T2 Announces Three "New Voices" Public Readings For Fall
Every Waiting Heart by Lauren Ferebee
Sunday, October 27, 5:00pm
Synopsis
EVERY WAITING HEART centers on the relationship between an overworked single mother and her rebellious teenage daughter. Sherri and Annette have been an unbreakable mother-daughter duo since childhood, but suddenly Annette’s rebelling and Sherri’s terrified. Desperate for help, Sherri goes to a speed-dating event at a Pentecostal church that unexpectedly changes the course of both of their lives and fractures the bond that has held them together for so long. A deep and intimate dive into what it means to be a strong woman, EVERY WAITING HEART is an unflinching examination of faith and the many variations of love. It will premiere summer 2020 at Artemisia Theatre in Chicago, whose artistic director describes the play as “extremely special and sublime in its fierce feminist examination of the characters’ shared crisis of faith.” EVERY WAITING HEART was also a semifinalist for the O’Neill, the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, and a finalist for development at SPACE on Ryder Farm.
Playwright Bio
Critics have praised Lauren Ferebee’s plays as “exquisite” and “a fine balance between laugh-out-loud absurdity and gut-wrenching human drama.” Her work has been featured in the Smith & Kraus Best Stage Monologues series, and as a playwright she has worked with companies across the U.S., including Boomerang Theatre and Flux Theatre Ensemble in New York and Artemisia Theatre in Chicago. She is an ensemble member and composer with South Carolina’s Shakespearean rock band Scrappy Shakespeare. In 2016, she was a nominee for the USA Fellowship in theatre and is currently studying for her MFA at the University of Arkansas under John Walch. As an actor, deviser, and theatremaker, she has regional and national credits, and she has taught movement, voice, and playwriting in South Carolina and New York. BFA, NYU/Tisch.
Copy Shop by Brendan Beseth
Sunday, November 17, 5:00pm
Synopsis
COPY SHOP concerns Henry, the owner of a copy shop in a small town. When he overhears Donald, his only employee and only friend, mocking him behind his back, he realizes that even the person closest to him knows nothing at all about who he is. The play follows Henry as the identity he’s worked so hard to cultivate begins to crumble, as he discovers what is important to him and confronts an aspect of his past he has ignored for too long. Will Henry be bold and show others and himself who he really is? If not, how is he any different from all of the other copies out there?
Playwright Bio
Brendan Beseth is an MFA candidate in playwriting studying under John Walch at the University of Arkansas. Most recently his play A VEGAS KIND OF LOVE was a finalist for Rogue Machine’s Premier Award for best new play at the 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival. He has written a number of screenplays, including one that was made into a feature film starring Kirsten Dunst and James Caan, but his true love is writing plays. Brendan is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Actors Studio Playwrights and Directors Unit, West.
Hairy & Sherri by Adrienne Dawes
Sunday, December 8, 5:00pm
Synopsis
Hairy and Sherri (Sharon) are an “adorkable” interracial couple living in gentrified East Austin. When they very graciously and very publicly open their home to Ryshi, a 12-year-old former foster care youth with special needs, Hairy and Sherri are confronted with the ugly realities of their marriage and “good” intentions.
HAIRY & SHERRI is a dark comedy that exposes the limitations of the Texas foster care system and evils of very well-intentioned people. The play was first developed as part of PlySpace’s artist-in-residence program (supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts) and recently featured in the NYTimes article “Retreating for the Summer, but Not Heading Backwards.”
Playwright Bio
Adrienne Dawes is a mixed-race Afro-Latina playwright originally from Austin, Texas. Her plays include CASTA, DENIM DOVES, AM I WHITE, TEEN DAD, and more. She received her bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and studied sketch and improv with Second City in Chicago.
Adrienne has been an Alice Judson Hayes Fellow (Ragdale Foundation), a Literary Fellow in the Tulsa Artist Fellowship (George Kaiser Family Foundation), an artist-in-residence with Crosstown Arts and PlySpace, and a NALAC Fund for the Arts grantee. She is the recipient of the Stanley and Evelyn Lipkin Prize for Playwriting (Sarah Lawrence College) and was a selected playwright in the 2018 Fornés Playwriting Workshop with Migdalia Cruz (University of Notre Dame) and the 2018 Kenyon Playwrights Conference (Kenyon College) directed by Wendy MacLeod. Her play AM I WHITE won the David Mark Cohen New Play Award from the Austin Critics Table and an award for Outstanding Original Script by the B. Iden Payne Awards. She has been a finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and a semifinalist for the Princess Grace Award. Her work is published by Vintage Books, Playscripts, Heartland Plays, Heuer Publishing, and Applause Theatre & Cinema Books.
Her full-length work has been produced at Salvage Vanguard Theater (Austin, TX), Sacred Fools (Los Angeles, CA), and American Theatre Company (Tulsa, OK). Adrienne’s plays have also been developed at The Blank Theatre, B Street Theatre, TheatreSquared, Teatro Milagro, National Black Theatre, National Winter Playwrights Retreat (HBMG Foundation), North Carolina Black Repertory, English Theatre Berlin, and Live Girls! Theater. Adrienne is a member of the Dramatists Guild, ScriptWorks, and a company member of Salvage Vanguard Theater.
In Fall 2019, she begins a graduate fellowship at the University of Arkansas in playwriting.