All Systems Go: Mission 2!
June 30th @7pm!
ALL SYSTEMS GO: MISSION 2 is an evening of excerpts from five brand new plays by the Queens based writers group The Propulsion Lab. Participating Queens based playwrights for this event are Lisa Huberman, Kristine M. Reyes, Tyler Rivenbark, Mariah MacCarthy, and Don Nguyen.
The cast includes Matthew Park, David Shih, Jenni Putney, Alexandra O’Daly, Tom Coiner, Margaret Hee, Megan Lee, Paula Galloway, Lori Parquet, Bryant Carroll, Siho Ellsmore, Katie Consamus, Jesse Geguzis, Turna Mete, Kristan Brown, Jen Ring, Raja Burrows and Elizabeth Seldin.
The evening is directed by Kel Haney, Colette Robert, Aimee Todoroff, Christopher Diercksen and Kristin McCarthy Parker.
Click here for the full color program!
A reception will be held following the event, where beer and wine can be purchased.
Excerpts will appear from the following five new plays:
Lily in Love
by Kristine M. Reyes
directed by Colette Robert
Lily is a good Catholic Filipina daughter who’s always known exactly what to do with her life — until she falls in love with a woman. Lily’s life just got complicated.
You Like It
by Mariah MacCarthy
directed by Kel Haney
Ganymede is “new in town,” and Orlando won’t shut up about his ex-girl Rosalind. Secrets, gender, forbidden love: this bromance is about to get real. A queer riff on a classic.
The Hydra
by Tyler Rivenbark
directed by Aimee Todoroff
Through an amalgamation of Greek and American folk tales, The Hydra finds Iraq War Veteran, Stephen Ajax, in a netherworld inhabited by Gods, Goddesses, and puppets to face the aftermath of his former life.
Sex and Charitable Giving
by Lisa Huberman
directed by Christopher Diercksen
In a tiny Queens apartment, Natasha and Ankit embark on a BDSM journey together. When they decide to sponsor a little girl in Nepal to help out Natasha’s roommate Marcy, the couple find themselves confronting uncomfortable truths and pushing boundaries that go beyond sexual role play.
Hello, from the Children of Planet Earth
by Don Nguyen
directed by Kristin McCarthy Parker
On the eve of the spacecraft Voyager 1’s crossover into interstellar space, William gets a phone call that will possibly change his life forever.
This free play reading will be held at The Secret Theatre located at 4402 23rd Street in Long Island City on Monday, June 30th at 7pm.
To attend the free reading, please make a reservation on our website: http://missiontoditmars.wordpress.com/reservations/
The Secret Theater
4402 23rd St, Long Island City
E, M, G to Court Sq.
7 to Vernon Blvd/Jackson Ave or Court Sq.
N, Q to Queensboro Plaza
The Playwrights
BIOS
Lisa Huberman (Woodside) Lisa’s work includes Egyptology (developed under the mentorship of Lee Blessing and a nominee for a National New Play Network award), Under the Rainbow (Regional Winner in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Finalist for the John Cauble Short Play Award), Health Nuts (Semi-Finalist for the Little Fish Theatre Pick of the Vine Competition, produced by the Panic Room Playwrights), Life Play (Secret Theatre’s Act One: One Act Festival), Sub-Prime (KNOW Theatre Playwrights and Artists Festival), High and Uptight (Mile Square Theatre’s 7th Inning Stretch Festival) and Heart/Succor (La Petite Morgue’s inaugural Fresh Blood Series). She has participated in the One Minute Play Festival, Pussyfest, and Monologues and Madness. Under the Rainbow, High and Uptight, and Egyptology are available for purchase and download at The Monologues Database. A member of The Dramatists Guild, Drawing Board, The Panic Room Playwrights, Lisa is also an Artistic Associate for La Petite Morgue. She has attended playwriting workshops at Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive and Chicago Dramatists. She received her BA in Theatre Performance from Bradley University and her MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers University, where she currently teaches freshman composition. Lisa was raised by vegetarians in Ohio and also maintains the food blog, Sometimes A Vegan.
Mariah MacCarthy (Astoria) Mariah MacCarthy’s work has been presented and developed at Rattlestick, Primary Stages, EST/Youngblood, Culture Project, New Dramatists, La MaMa, HERE Arts Center, The Brick, Atlantic Stage 2, Bowery Poetry Club, Jimmy’s No. 43, Theater for the New City, Players Theatre, site-specifically around New York, and in Austin, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, San Diego, Baltimore, South Carolina, and Fringe NYC. Plays include You Like It (dev. EST/Youngblood), The Hazards of Loving While Broken (dev. Mission to (dit)Mars, HUB-BUB, and Filling the Well), Safeword (dev. Flux Theatre Ensemble and Kid Brooklyn Productions), Baby Mama: One Woman’s Quest to Give Her Baby to Gay People (dev. Bughouse SPIN, Sparking Fuse/Pull Together Productions, and FTW), Mrs. Mayfield’s Fifth-Grade Class of ’93 20-Year Reunion (Caps Lock), Magic Trick (Fringe NYC), The Foreplay Play (two NYIT Award nominations: Outstanding Production and Outstanding Full-Length Script), Lysistrata Rape Play (dev. The Theatre Project and FTW), Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story (winner of 20 Looking Glass Forum Awards and FringeNYC “Outstanding Performance”), The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret (“f*cking brilliant” -Kate Bornstein; productions across America) and A Man of His Word (winner, California Young Playwrights Contest; dev. New Dramatists). Winner of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award and the Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences, 2012 nytheatre.com “Person of the Year,” Executive Artistic Director and founder of Caps Lock Theatre, Associate Artistic Director of the Brick, curator of Pussyfest and Sex With Robots, Filling the Well resident artist, San Diego native, Skidmore graduate, and a member of Youngblood, the Propulsion Lab, and Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Don Nguyen (Long Island City) Full-length plays include Sound (Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2014, Playwrights Realm Fellowship), Red Flamboyant (Ojai Playwrights Conference 2011, nomination – L. Arnold Weissberger Award 2011, finalist O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Cherry Lane Mentors Project nomination, Woodward International Playwriting Prize), The Man From Saigon (Reading – Naked Angels, 2012 New York Stage and Film Founders Award, Nomination – L. Arnold Weissberger Award 2012), The Commencement of William Tan (NYSAF Residency, 2G Jumpstart Commission), Three To Beam Up (The Shelterbelt Theatre, Nebraska Arts Grant recipient). Don is a member of the New York Public Theater’s 2008 Inaugural Emerging Writers Group, The Civilians R & D Group, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, Mission to (dit)mars co-founder and volunteer at The 52nd Street Project.
Kristine M. Reyes (Astoria) is a playwright raised and based in New York City. Her plays include the full-length Queen for a Day(Diverse City Theater Company’s First Draft Fellowship); one-acts Quarter Century Baby, Something Blue (both produced at Diverse City Theater Company) and Lola Luning’s First Steps (commissioned and produced by Women of Color Productions); and the ten-minute pieces Balikbayan Birthday (Leviathan Lab) and Ready, Aim…Fire! (ESPA at Primary Stages; published on Indie Theater Now). Kristine is a Playwright Associate at Diverse City Theater Company, and a founding member and former co-director of the Leviathan Lab Asian American Women Writers Workshop. She was a 2012 Mary Louise Rockwell Scholar at The Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA) at Primary Stages, and has also studied at Ensemble Studio Theatre. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild.
Tyler Rivenbark (Sunnyside) Tyler was born and raised in Warsaw, North Carolina, and is now based out of Sunnyside, NY. He is a graduate of the Queens College, CUNY, MFA program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation with a focus in Playwriting. Select plays include Monosyllabic (Mellow Pages), (Silence) (Dixon Place and Artists’ Bloc), Inside the Rain (Dixon Place), Frogs; or How to Fail at Business (Left Hip), How they Played Games and Fell in Love (Abingdon Theatre) and Joe (Short Play Lab). In 2012 he received a commission from the Poetry Society of America to adapt Rita Dove’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Thomas and Beulah for the stage. In 2011 he founded the Oh, Bernice! reading series in Queens. He was a 2009 writer-in-residency at the Louis Armstrong House Museum, a residency he now oversees. He is currently an English professor at Queens College, CUNY. He is also a member of the Dramatist Guild. And when not making theatre, he can be found around the city making music.
The Directors
BIOS
Kel Haney (Astoria) Recent directing credits include Jonathan Caren’s THE RECOMMENDATION (The Flea), Jessica Dickey’s ROW AFTER ROW,Rachel Bonds’ LITTLE ROCK (both at Williamstown Theatre Festival),Nathan Leigh (music & lyrics) & Kyle Jarrow’s (book, music & lyrics) THE CONSEQUENCES (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre – world premiere) & Edith Freni’s EL FUEGO (Partial Comfort Productions). Kel has also directed and developed new work at Ars Nova, Atlantic Acting School, Desipina & Company, Dixon Place, The Directors Company, Cherry Lane Theatre, Emerging Artists Theatre,Ensemble Studio Theatre/Youngblood, Keen Company, The Lark, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, Naked Angels, New Dramatists, New Georges, NY Fringe Festival, Premiere Stages, Rattlestick, Rising Phoenix,Studio 42, United Solo Festival, Vampire Cowboys, Westport Country Playhouse, 3 Graces & the 52nd Street Project.
Kristin McCarthy Parker (Astoria) is a Queens-based director and sometimes actor. Her directing work includes Bears (59E59), kumrads won’t (FringeNYC), All’s Well That Ends Well (Mad and Merry), and the upcoming spoof Hold on to your butts: the Jerassic Parque Experience. She has developed a variety of new work with Amios’ Shotz! (penned by Mat Smart, Sevan K. Greene, Lindsay Joy, and others) and assisted under Ed Iskandar (The Mysteries), Michael Greif, Trip Cullman, Wendy Goldberg, and Jenn Thompson. Kristin is a graduate of The University of Evansville.
Aimee Todoroff is the Artistic Director of Elephant Run District, and indie theatre company based in NYC, where she helmed the popular Brecht in the Park, the Stampede Lab Series and American Gun Show, among others. She has directed at Primary Stages, The Living Theatre, HERE Arts Center, 59E59, The Metropolitan Theatre Company and others, and has directed the premieres of works by Cusi Cram, Daisy Foote and Chris Harcum, including Green, We Haven’t Told Anyone About This Yet and Rabbit Island, a Backstage Magazine’s Critic’s Pick and a “best of” the 2012 Frigid Festival. Recently, Aimee served as the Assistant Director under John Rando for David Ives’ new play The Heir Apparent at Classic Stage Company. Aimee received her MFA from Southampton Arts. www.aimeetodoroff.org
Colette Robert is a Los Angeles native currently living and working in New York. Recent directing credits include: Something Like Loneliness (EST Marathon), when last we flew (Diversionary Theatre, FringeNYC, GLAAD Media Award), Barriers (Desipina/HERE), Pluck & Tenacity (Samuel French Festival Winner) andStockton (EST Unfiltered). Colette is a proud member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Old Vic/New Voices Network, Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, and was the Public Theater’s 2009 Van Lier Directing Fellow. She has developed new work with Naked Angels, The 52nd Street Project, New Georges, Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Old Vic, Ma-Yi, 2g, Vineyard Arts Project, NYTW, and Sundance Theatre Lab. M.A., RADA and King’s College, London. B.A., Yale University. www.coletterobert.com
Christopher Diercksen (Astoria)
About the Launch Pad Reading Series
The Launch Pad is a free reading series of new plays by Queens playwrights. The mission objective of The Launch Pad is to serve as a testing ground for Queens based playwrights who need to hear their plays out loud. Because Mission to (dit)Mars was co-founded by playwrights and directors, we understand implicitly how to answer those needs. Through this program, the utmost care is taken to foster a safe and productive environment in order to propel the play forward.
