New productions by two M.F.A. candidate playwrights will be featured in part two of the 25th annual New Plays Festival, presented by the Brown University Literary Arts Program and the Brown/Trinity Repertory Consortium. The festival runs from Thursday, April 19, through Sunday, April 22, 2007, at the Pell Chafee Performance Center. All performances are free and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Original works by two graduate student playwrights will be showcased during the second installment of the 25th annual New Plays Festival, presented by the Brown University Literary Arts Program and the Brown/Trinity Repertory Consortium from Thursday, April 19, through Sunday, April 22, 2007 at the Pell Chafee Performance Center, 87 Empire St. in Providence, R.I.

The festival’s second installment features The Fishbone Fables by Dan LeFranc and Our Last Great Pageant of Progress, or Ya Hold ’Em I’ll Punch ’Em, by Cory Hinkle. The two plays run in repertory from Thursday to Sunday, with a special post-show monologue performance following the Friday and Saturday evening shows.

Having served as a forum for the early work of renowned playwrights such as Sarah Ruhl, finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for The Clean House and recipient of a 2006 MacArthur Fellowship, and Nilo Cruz, recipient of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Anna in the Tropics, the New Plays Festival has proven instrumental in bringing the work of America’s most talented young playwrights to the stage.

The student playwrights have been working under the guidance of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel with graduate students in the Brown/Trinity Consortium and professional artists from around New England to collaborate on this innovative and stimulating week of theater.

The festival is led by artistic director Bonnie Metzgar, who is currently producing Suzan Lori-Parks’s 365 Days/365 Plays National Festival, an event that marks the largest collaborative effort in American theatrical history. Metzgar also serves as associate artistic director of The Curious Theater in Denver and was formerly associate producer at the Public Theatre/NYSF in New York. Other artistic staff includes set designer Sara Ossana, technical director Bill McLoughlin, lighting designer Alana Jacoby, costume designer Jessie Darrell, sound designer Katie Buechner, properties master Eric Reynolds, and producer Rick Dildine.

The New Plays Festival is made possible through support from an endowed fund for the Adele Kellenberg Seaver ’49 Professorship in Literary Arts.

For ticket reservations, e-mail [email protected] with your name, telephone number and number of tickets requested.

Featured Works

The Fishbone Fables by Dan LeFranc
Directed by Peter Sampieri
Thursday, April 19, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, April 21, at 8 p.m.; Sunday, April 22, at 2 p.m.

The Scratch. The Gloom. The Tallyman’s Tally. Very little is known about the elusive Fishbone Fables, save for a number of crude maps that managed to survive the Providence festival. Come join the Mad Minstrels of New England (and their bookish translator) as they recreate a theatrical event whose supreme antiquity is only matched by its tremendous mysteries. Standing room only.

Our Last Great Pageant of Progress, or Ya Hold ’Em I’ll Punch ’Em by Cory Hinkle
Directed by Birgitta Victorson
Friday, April 20, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, April 21, at 2 p.m.; Sunday, April 22, at 8 p.m.

It’s the end times in the once-great oil town of Bliss and due to recent floods, the yearly carnival has been canceled. But Nathan and his followers have stepped up to fill the gap with a re-staging of the town’s grand history in the one place big enough to hold such a fantastic spectacle – the last bastion of our former greatness, an empty Wal-Mart.

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