New Play Development is not currently accepting donations through Fractured Atlas. Please contact New Play Development with any questions.
Staged Reading of ADVENT Launching Our New Play Initiative
Your donation will help ADVENT reach the next stage of its development, and lay the groundwork to help us foster and launch other new plays for years to come.
Salt Pillar Productions' New Play Development initiative is dedicated to giving new plays the space, encouragement, and support to grow and find a home for their first production.
Through readings and workshops, many made freely available to the public, playwrights will grow in their own work and expand their network of collaborators.
ABOUT THE PLAY
ADVENT: a darkly comic parable
directed by Emily Lyon (The Tempest tour, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival) written by and featuring Montgomery Sutton (Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Globe) also featuring Dan Beaulieu and Laura Piccoli
ADVENT was a 2015 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, a selection of the 2015 Kitchen Dog Theatre New Works Festival Staged Reading Series, and received a 2014 "Hatchlings" Staged Reading with The Aviary.
This free industry reading will be Monday, March 5 at 7pm at The Players (16 Gramercy Park S). Doors open at 6:30 to enjoy the cash bar. RSVPs are required: https://adventreading.bpt.me/
SYNOPSIS
In Advent, two brothers survive an apocalyptic event because theyre trapped in the walk-in freezer of a rural superstore. As they try to piece together a recognizable life within their cell, one is torn apart by anxiety and a rigid fixation on the arbitrary new rules of their world, while the other secretly pushes further and further outside, determined to rebuild on a larger scale. When an emaciated young woman collapses at their doorstep, she initially brightens their world -- but ambition, faith, and lust reignite their repressed tragedies and threaten to shatter the fragile foundations of their new society.
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
ADVENT began in a three-day writing workshop with Edwin Sanchez at Primary Stages ESPA in the summer of 2013, was subsequently developed and expanded (also at ESPA) with Kara Lee Corthron and Cusi Cram. Since then, it has been developed and received public readings with The Aviary (the inaugural "Hatchlings" series reading) and Kitchen Dog Theatre (official selection for its 2015 New Play Festival, in association with the National New Play Network), was selected as a semi-finalist for the 2015 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and a finalist for Primary Stages ESPA Drills 2014 new play development program. The newest version received a private reading in January 2017 with Salt Pillar Productions, followed by an invited semi-public development reading in February 2017.
Artist Stipends: $900 We are committed investing in our artists. This covers our director, playwright, actors, production designer, violence consultant, producer, and associate producer.
Performance Space Rental: $900 We're holding the reading in the historic Player's Club on Gramercy Park, the former home of 19th Century stage legend Edwin Booth.
Rehearsal Space Rental: $500 Under the 29-Hour Reading guidelines, our rehearsal process is in two stages: First, to continue refining shifts and character, environment, and dynamic based on feedback and discoveries from the 2017 readings; Second, to spend two full 7-hour rehearsal days digging deeper into the play than any development opportunity has yet.
Production/Design/Reserve: $300 We are building a pair of teaser pieces of concept art under the supervision of our production designer Sara Slagle, and developing video projections with visual art by Laura Piccoli to help hint at where we are headed when we get to the production stage.
Seed Funding: $200 Because this reading is available for free to invited industry guests, there is no direct revenue available. This small additional seed funding will cover any expenses incurred with the next phase of ADVENT or discovering the next play we'll help develop.
OUR TEAM OF COLLABORATORS
Emily Lyon (Director). A Brooklyn-based director and dramaturg, Emily has worked with BEDLAM, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Geva Theatre, The Old Globe, Shakespeare in the Park, Yale Rep, RSC, The Flea, The Folger, Shakespeare Society, LaMaMa, The Pearl. Dramaturgy: NYTimes' Critics Pick - BEDLAM's Sense & Sensibility. Drama League Directing Fellow. SDC Associate. EmilyALyon.com
Montgomery Sutton (Playwright, Projection Design, Zachary). Plays/adaptations: Your Colonel, Antigone, The Shrew, Broken Water,Ruins produced/developed with the Gilbert Theatre, Metropolitan Playhouse, Kitchen Dog Theatre (NNPN), 7Stages Shakespeare, The Aviary. Acting: London: Shakespeare’s Globe; Off-Broadway: NYClassical; Regional: TSF, CFRT, FST, 2TT. Film/New Media: Trouble with Women, Assassins:Anthology. BFA: NYU www.montgomerysutton.com@montgomerysutto
Dan Beaulieu (Actor) is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Seven Stages Shakespeare Company in Portsmouth, NH. He has performed with Passion in Practice, Actors Shakespeare Project, Advice to the Players and Shakespeare Now in roles including Petruchio, Richard III, Hamlet, Cassius, Romeo, Jaques, and Mercutio. He can be found doing high schoolers homework for them as co-host of No Holds Bard (the Shakespeare Podcast Shakespeare Would Have Listened To*). danbeauknows.com@danbeauknows
Laura Piccoli (Actor, Projection Visual Artist) trained at the Stella Adler Studio, The Freeman Studio, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and Pig Iron Theatre. New York Theater: Tape (The Bridge Theatre), Unhealthy (Battalion Theater Co.), Three Sisters (Harold Clubman Lab), Othello (Kinetic Theater Ensemble). TV/film: Law and Order SVU, Samantha Moonleys Greatest Feeling (Centerpiece Audience Award, NFFTY 2016), Winter Rye (Official Selection, PBS Shorts Showcase 2015). BFA: NYU lauracpiccoli.com
Daniel Kemper (stage directions). Bio coming soon.
Sara Slagle (Art Director) is a Brooklyn-based set decorator and properties artisan. You may have seen her talents in Montgomery Sutton's Your Colonel performed at the Metropolitan Playhouse in 2013. Recent credits: Off-Broadway: Long Story Short (59E59). OOB: And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little with Retro Productions(2017 NYIT nomination for Outstanding Innovative Design); Marian, or the True Tale of Robin Hood (Flux Theatre Ensemble). Molly Thomas (Violence Consultant) fight direction work was most recently seen in Titan Theatre Company's productions of MEDEA and RICHARD III. She is a proud member of the Society of American Fight Directors, and performs nationwide with the Vixens En Garde, an all-female sword-fighting and Shakespeare troupe, which she helped found. www.MollyThomasNY.com
Kelsey Head (Producer) is a multidisciplinary artist, her work explores the balance of collaboration and self exploration that allows for a heightened performative experience. Positions of leadership include; co-artistic director of Second Thought Theatre, company member of the Danielle Georgiou Dance Group and company manager of the Dallas Theater Center. www.kelseyhead.com
Martha Harms (Associate Producer) is an actor newly based in NYC. Ensemble member: NY Shakespeare Co, Sea Dog Theater (NY). Company member: Kitchen DogTheater (TX), part of the National New Play Network. Other Regional: Watertower, T3, Undermain, Echo, Stage West. Voiceover: Borderlands 2, Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, Smite, Dragon Ball Z, One Piece. BFA: SMU
New Play Development is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of New Play Development must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only. Any contribution above the value of the goods and services received by the donor is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Rewards
Featured
Trinity Sponsor
Donate $300.00 or more
Amount over $75.00 is tax-deductible.
You are sponsoring the stipends for three of our artists. In additional to all the benefits of being a Artist Sponsor, you'll get a specialized and collaborative thank you from the artists you sponsor as well as a custom hand-drawn digital illustration by our actress and visual artist Laura Piccoli (based on a photo that you send).
Seed Supporter
Donate $1.00 or more
Amount is fully tax-deductible.
Your gift will help launch ADVENT and Salt Pillar Productions' New Play Development initiative. You'll be thanked in the manuscript of ADVENT for helping make the play's development possible and be listed on Salt Pillar Productions' website as a founding supporter of the New Play Development initiative in perpetuity.
Artist Sponsor
Donate $100.00 or more
Amount is fully tax-deductible.
You sponsor an individual artist at this level. In additional to all the benefits of being a Seed Supporter, we'll also send you information about the artist whose stipend(s) your generous donation has provided along with a personalized thank you.
Space Sponsor
Donate $900.00 or more
Amount over $150.00 is tax-deductible.
Your extraordinarily generous contribution will fully cover the cost of our beautiful home for this reading, The Players Club, on Gramercy Park. In addition to all the benefits of being a Seed Supporter, if you're unable to attend the reading we will send you a copy of the most up-to-date revision after which you can schedule a private hour-long in person or video conference with the playwright (and director, if available) to share your input, a signed art print of a custom digital illustration (based on a photo you provide) of you or the person of your choice hand-drawn by our actress and visual artist Laura Piccoli, and a specialized thank you video from the creative team at The Players on the evening of the reading.
Angel Sponsor
Donate $2,800.00 or more
Amount over $300.00 is tax-deductible.
Your generosity covers all costs associated with this reading and launching our New Play Development initiative. In addition to all the benefits of being a Seed Supporter, receive a special dedicated thank you at the beginning of the play manuscript for ADVENT, a perpetual thank you in the about or history text of Salt Pillar Productions' New Play Development initiative, a copy of all major future revisions to the script, the opportunity to speak with the playwright (and director, if available) in an hour-long in-person or video-conferenced discussion after reading each future revision, a signed giclee canvas print of a custom hand-drawn digital illustration of a family portrait (you provide the original photo) by our actress and visual artist Laura Piccoli, and a sonnet written for you by our playwright Montgomery Sutton.
