Parity Plays Reading: ABOVE WATER, by Bob Clyman
Posted by MB - July 19, 2015
Project Y’s Parity Plays Reading Series continues with a reading of ABOVE WATER, by Bob Clyman. #ParityPlays is a year-long series that features the work of playwrights writing for a more equal theatre by creating plays with casts of 50% (or more) Women. We welcome Bob Clyman a prolific playwright and member of Project Y Playwrights Group, and his California-based Director, the talented Risa Brainin, to the series with his thought-provoking play. Please join us to hear his latest work at this FREE event.
ABOVE WATER
by Bob Clyman
directed by Risa Brainin
SUNDAY, JULY 19th at 7:00pm
ART/NY Bruce Mitchell Room (520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor)
Featuring these Actors:
Chris Clavelli
Catherine Eaton
Katie Zaffrann
Ezra Barnes
Sipiwe Moyo
(Image design by Doug Katz)
ABOUT THE PLAY:
When Paul, a widower, finally finds love again with a much younger woman, Rachel, his closest friends, Mark and Maggie are quickly won over by her intelligence, poise, beauty and devotion to Paul. But when an incident raises serious questions in Mark’s mind about Rachel’s moral character, he must decide, in the absence of any certainty that his suspicions are valid, whether to jeopardize Paul’s newfound happiness by confiding them to him.
Bob Clyman
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT:
Bob Clyman plays have been produced Off-Broadway and at regional theatres, such as the Alley Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, San Jose Repertory Theatre, George Street Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Colony Studio Theatre in Los Angeles, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, and L.A. Theatre Works, in addition to touring Scotland. His play Secret Order was initially commissioned and produced by The Ensemble Studio Theatre under the auspices of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It was subsequently produced at 59E59 Theatre in New York, where it was nominated for an Outer Circle Critics Award for the best script in 2008, and has since been produced at many regional theatres. His plays Tranced and The Exceptionals were both supported by Edgerton Foundation New American Play Awards. Tranced has been produced by San Jose Repertory Theatre, Laguna Playhouse and Merrimack Repertory Theatre, among others. The Expectionals was produced by the Contemporary American Theatre Festival and Merrimack Repertory Theatre, where it was nominated for both Best Play and Best New Play of 2012 by The Independent Reviewers of New England. His most recent play The Good Bet was chosen for The Ashland New Play Festival in 2014. He has been awarded a number of national prizes, including a Eugene O’Neill Summer Conference Fellowship, Geraldine Dodge Fellowship, Playwrights First Award, New Jersey State Arts Council Award, Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship, Berilla-Kerr Foundation Award, Djerassi Foundation Fellowship, Shenandoah Valley Playwrights Fellowship, and Theater in the Works Fellowship.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:
Risa Brainin is a freelance director, Chair and Director of Performance of the Department of Theater and Dance at University of California, Santa Barbara. Through her program LAUNCH PAD at UCSB, she has developed and directed ten plays with the playwright in residence: Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play, John Walch’s The Dinosaur Within, Barbara Lebow’s Plumfield, Iraq and La Niñera: The Nursemaid, Sheri Wilner’s Kingdom City, Biederman’s Match (based on Max Frisch’s Biederman and the Firebugs) by Beau Willimon, music by Michelle DiBucci, lyrics by Portia Kamons, Entangled by Lila Rose Kaplan, Untitled IV by Ruth Markofsky by Alison Tatlock, The Talented Ones by Yussef El Guindi, and Appoggiaturaby James Still which was workshopped at the Perry Mansfield New Works Festival last June, featured in the Denver Center Theatre’s Colorado New Play Summit in February and premiered at DCT in January, 2015. LAUNCH PAD was featured in the March issue of American Theatre magazine for its innovation and contribution to new play development.
*
***