2003 | New Works Festival
MACHU PICCHU
by Chris Longo, directed by Elowyn Castle with Mary Albertoli, Sandra Berrios, Rudolfo Diaz, Shawn Elliott, Stephen Innocenzi, Said Jimenez, Vivienne Jurado, Alicia Kaplan, Miguel Sierra
Skeletons of a man and woman locked in an erotic embrace are unearthed by an American archaeologist in 1930’s Peru in this thrilling mystery of secrets, spirits, and love.
CHRIS LONGO is New York born and raised, and received a BA from Queens College and an MGA in Playwriting from the University of Hawaii. He has spent his life teaching, writing and working in amateur and academic theatre. He has lived in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Monte Carlo, Florence, Rome and Lima, Peru. He currently resides in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he writes, teaches and performs in English language theatre. Awards include John Golden Award, Peter Pauper Press Prize, National Repertory Theatre Foundation Award, and the Office of Advance Drama Research Sponsorship. As a film writer, he has written for John Travolta Productions (Orion), Fata Morgana Films (Argentina), KCET Public TV (Los Angeles), and others.
HOTEL SPLENDID
by Lavonne Mueller, directed by James B. Nicola with Eric Bondoc, Marissa Ignacio, Valorie Niccore, Linh-Dan Pham, Stephanie Wang, Nancy Wu
This poetical play of comfort women in WWII Japan was inspired by the author’s interviews of Korean women abducted as teenagers and forced into prostitution. Lavonne Mueller is the recipient of numerous awards, including NEA and Rockefeller fellowships
LAVONNE MUELLER is the author of numerous plays, including Letters To A Daughter From Prison about Nehru and daughter Indira (First International Festival of the Arts in NYC, and on tour in India); Violent Peace (London production; Time Out Magazine "Critics Choice"); Little Victories (Bryna Wortman directed at the Women’s Project; Riho Mitachi directed at Theatre Classic Productions, Tokyo); The Only Woman General (Bryna Wortman directed at the Women’s Project, starring Colleen Dewhurst; Edinburgh Festival "Pick of the Fringe"). Awards include Roger Stevens Playwriting Award, a Guggenheim Grant, a Rockefeller Grant, three National Endowment for the Arts Grants, a Fulbright to Argentina, an Asian Culture Council Grant to Calcutta, and a U.S. Friendship Commission Grant to Japan. Ms. Mueller is a Woodrow Wilson Scholar and a Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Writing Fellow. Her plays and monologues are published by Dramatist Play Service, Samuel French, Applause Books, Performing Arts Journal, Theatre Communication Group, Heinemann Books and Baker’s Plays. Her play Hotel Splendid was in a 2001 festival with Boston Theatre Works, and received the 2001 award for outstanding drama opposing war and injustice, given by Peace Writing, directed by Dick Bennett, and sponsored by the consortium of peace, research, and development (COPRED). Ms. Mueller also taught at Columbia University for five years.
THE BREASTS OF FORTUNA
by Mary Fengar Gail, directed by Scott C. Embler, with Sabrina Avila, Eugenie Bagur, Iresol L. Cardona, Scott Evans, Lea Michele, Francisco G. Rivela, Julie Tolivar, Amirh Vann, Anita Velez Mitchell
On a fictitious Argentine island, a widower father of an infant with a defective heart decrees that she be raised in a paradise where all language is sung, all yearnings fulfilled and all men are absent.
MARY FENGAR GAIL plays include: Drink Me, Fuschia, Jambulu, The Garden on F Street and The Wormwood Chronical. She has had readings, workshops and productions at Sundance Institute, The Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Lark Theatre, the InterAct Theatre of Philadelphia, and the Kitchen Dog Theatre of Dallas. Her awards include Arnold Weissberger Award (New Dramatists), the TheatreFest Playwrighting Competition, the National Children’s Theatre Festival Award, Stanley Drama Award (Wagner College), Santa Fe Performing Arts Co. Playwriting Competition, Crossing Borders Playwriting Contest (Wharf Rat Productions), and the Rte 66 Great American Playwriting Competition (Vortex Theatre, New Mexico). She has received commissions from South Coast Repertory of Costa Mesa and the National New Play Network; and a playwriting fellowship from the California Arts Council.