Salt Lake Acting Company - New Play Development

New Play Sounding Series
Free Reading

Monday, March 4 @ 7pm

Director: Jason Bowcutt

Dramaturg: Camille Washington

Actors: Colleen Baum, Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin, Susanna Florence, Tamara Howell, Nicki Nixon

Reader: Michelle Love-Day

Stage Manager: Katelyn Limber

On the morning of February 21, 1895, the day after the great man died, Susan B. Anthony shows up on his widow’s doorstep. She is there to grieve — but is she also feeling guilty? FOUR WOMEN TALKING ABOUT THE MAN UNDER THE SHEET is an exploration of feminism and race, asking “what compromises should you make in pursuit of a cause?”

SLAC thanks the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation for their generous support of this vital program.

Reserve Tickets Here

Doors open at 6:30pm. Open seating; first come, first served.

Salt Lake Acting Company and The David Ross Fetzer Foundation for Emerging Artists are thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2018 Davey Foundation Theatre Grant is Charly Evon Simpson’s FORM OF A GIRL UNKNOWN.

The finalists were:
MOTHER’S SON by Dominic Finocchiaro
WATCH ME JUMP by Jeremy Gable
BLACK CREEK RISIN’ by LaDarrion Williams.

Simpson’s play was selected from 35 script submissions received from around the country. The selection committee was comprised of theatre professionals as well as collaborators and friends of David Fetzer. They were Austin Archer, Rae Binstock, Kathleen Cahill, Olivia Custodio, Robin Wilks Dunn, Ariana Farber, Cynthia Fleming, Julie Jensen, Tito Livas, Shannon Musgrave, Betsy Ross, Cassandra Stokes-Wylie, and Katherine Vondy.

FORM OF A GIRL UNKNOWN will receive a weeklong developmental workshop at the Salt Lake Acting Company this summer. The artistic team will include Martine Kei Green-Rogers as director/dramaturg and cast including Latoya Cameron, Dee-Dee Darby Duffin, Susanna Florence, Tristan Johnson, and Nicki Nixon.

The workshop will culminate in a staged reading, free and open to the public, at SLAC on Monday, July 16, 2018 at 7pm.

About the Play
Amali is a 12-year-old girl who finds herself on the edge of womanhood and is having trouble navigating her new world. Her mom is always busy and her sister is about to have a baby of her own. Her friend, Marina, has ditched her, but her new best friend, Finn, is always there to listen – until he can't take it anymore. Her fascination with her changing body is one thing, but her fascination with the story of siblings killed in the woods is another thing entirely.

About the Playwright
Charly Evon Simpson is a playwright from New York City. Her plays include JUMP, SCRATCHING THE SURFACE, BEHIND THE SHEET, FORM OF A GIRL UNKNOWN, HOTTENTOTTED, and WHILE WE WAIT. JUMP will be having a rolling world premiere in 2019, debuting at PlayMakers Repertory Company in NC, Milagro in OR, and Actor's Express in GA. Her work has been seen, heard, and/or developed at NNPN's MFA Playwrights Workshop at The Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, The Flea, and others. She is a member of the 18/19 'Wright Club with The Amoralists, is The Pack's playwright-in-residence, and was one of the three playwrights chosen for Forward Flux's Three New American Plays commission. Charly has worked on commissions from the EST/Sloan, Clubbed Thumb, and more. Charly is a former member of Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writer’s Group, SPACE on Ryder Farm's The Working Farm, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood, Pipeline Theatre Company’s PlayLab, and Fresh Ground Pepper’s PlayGround PlayGroup. BA: Brown. MSt: Oxford. MFA: Hunter College. www.charlyevonsimpson.com

Salt Lake Acting Company is thrilled to announce the winner of the 2016 Davey Foundation Theatre Grant: Brynne Frauenhoffer and her play SYNCHRONICITY.

The finalists were:
CHILL by Eleanor Burgess
SINNER-MAN by Liz Maestri
PASSING TIME IN ANIMAL TOWN by Ryan Oliveira

Brynne’s play was selected from 33 script submissions received from around the country. The selection committee was comprised of theatre professionals as well as collaborators and friends of David Fetzer. They were Jason Bowcutt, Kathleen Cahill, Cynthia Fleming, Mark Fossen, Martine Green-Rogers, Julie Jensen, Dave Mortensen, Shannon Musgrave, Chase Ramsey, Betsy Ross, Morag Shepherd, Katherine Vondy, and Robin Wilks-Dunn.

SYNCHRONICITY will receive a weeklong workshop at the Salt Lake Acting Company this summer. The artistic team will be comprised of local artists including a director, dramaturg, stage manager, actors, and design specialists. The workshop will culminate in a public staged reading at SLAC on Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7pm.

About the Play
On a dangerous rural highway, two teen girls wreck their cars exactly two years apart. Sarah was driving sober in broad daylight; Mal was driving drunk at 3 a.m. Only Mal survives. When Mal encounters Sarah’s ghost at the crash site, she’s forced to consider why she’s still alive and begins to look for ways to help her new (ghost) friend. Meanwhile, Mal’s mother, feeling guilty over the injustice of her daughter’s survival, befriends Sarah’s grieving mother. Through these unusual, fraught friendships, the four women search for purpose behind their unfair fates.

About the Playwright
Brynne spent most of her childhood performing THE LION KING as a one-woman show and writing spec scripts for Pokemon; as an adult, she has decided to basically keep doing things like that forever. After graduating with a BFA in Drama from The University of Oklahoma, she moved to Chicago, where she now pursues playwriting, acting, and comedy. She has served as script supervisor on the world premieres of Laura Jacqmin's LOOK, WE ARE BREATHING and Elaine Romero's A WORK OF ART, and assistant directed the world premiere of Dana Lynn Formby's AMERICAN BEAUTY SHOP. Her short plays have appeared in the 6th Annual Chicago One-Minute Play Festival and in an upcoming anthology by Smith & Krause. In addition to workshopping SYNCHRONICITY, she is currently revising her feature-length screenplay, BURY ME, and developing an adaptation of JANE EYRE for Adapt Theatre Company in Chicago. You can read about her and check out her writing at www.brynnefrau.com.

About The Davey Foundation
The David Ross Fetzer Foundation for Emerging Artists was created to honor the life of David Ross Fetzer and his commitment to the film and theatre arts. The Foundation is excited to make grants available to artists 35 and younger for the development of innovative film and theatre projects, and to provide the mentoring framework that will allow the Davey grantee to flourish. More information at www.thedaveyfoundation.org