"Breaking Ground Festival"
At The Huntington

New plays by Huntington Playwriting Fellows Lydia R. Diamond, Jacqui Parker, and Joyce Van Dyke plus a new musical by Chay Yew and Fabian Obispo will make up the Huntington Theatre Company’s sixth "Breaking Ground Festival," held at the Huntington’s Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. Readings are free and open to the public, although reservations are recommended as seating is limited.
 
The Festival begins July 24 with a reading of "The Long Season," a musical that chronicles Filipino immigration to the United States in the 1920s and the unionization of a cannery in Alaska. Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois commissioned the piece by writer Chay Yew and composer Fabian Obispo while serving as artistic director of Perseverance Theatre.

With DuBois as director, the three subsequently developed the piece through workshops at New York's Public Theater and at the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey. Yew, an acclaimed theatre and opera director, helmed the Huntington’s 2008 production of "Boleros for the Disenchanted." Obispo, composer and sound designer of "Boleros," has contributed music to numerous Off Broadway and regional theatre productions. The reading of "The Long Season" is supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
 
"Deported / a dream play," by Joyce Van Dyke, will be read on Monday, August 3, at 7 p.m. It tells the story of Elmas and Varter who save each other's lives during the Armenian genocide. After they come to America, their story leaps across time, ending in a dream world of the future where Armenians, Turks, the living, and the dead commingle. Van Dyke received the 2009 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script for "The Oil Thief," which was commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloane Foundation Science and Technology Project, and received its premiere in 2008 at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. Her play "A Girl’s War" premiered at New Repertory Theatre in 2003. She has been developing "Deported" (a true story about her grandmother) with director Judy Braha and a company of actors for two years through improvisation, taped interviews of survivors, photos, memoirs, and letters.
 
"Lizzie Stranton," by Lydia R. Diamond, will be read on Tuesday, August 4, at 7 p.m. In Diamond's bawdy re-imagining of Aristophanes' even bawdier "Lysistrata," a fictional First Lady convenes a meeting in 2016 of the most prominent women in the world with a radical scheme to end war. Diamond is the author of "The Bluest Eye," "Voyeurs de Venus," and "Stick Fly," which the Huntington will present in February 2010. The reading’s director and cast will be announced shortly. Note that "Lizzie Stranton" contains bold sexual images and strong language appropriate for mature audiences.
 
"Jeanie Don’t Sing No Mo’," by Jacqui Parker, will be read on Wednesday, August 5, at 7 p.m. Jeanie, a once-famous blues singer, stopped speaking the day her father died, and she and her Southern family carry the burden of secrets long concealed in Parker’s play. Parker received the 2006 Independent Reviewers of New England Award for Best New Play for "Dark as a Thousand Midnights." Her play "Feathers on My Arms…Zora Neale Flying High" premiered this spring as part of the African American Theatre Festival at the Huntington’s Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The reading’s director and cast will be announced shortly.
 
The Huntington’s commitment to the development of new plays includes The Stanford Calderwood Fund for New American Plays, the Harry Kondoleon Fund supporting the commissioning of emerging and established writers, the Breaking Ground Festival of new play readings, and full productions of new plays.

Lisa Timmel, Director of New Work, commented, “This year’s collection of plays are exciting and unpredictable. They reflect the incredible variety of current, ambitious American playwriting: love stories, political farce, historical drama, and personal tragedy. Each writer has such a unique style that none could be mistaken for another. We feel privileged to be supporting and developing this artistically diverse group of artists.”
 
The Breaking Ground program brings exciting national writers into partnership with the Huntington as well as promoting the work of local playwrights to the national theatre community. Past Breaking Ground plays, including "The Atheist," "Broke-ology," "Voyeurs de Venus," "Mauritius," "The Ice Breaker," and "Sonia Flew," have appeared at the Huntington, as well as other theaters locally, nationally and internationally.
 
“Play readings are an essential part of developing a play, and having an audience listening to the play is the key component,” said Timmel. “I hope that Boston audiences will come out to share these nascent plays with us and to be a part of theatre history.”

All readings are free and open to the public, although a donation of $10 is suggested. As seating is limited, reservations are encouraged. For information, call 617 266-0800.

-- OnStage Boston