Asolo Repertory Theatre Announces Details For 2011 Unplugged

Asolo Repertory Theatre today announced its selections and details for the 2011 Unplugged festival of new plays. Playwrights include Jeff Baron, one of the world's most-produced playwrights in the past decade; Jamie Pachino, winner of this year's Francesca Primus Prize from the American Theatre Critics Association; Bill Rosenfeld, whose recordings have been nominated for 30 Grammy Awards and won 4 times; and Mat Smart, winner of two Jerome Fellowships and the San Diego Playbill Award for Best New Play. The full titles and schedule are listed below.

Directors for the staged reading play festival are Asolo Rep's Producing Artistic Director Michael Donald Edwards, Associate Artistic Director Greg Leaming, retired Asolo Rep Artistic Director Howard Millman, and NY director Wes Grantom (Assistant Director, Asolo Rep's Barnum).

"Asolo Unplugged has very quickly become a very important part of our work here at Asolo Rep. Last year's series allowed us to develop Steven Drukman's play The Innocents, which is receiving its world premiere as part of our 2011-2012 season," explains Unplugged Curator Greg Leaming. "More importantly, Unplugged has allowed us to introduce even more artists to our audience. These readings are often the very first time an author has had the opportunity to hear his or her work in the hands of actors, and watching the audience's engagement with the piece is instrumental in helping the playwrights discover what is the next step in the development of the play. This is raw theatre at its best, the kind of program that allows our audience to see new work at the very beginning of its development."

Unplugged is Asolo Rep's annual festival of new plays, showcasing the freshest new talents writing for the theatre today in scripts that, in many cases, are in the very earliest stages of development. This is a chance for audiences to experience fascinating new stories by some of this country's most imaginative new voices in bare bones staged reading format.

Full casting, additional biographies and fact sheet will soon be released.

Find more information and tickets at www.asolorep.org, or by calling 941-351-8000, or toll-free 800-361-8388.

Asolo Rep Unplugged 2011

THE STEADFAST by Mat Smart
Directed by Wes Grantom
Sunday, April 3 at 7 p.m.
The Steadfast is inspired by Steve Alpert's painting "Legacy" which depicts eight soldiers - one from each of the eight uniform eras of the U.S. wars. Stories from these eight different time periods overlap and play out in this theatrical tapestry of the history of service in our country.

Mr. Green 2 by Jeff Baron
Directed by Howard Millman
Tuesday, April 5 at 8 p.m.
It's six years after the events of Visiting Mr. Green. Mr. Green is 92. His reunion with his daughter didn't go so well, but everything he went through with Ross formed a strong bond between them. Now Ross visits twice a week, sometimes with his boyfriend Chris. A totally unexpected visitor upsets the balance and causes everyone to question their assumptions about parenthood, religion and what makes a family. A first look at Jeff Baron's new play, starring Sarasota's Mr. Green, David Howard.

LET ME by Bill Rosenfeld
Directed by Greg Leaming
Sunday, April 10 at 7 p.m.
An already toxic relationship between husband and wife becomes increasingly more destructive as the couple divorces, manipulating their children in order to cause as much pain to their respective ex as possible. A nuclear family explodes in this disturbing, dark play.

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