Our Plays in Progress Series, running March 15-31, are workshop level productions designed for an audience to give feedback. This series features 4 new works exclusively written by female playwrights. One play will be selected from this Series to be produced in the Athena Project Festival in March of 2014. Your vote counts!

 

Play Information

Schedule & Tickets

March Arts Festival

 

Play Information

 

Our 2013 plays and playwrights include:

Government Issued Long Johns by Erin Wagoner	directed by Angie Foster	Synopses & Playwright bios
Echo by Barbara Lhota	directed by Amanda Holter
Trespassing by Catherine Wiley	directed by Angela Astle
Let All Mortal Flesh by Pat Montley	directed by Karen M. Dabney

 

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Schedule & Tickets

The Aurora Fox Studio (9900 E. Colfax Avenue, Aurora): Saturday, March 16 at 2pm –Govt. Issued Long Johns Sunday, March 17 at 7pm— Echo Thursday, March 21 at 7pm— Trespassing Saturday, March 23 at 2pm— Let All Mortal Flesh Sunday, March 24 at 7pm— Govt. Issued Long Johns Thursday, March 28 at 7pm– Echo Saturday, March 30 at 2pm— Trespassing Sunday, March 31 at 7pm— Let All Mortal Flesh

 

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Play Synopses & Playwright Bios

 

Echo by Barbara Lhota

An Edgewater, Chicago family believes they are witnessing a miracle: after years of failed therapies, their autistic daughter (Abby), who only speaks through echolalia, is "communicating" using a promising new method that requires a facilitator and letters on a keyboard. It isn't long before the miracle becomes a nightmare when the messages she types include shocking accusations. The family is forced to choose: either Abby is an intelligent young woman communicating something unthinkable, or this therapy is a sham and every "I love you" Abby has typed was nothing but an illusion. Through realistic scenes and scrim video images that render the autistic daughter's perspective, Echo examines the
complex dynamics of a family at their inevitable boiling point, a family ripped apart due to the ongoing, increasing pressures of hope.

Barbara Lhota received her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Brandeis University, where she was an artist-in-residence and taught playwriting. She received a B.F.A from Wayne State University in Theatre. Publishing credits include her plays Strangers and Romance published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2001 and a co-authored 4-volume play series with Janet B. Milstein and Ira Brodsky as part of the Forensic Series Volume 1: Duo Practice and Performance published by Smith and Kraus Publishing. Her monologues are included in Young Women’s Monologues from Contemporary Plays, Meriwether Publishing, as well as throughout The Audition Arsenal Series (Smith and Kraus Publishing). She is a recipient of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award for her play Hanging by a Thread; a recipient of the Joining Sword and Pen - Margaret Martin Award for Los Desaparecidos (The Vanished); Diverse Voices Winner – Boston PlaySlam; a semi-finalist in the 2011 Women’s Work, Pride Films and Plays for The Double; and a Semi-Finalist for the Firehouse New American Play Festival for Echo. Ms. Lhota’s plays have been produced in various cities including Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Her most recent play, Warped, was developed through Stage Left Theatre Company’s residency program and was part of the 2012 Leapfest 9. She has worked with a wide variety of Chicago companies which include: American Blues Theater, Artistic Home, Babes With Blades Theatre Company, Bailiwick, Circle Theatre Company, Rascal Children’s Theater/The Side Project, Stage Left Theatre Company, Strangeloop Theatre Company, Symposium Theatre Company, Theatre of Western Springs, 20% Theatre Company and Women's Theater Alliance. More information about Barbara can be found at www.barbaralhota.com.

 

Let All Mortal Flesh by Pat Montley

It’s 1955 and Christina Gallagher isn’t ready for puberty. Her parochial-school education, stern confessor, pious grandmother and run-away adulterous mother have made her distrust her body and pursue spiritual perfection. But her understanding of morality is challenged when her best friend gets pregnant and when she realizes the next door neighbors—her adored music teacher and her trusted family doctor—are lesbians. Meanwhile, the couple battle their own demons at the close of the McCarthy era, struggling to accept their feelings for each other in the face of fear and guilt and an unscrupulous priest.

Pat Montley has had twelve plays published, separately or in anthologies or textbooks (Samuel French, Playscripts, Inc., Meriwether, Heinemann, Applause, Dramatic Publishing, Prentice-Hall, International Center for Women Playwrights, Dramatics Magazine).  Her plays have been given over 200 presentations, including readings at the Kennedy Center, Center Stage (Baltimore) and the Abingdon Theatre, and productions at the Nebraska Repertory Theatre, the Manhattan Theatre Source, the Harold Clurman Theatre, the Nat Horne Theatre, Baltimore’s Theatre Project, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.   She was one of the 50 playwrights nationally commissioned by Center Stage to write a monologue for the “My America” series last year. Her work has been supported by a Kennedy Center Playwrights’ Intensive, by residencies at the Millay Artists’ Colony (NY) and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (CA), and by grants from the Maryland and Pennsylvania Arts Councils, the Shubert Foundation, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation, and Warner Brothers.  Montley has an M.A. in theology (University of Notre Dame, IN), a Ph.D. in Theatre (University of Minnesota), and has taught playwriting in Baltimore (UMBC, Goucher College, and Johns Hopkins) and at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, where she chaired the theatre department.  Her poetry has been published in The Lyric, America, The Classical Outlook, The English Journal, and The Boston Review of the Arts.

 

Government Issued Long Johns by Erin Wagoner

Jane has always been a good citizen of this government-issued, long johns wearing society; she wears her long johns, obeys the rules, and never touches skin. But with one year left until her own matching ceremony (the equivalent of a computerized arranged marriage), Jane witnesses the society’s rules and matching process severely damage her sister. This pushes Jane to question all she’s known and in doing so, she takes dangerous risks to test the boundaries of her world.

Erin Wagoner was born in Indiana and raised in North Carolina so she is inherently fancy. Currently, she’s writing and living in New York City. Her plays Let’s. Ready. Rumble and Government Issued Long Johns were both finalists for NYU’s Goldberg Playwriting Prize.  Her short plays Truth and What To Do When Your Grandmother Loses Her Arms were produced for the Goldberg 10-Minute Play Festival. She is also developing a half-hour comedy pilot for fancy LA folks. Erin received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

 

Trespassing: A Comedy of Sacrifice by Catherine Wiley

Todd, a writer who is blocked on his second novel, has come to his late father’s cabin in the woods to try to write. He is interrupted by Zoe, a mysterious old woman who turns out to be a muse who promises to inspire him to write the second novel in exchange for his first-born child. Todd is ambivalent about his relationship with his girl friend, Marcy, and does not think he will ever have kids, so he agrees. At the end of Act I, Marcy informs him she is pregnant.  Act II begins 18 months later, with Todd and Marcy and their year-old son. Todd’s second novel is a big success and he is off to give a reading and sell some books. Zoe returns to collect on the promise.

Catherine Wiley began writing plays five years ago when her daughter first performed in a play. Her short plays have had several productions in Denver and a full-length play had a staged reading in Omaha. Her book of poems, Failing Better, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in 2004 and she teaches British and American drama and women writers at the University of Colorado-Denver. She is thrilled to have her work included in this year's Athena Project.

 

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March Arts Festival

As part of a unique way for women’s voices to be heard, Athena Project is produces a women's Arts Festival during the month of March. This includes our PIP Series, as well as the world premiere of Tell Martha Not to Moan by Clinnesha D. Sibley, a visual arts display, a night of dance, a night of music and plays from our Girls' Write Program. Learn more

 

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