From Tom Ferriter, Artistic Director

Welcome to Volume I of Stageplays News, the Stageplays Theatre Company newsletter.  In order to provide you with up-to-date information on our activities throughout the year, we are joining the growing number of theatre companies who have learned that distributing news via electronic means is the fastest and most efficient method available to send important information on upcoming productions and the best way to keep in touch on an ongoing basis with audiences, friends, colleagues, and supporters. 

Each newsletter will contain articles on our current activities, and two special features:  the first, entitled Our Friends Present, will cross-promote a show produced by another theatre company in exchange for promotion of our production; by helping each other out, we feel we can spread the word about our mutual productions in a cost-effective manner. 

The second feature, entitled On Stage And Screen, will recommend Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway shows, and motion pictures, that we have seen and believe merit mention.  Word of mouth remains the most powerful method of promotion, and we think it will be a fun to share with others uncritical comments about shows and films that inspire and inform us each month as we pursue our artistic endeavors.

We are pleased to announce the publication of our second book, the play script of In The Air, by Paul Enger.  Stageplays presented the world premiere of In The Air, Off Broadway, at Theatre 315, this past season. 

In The Air is a story filled with innocence and yearning about two sisters and a pioneering aviator who confront new frontiers and the ravages to their community by the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918.  Through its theme, In The Air serves as a metaphor to the devastating effects on our young by the unknown and incurable diseases of our own time.

For more information, visit www.stageplaystheatre.com or click on the link below to purchase the book.

The Crying Woman/La Llorona - New Production

Stageplays will present Kathleen Anderson Culebro's new two-act drama, The Crying Woman/La Llorona in a world premiere production, Off Broadway, at the Beckett Theatre on New York's Theatre Row, this coming season.   A cross-cultural drama about a young businessman from Houston who is assigned by his company to open an American fast food restaurant, for Mexican food, in Mexico City, the story interweaves the legend of La Llorona (the crying woman), with the lives of two couples, one American, the other Mexican, as they struggle to establish a common ground of understanding during a time of economic uncertainty and personal crisis in their respective lives. 

The Crying Woman/La Llorona began the developmental process at Stageplays three years ago.  After a series of table read-throughs, a public presentation, and final script polish, The Crying Woman/La Llorona is ready for full production.  For more information about the play and the playwright, please visit www.stageplaystheatre.com.

Every fan of musical theatre should see The Drowsy Chaperone, a fun new show that grabs you in the first 30 seconds and doesn't let you go; and what a great second act opening number!  And, try not to miss The 35th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, two terrific holdovers from last season.

The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Cinema presents 24 films from 19 countries, featuring powerful stories which confront human rights abusers and defend basic freedoms in every region of the world.  Two great films seen so far - The Camden 38 and Black Gold.  The Festival ends June 22nd; for a complete schedule, visit www.hrw.org/iff.