The Focus is Women for the 2013 New Play Festival at New Paltz

NEW PALTZ – The Department of Theatre Arts MainStage Productions at the State University of New York at New Paltz presents their annual New Play Festival March 7-17 in Parker Theatre located on the college campus. The play readings, directed by Robert Miller, will be presented March 7-9, 14-16, at 8 p.m. and March 10 and 17 at 2 p.m. There will be a public reception for the playwrights on March 10 following the 2 p.m. matinee performance, and talk-backs after the Friday night performances on March 8 and 15.

From left to right: Actors Katherine Cryer-Hassett, Jenny Berger and Jeremy Sepadan

The Festival is designed to provide a setting for playwrights to have their works heard with an opportunity for feedback. This year’s plays are written by or about women by local playwrights, current students, alums, and includes: Stars by Lydia Nightingale; Green Sound by John Patrick Bray; Crazy, Crazy on You by Lynn Elson; Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Alex Oates; White to a Wedding by Brendan Quinn; Clara Vox by Raquel Steres; and two sets of review sketches called Stand Alone Together by Chelsea DeMott, Vincent Carnevale, Brenna Landerkin, Clark Slater, Aaron Tremper, and Matt Hunter and At the Gallery by Samantha Mossman, Stacy Carter, Allison Leskowitz, Sara Troeller, Rachel Wong, and Rachel E. Bailey.

Miller, a faculty member in Communication and Media and artistic director of the Mohonk Mountain Stage Company, has been an actor, director, acting coach, stage manager, theater manager and teacher for more than 40 years. He has worked in regional theatres from l970 through 1991, including nine years as artistic director of the Asolo Touring Theater, one of the largest “Theaters for Young Audiences” in the nation. The Asolo premiered many new works during Robert’s tenure, touring them nationally with residencies at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Since l991, Miller has guest directed for many theaters and colleges including Shadowland Theater, Queen City Stage, Wallkill Repertory Theater, SUNY Summer Repertory Theater, the Hudson Valley Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Marist College and Mount St. Mary College.

In addition, Laurence Carr, lecturer of Creative Writing and Drama at New Paltz and himself a writer of plays, fiction, and poetry, will direct a series of review sketches written by his students. New Paltz theatre arts students Jonathan Buckmaster, Kelly O’Connor and Brendan Quinn also will direct several plays.

Tickets for New Play Festival are $10 for the general public, senior citizens, non-New Paltz students, New Paltz faculty and staff, and $5 for New Paltz students. Tickets can be purchased at the Parker Theatre Box Office, Monday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and in the theatre lobby one hour prior to each performance, or by calling the Box Office at 845-257-3880. Tickets can also be purchased online at: www.newpaltz.edu/theatre

For additional information call 845-257-3936.