THE ORPHANAGE
The Orphanage is the only new play reading series in Downtown New Brunswick, providing a home for local theater artists and a safe environment for playwrights to develop their work. This year’s Breakthrough Arts Fest will feature readings of four new plays by both emerging and early career playwrights.
The Orphanage series happens on Saturday, July 18, 25 and August 1st and is FREE.
Saturday, July 18, 3pm – The Orphanage: a staged reading of Lia Romeo’s “SUPER”
A New York yuppie discovers he has super powers. Aided by a homeless guy who is similarly “challenged” he picks up the call to fight crime. But when it interferes with the life and relationship he’s trying to rebuild, what choice should he make?
Lia Romeo is an MFA playwrighting graduate from MGSA Theatre. She went to the Kennedy Center last summer with her play “Green Whales” which will be getting its world premiere this season at the Unicorn Theatre in Kansas. With her brother, Lia co-authored the book “11,002 Things To Be Miserable About.”
Saturday, July 25, 3pm – The Orphanage: a staged reading of “Night Cycle” by Jessica Corn
If having the perfect life means making everyone around you happy and making yourself miserable is the perfect life worth having? Should one compromise one’s dreams for security?
Jessica Corn is a graduate of Wheaton College and has worked previously at Trinity Rep, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and Highwire Theatre Company . She currently works at George Street Playhouse as manager of education where she teaches playwrighting and is co-producer of the coLAB new play development program, The Orphanage.
Saturday, August 1, 3pm – The Orphanage: a staged reading of the New Play Network commission of “Revelation” by Samuel Brett Williams
Revelation is an adaptation of the Book of Revelations from the New Testament. It’s a New Play Network Commision.
Samuel is a 2008 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award winner. He was in the Cherry Lane Theatre Mentor project 07-08 season under Charles Fuller with his play “The Woodpecker” that he initially developed at the O’Neill conference. He went to the Kennedy Center last summer to develop his play “The Revival”. He is an MFA in playwriting graduate from MGSA Theater.
