working Title Playwrights members. $5 suggestion all others.

You think you know. You think you do. Turns out you don’t know one damn thing!

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and Esther’s middle-aged children, Pauline, Clarissa, Katherine and Robert, have gathered for the first time since her death a year a go to place a marble headstone on her grave. As children, they were pretty much tossed into the wind by their party girl mother and absentee fathers and left to raise themselves. As such, they have developed survival skills that run the gamut from admirable to questionable and from formidable to dangerous.

Over the past year, the loss of their mother, as well as life in general, has worn their facades thin, tested them for durability and come up shaky. Esther’s children no longer know where the edge is, putting carefully shaped, colored and secreted soul wounds at risk of exposure. Curiously, the most estranged of the four is in motion while the leader of the pack is in stasis. They need one another, but will they be able to end their internecine childhood wars and put the future in their sails? Or, as Salman Rushdie writes in the opening lines to The Satanic Verses:

“To be born again,” sang Gabriel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you will not cry?”

A talkback with the playwright moderated by Betty Hart will follow the reading.

For reservations or more information, please call (404) 441-2716 or e-mail to managing<at>workingtitleplaywrights.com.

Tonight, we’re marching on as WORKING TITLE PLAYWRIGHTS presents Hank Kimmel’s DIVIDED AMONG THEMSELVES as part of the new Ethel Woolson Lab, 7:30 p.m., at the Academy Theatre.
DIVIDED AMONG THEMSELVES is a 90-minute, four-woman comedy that reflects and explores the differing views in America toward money, charity, and self-reliance.

With Lorilyn Harper, Stacy Melich, Shayne Kohout and Cara Mantella. Directed by Patricia Henritze with dramaturgy by Suehyla El-Attar.

When four sisters meet in their father’s rent-controlled apartment for the reading of his will, one of them will come out ahead, if she’s willing to stand up for herself.

DIVIDED AMONG THEMSELVES starts when four sisters meet in their father’s rent-controlled apartment for what they think will be the reading of their father’s will. Instead of being final, the father’s will gives the women one hour to work it out on their own, requiring them to come together in a way they never have before. Limited by time and history, the sisters struggle to find middle ground. Each has led her life differently, and, while trying to figure out what’s best, their views of life diverge, clash, and change.

As the eldest (a rabbi) tries to hold the family together, the second eldest (a real estate developer) is out to destroy. The decision hangs in the balance of the two youngest sisters: a seriously-in-debt tennis pro; and a torn spiritualist. As the grandfather clock proceeds to the fatal hour, the lines between measured compromise and ruthless self-interest begin to blur.
We hope to see you tonight, Monday, March 1, 2010, 7:30 p.m. at Academy Theatre, 119 Center St., Avondale Estates, GA.
DIRECTIONS: http://academytheat re.org/Directions.asp
PRICE: $10 tickets at door. Reservations requested. 404.441.2716 or e-mail to managing<at>workingtitleplaywrights.com.

All is not well in the Leighton household. Earl is about to realize his lifelong ambition of building a skyscraper when his mind begins to rebel against him. His wife, Liz, is realizing that the life she has come to love is beginning to spiral apart, and she’s not taking it well… or lying down. Their children are another story. Caleb has secret, and a new Ferrari, and a tailor. Rebecca, the journalist, is returning home after being fired. Grey has resigned from life in the wake of a scandal that nearly destroyed his own career. Promises are broken, loyalties are tested, and a lingering intimacy demands to be dealt with. This is a play about the messy architecture of a life, the price of ambition, and ultimately, the sacrifices it takes to build a legacy.

WITH Tony Vaughn, Jen Harper, Betty Hart, Enoch King and Eugene H. Russell IV.

A talkback with the playwright will immediately follow the reading.

FREE to WTP members. $5 donation at door all others.

Crystal and Marcelo’s marriage was all business, a perfect plan to achieve the American Dream – until somebody fell in love.

Be entertained, get a peek at what’s to come, and be a part of the development process as Working Title Playwrights presents a First Draft On Demand reading of AMERICAN HONEYMOON, a southern romantic comedy.

With Megan Hayes, Allen Hagler, Josie Burgin-Lawson and Greg Morris. These are some fine actin’ folks, folks. Expect a running time of 75 – 90 minutes, plus a brief intermission between acts. A moderated talk-back session will probably last around 20 – 30 minutes.

Y’all say, “I do,” and make your way over to Academy Theatre, 7:30 p.m. $5 suggested minimum donation at door. A small price to pay for great theater in the making.

Sharon Mathis’ one-woman one-act, HE/SHE AND ME: A LOVE STORY about surviving change, was chosen to be part of the 2009 New Orleans Fringe Festival in November! Everything changes when Pat’s longtime soulmate Sam becomes Sheila. Pat tries tap dancing, Buddhism, shopping and crying in her search for the essence of love. WTP gave this dynamic one-woman show a First Draft On Demand workshop reading last month and you have one opportunity to see it fully produced right here in Atlanta before it heads to the bayou when Academy Theatre gives it its first full production in September. Tickets are a mere $12 – so bring your friends! Call Academy for reservations 404.474.8332 or e-mail academytheatre(at)mindspring(dot)com.

Vynnie Meli’s new musical, PLAGUED – A LOVE STORY, developed through Working Title Playwrights, is one of twelve new musicals chosen for production with the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival. These twelve were competitively selected out of more than 300 submissions and Vynnie’s play will receive six performances in October. Aurora Theatre is graciously holding a Broadway or Bust Cabaret benefit to help bring Vynnie’s musical to NYC on Monday, August 24, 7:30 p.m. $40 per ticket- and that’s tax deductible! Call Aurora to RSVP 678.226.6222.

Sherry Paulsen’s LADIES IN WAITING is the recipient of Working Title’s first ever Ethel Woolson Lab. Sherry, along with director Ellen McQueen, dramaturg Kim Brundidge and a cast that includes Bethany Ann Lind, Enisha Brewster, Dina Shadwell, Lynne Ashe, Mike Niedzwiecki and Emma Yarbrough, are workshopping throughout the week to present a smart, fresh script for a staged reading for the public on Saturday, August 22, 7:30 p.m. at Academy Theatre, 119 Center St., Avondale Estates, GA. Call 404.441.2716 or e-mail to managing(at)workingtitleplaywrights(dot)com for reservations. Tickets are only $10, which goes toward paying the amazing creative team helping Sherry bring her funny, poignant coming-of-age story to life.

Working Title is proud to have been part of the development of these three newly award-winning plays and congratulates their authors and wishes for their continued success!