NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press contact: Lucy Pollak
[email protected] 818.887.1499 (for media only)
‘Botanicum Seedlings’ presents free readings of two
new plays about American families and their legacies
Free admission July 14 and 21 at 11 a.m. at Theatricum
WHAT:
Botanicum Seedlings: A Development Series for Playwrights — Botanicum Seedlings augments Theatricum Botanicum’s summer repertory season with free readings of two new plays about American families confronting their very particular legacies across generations. Readings take place under the oaks in Theatricum’s intimate S. Mark Pavilion outdoor space in Topanga. Admission is free.
WHEN:
• Sunday, July 14 at 11 a.m.
Sadie’s Day by Danielle DeCrette, directed by Elena Campbell-Martínez: All Sadie wants is to end her day with crab cakes, champagne… and a barbiturate chaser. In this comedy about life and death, three women — with the help of an overextended hospice worker — are forced to look at their choices and expectations as mothers and daughters.
• Sunday, July 21 at 11 a.m.
The Dog Show by Ivan Faute, directed by Laura Stribling: Seen through a dark but often humorous lens, within The Dog Show is a deeply troubled family whose sins can’t be absolved by confession. How high are the stakes in their game of trading secrets for stories? And when piecing together the past, is there any room for the truth?
WHERE:
Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum
1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd.
Topanga, CA 90290
(midway between Pacific Coast Highway and the Ventura freeway)
HOW:
Information: (310) 455-3723 or www.theatricum.com/seedlings
• Visit us on facebook: www.facebook.com/botanicumseedlings
• Follow us on twitter: @botseedlings & instagram @botseedlings
TICKETS:
FREE (donations gratefully accepted)
PARKING:
• $7 in lot
• FREE parking on Topanga Canyon Blvd.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
• Danielle DeCrette (playwright, Sadie’s Day) earned a B.A. from the Gallatin School at NYU, where she concentrated in playwriting and women’s studies and where her short story, “Tossing Daisies,” was chosen for the Gallatin Review. As a playwright, Danielle has attended the Kenyon Playwriting Conference and the Southampton Writer’s Conference, where Sadie’s Day received a laboratory reading under mentor William Carden of NY’s Ensemble Studio Theatre. She has studied with playwrights Lucas Hnath and Winter Miller. Danielle’s writing has been featured in periodicals such as Dance Magazine, the Rockefeller Center magazine, and various infertility blogs on the internet. Danielle currently lives in Harlem, New York with her husband and three kids.
• Elena Campbell-Martínez (director, Sadie’s Day) is a bilingual Mexican-American actor-director who works in TV, film and theater in Los Angeles. The daughter of a Mexican writer, she has directed locally for the Blank Theatre’s Living Room Series and LA Female Playwrights Initiative, as well as for the NHMC 2019 Latino Scene Showcase. As an actor, she plays Doña Lupe in Vida on Starz. Recent films include Papi Chulo and Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris.
• Ivan Faute (playwright, The Dog Show) Upcoming projects include a reading of Lost Sock Laundry at Broadway Bound Theatre Festival in New York and a production of his one-woman show On Arriving in London. Past theatrical credits include the City Lit Art of Adaptation Festival winner “Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher,” The Darling Children at NY Fringe, and the Capital Fringe movement piece Life, Death, & Everything In-Between. His plays have been produced in New York, London, Houston and Chicago, and his prose appears in over three dozen journals. His prose was named a finalist for the Calvino Prize, and his play Elephant: A Comedy was a finalist for the ATHE Award of Excellence in Playwriting. He is based in New York and Virginia, where he teaches at Christopher Newport University.
• Laura Stribling (director, The Dog Show) is a director and playwright. She has directed more than 75 plays for companies including Chalk Rep, Blank Theatre, Playwrights Union, Inkwell Theater and the Road Theatre here in L.A.; favorites include Henry IV, Part One, Hedda Gabbler, Girl Under Grain and Orpheus Descending. Laura’s plays include Imitation of Falling, Primary Language and If I Fell. She holds an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama.
OTHER:
• Botanicum Seedlings program director Jennie Webb is a Los Angeles-based playwright and dramaturg who created the series in 2002.
• Audiences are invited to stay after the readings for refreshments and a moderated discussion with the artists.
• Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum is outdoors. In case of inclement weather, please call for alternate performance times.
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