Playwrights in Prague: Five plays in Five Days

The Playwrights’ Center (USA) is thrilled to team up with The Prague Fringe for this brand-new, cross-cultural, FREE EVENT, May 28-June 2.

Take a lunch break and sample some of the hottest young award-winning playwrights from the USA and the Czech Republic. Join us as we fly by the seat of our pants—all plays will be rehearsed in a single day, performed by an international cast—with scripts in hand!

All plays will be presented in ENGLISH—here’s a chance for English-speakers to sample some of the most exciting new Czech theatre!

Monday 28.05.07 / 12:30pm

THE GIRLS' ROOM by Jan Antonín Pitínský(CR)
Inspired by Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Marie has locked herself in a room and no one can get in…and it’s her birthday.

Tuesday 29.05.07 / 12:30pm

WALLFLOWER by Deborah Stein (USA)
Teenage Milena accidentally starts a revolution by posting angry videos on the internet. When her cause is taken up by an actual group of activists, all hell breaks loose.

Thursday 31.05.07 / 12:30pm
A SHORT PLAY ABOUT GLOBALIZATION by Dominic Orlando (USA)
A young FBI agent searches for his missing sister in Mexico. He discovers instead that changing economic rules may also change what it means to be human.

Friday 01.06.07 / 12:30pm
LITTLE PITFALL by Markéta Bláhová (CR)
Two sisters play make believe about their father’s death, trying to maintain the innocence of childhood even as they grow up. A fairy tale for grown ups.

Saturday 02.06.07 / 12:30pm
TALES OF COMMON INSANITY by Petr Zelenka (CR)
Thirty-five-year-old Peter is trying to master the world around him...in the end there is only one solution: to pack himself in a box and send himself somewhere far, far away.

All readings will be at the Divadlo Na Pradle Kavarna, Besední 3 Malá Strana, Praha 1 (Nearest Metros - Malostranska and Anděl; Trams no. 12,20,22,23 to Újezd)

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About the Playwrights:

Markéta Bláhová studied dramaturgy at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and then joined directors Jiri Pokorny and Michal Lang in the Drama Studio Usti nad Labem. After returning to Prague, she worked with the Theatre Cooperative CD 94 and with the Drama Club. From 2002, she formulated the dramaturgical programme of the newly-founded company at the Svanda Theatre. In 1995 she won the second prize from the Alfred Radok Foundation for best original Czech or Slovak play. Her plays were read at the New Czech Plays in Translation organized by the Immigrants’ Theatre Project in New York in 2002.

Dominic Orlando is a former Jerome Fellow to The Playwrights Center and was this year awarded a McKnight Advancement Grant. His plays have been developed and produced at The Guthrie Theater, Teatro Del Pueblo, Here Arts Center (NYC), The Samuel Beck-ett on Theatre Row (off-Broadway), The Lincoln Center/American Living Room, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival/Magic Theatre, The New York International Fringe Festival (multi-year), The Edinburgh Fringe, and The Pasinger/Fabrik in Munich, among others. His writing is published by Playscripts and Dramatics Magazine.

Jan Antonín Pitínský from 1993 to 2002 worked closely with Divadlo na Zabradle in Prague. Drew attention as a director and received the Alfred Radok Award for production of the year with his productions Sestra Uzkost (Divadlo Dejvice - 1995), Job (1996 - HaDivadlo, Brno), Dido and Aeneas (Tyl theatre in Pilsen - 1998), and Divadelnik (Davidlo na Zabradli - 1999).

Deborah Stein has had work seen and developed nationally in New York, Minneapolis, Seattle, Philadelphia, and San Francisco as well as internationally in Poland, Ireland, and at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. She is a close collaborator of the Pig Iron Theatre Company, a graduate of Swarthmore College and Brown University’s MFA Playwriting program, and a member of New Dramatists.

Petr Zelenka graduated in scriptwriting and dramaturgy from FAMU and made his debut as a director in 1993 with Visaci zamek, a film about punks. In 1997 he premiered his most highly awarded film, Buttoners, which won the prestigious Czech Lion for best script, direction and film. He made his debut in the theatre translating the plays of Michael Frayn. Tales of Common Insanity won the 2001 Alfred Radok Award for play of the year.

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About the Playwrights’ Center (USA):

Founded in 1971 by a handful of playwrights seeking support for their work, The Playwrights’ Center has since served 5,000 writers and put over $10 million in playwrights’ pockets. Its major program areas include $500,000 annually in fellowships, residencies and awards, a year-round R&D lab for the development of new plays, a 2-year-old New Plays On Campus program which positions the Center as “literary manager at large” for the nation’s college theater community, an affordable and accessible national membership program that includes free access to paid actors’ cold readings of member work, a robust international exchange and translation program, and the renowned annual PlayLabs Festival of new work. In addition, the Center makes new plays accessible to the nation’s theater community via free sample downloads in the New Play Gallery at www.pwcenter.org. The Playwrights' Center's work in Prague is modeled after a now 3-year-old reciprocal collaborative exchange with Tokyo International Festival that has already resulted in the translation and development of 8 new Japanese and American plays.