Parity Plays Reading Series

Nov 13, 16, 19, & 20

WP partners with Colt Coeur on their extraordinary annual four-play reading series, Parity Plays, celebrating the work of female and trans writers and directors. Created by WP Lab alum Adrienne Campbell-Holt and Colt Coeur, and now co-curated with WP, the Parity Plays series will appear on the WP Theater stage for the very first time.

Hatef*** 

by Rehana Lew Mirza
Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh
Featuring Jolly Abraham and Sanjit De Silva
Monday, November 13th, 4pm
A local Michigan literary professor, Layla, seeks out a famous Muslim-American novelist, Imran, to find out if he’s an Islamophobe or just a really good lay.

God Said This

by Leah Nanako Winkler
Directed by Morgan Gould
Featuring Jeff Biehl, Satomi Blair, Ako Dachs, Emily Kunkel, Emma Kikue Munson, and Jay Patterson
Thursday, November 16th, 3pm
James seeks redemption when his wife is diagnosed with uterine cancer. John searches for a legacy for his only son.  NYC transplant Hiro struggles to let go of her inherited demons, and Sophie confronts her faith as she comes to terms with death, her own shortcomings and broken dreams. GOD SAID THIS is about five Godless and God-loving people in Lexington, Kentucky who face mortality in very different ways

Perry Street

by Lucy Thurber
Featuring Jennifer Carpenter, Glenn Davis, Amanda Seyfried, Trudie Styler, and Michael Warner
Sunday, November 19th 7pm
Phil and Maggie live a blessed life–they’ve been happily married for years, they have a daughter, Becca, they adore, a traveling companion they enjoy, and more money than they could ever spend. That is until Becca’s new girlfriend, Annabelle, comes to visit and tears their well-curated world apart. PERRY STREET is a dark comic exploration of money, class and art.

Le Jeté

by Catherine Yu
Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt
Featuring Molly Carden, Izzy Castaldi, Lauren Currie Lewis, Lynne Lipton, Eden Marryshow, Kate Cullen Roberts, Brian Wiles, and Tyler Weaks
Monday, November 20th , 7pm
Cate Yu’s unique new play with Baroque opera, Le Jeté, centers around a museum associate who longs to rediscover her love of art while trying to center herself in the chaos that is thrown at her. Through opera, performance art, and Rome she finds her way back to art and the world at large. 

Adrienne Campbell-Holt

(Director) Adrienne is the Founding Artistic Director of Colt Coeur and the recipient of the 2018 Lucille Lortel Visionary Director Award. Upcoming: world premieres of Hatef**k by Rehana Lew Mirza (WP/Colt Coeur), andWe are Among Usby Stephen Belber (City Theater). Recent world premieres/productions: Downstairs,by Theresa Rebeck (Primary Stages),Thirst, by C. A. Johnson (Contemporary American Theater Festival), Zürich, by Amelia Roper (Colt Coeur/NYTW), What We’re Up Against by Theresa Rebeck (WP Theater), Empathitraxby Ana Nogueira (Colt Coeur), Cal in Camo (co-pro Rattlestick & Colt Coeur), Theresa Rebeck’s The Nest (Denver Theatre Company), One Child Born (Oberon at American Repertory Theater), How to Live on Earthby MJ Kaufman (Colt Coeur), Chiara Atik’s 52nd to Bowery (EST Marathon), Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel (Colt Coeur), Reunion by Greg Moss (South Coast Rep), Everything Is Oursby Nikole Beckwith (Colt Coeur)Recallby Eliza Clark (Colt Coeur),Fish Eye (Colt Coeur), and Seven Minutes in Heaven by Steven Levenson (Colt Coeur). Adrienne is currently developing the new musical Other World with Hunter Bell, Jeff Bowen, Ann McNamee & WETA Workshop, as well as Afterwords, with Zoe Sarnak and Emily Kaczmarek. BA Barnard College, Columbia University. She is also the director of #makeitfair

Leah Nanako Winkler

(Two Mile Hollow Playwright) Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese-American playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky Plays include Kentucky (2015 Kilroys List, World Premiere: Ensemble Studio Theatre in coproduction with Page 73 and the Radio Drama Network), Two Mile Hollow (2017 Kilroys List, 2017-2018 Simultaneous World Premiere at Artists At Play in La, Mixed Blood/Theater Mu in Minneapolis, First Floor Theater in Chicago and Ferocious Lotus in SF) and God Said This (World Premiere: 2018 Humana Festival). She a member of the Ma Yi lab, the Dorothy Streslin New American Writer’s Group at Primary Stages and EST. She was awarded the first-ever Mark O’Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons and is currently one of the inaugural playwrights to receive a commission from Audible’s emerging playwrights fund. She is the 2017-2019 recipient of the Lark’s Jerome New York Fellowship.

Morgan Gould

(Two Mile Hollow Director) Morgan Gould is a playwright and director. She is currently in the playwriting program at Juilliard, a New Dramatists resident playwright, a 2017-18 Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellow, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, a member of the Women’s Project Lab, the former Associate Artistic Director of Young Jean Lee’s Theatre Company (co-creator Untitled Feminist Show), and the Artistic Director of Morgan Gould & Friends – her theater company with 9 actors, 3 designers, and a filmmaker (www.morgangouldandfriends.com). In 2016, she directed Leah Nanako Winkler’s Kentucky (P73/ EST) and her play I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart won the 2016 Beatrice Terry/ Drama League Award and premiered the next winter at Studio Theatre in DC (with Morgan directing), where DC Theatre Arts said Morgan “shows every bit as much promise as Edward Albee’s early work, arguably more.” Upcoming directing: God Said This by Leah Nanako Winkler (Humana Festival 2018) and Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee (Marin Theatre Company).

Rehana Lew Mirza

(Playwright) is currently a resident playwright (w/ Mike Lew) at Ma-Yi Theater as part of the Mellon National Playwright Residency. She is also a 2017 HBO Access Fellow. Additional honors include: 2016 Rita Goldberg Playwrights’ Workshop fellow at the Lark, 2016 Lilly Award (Stacey Mindich “Go Write A Play”), Rhinebeck residency with collaborators Sam Willmott and Mike Lew for Bhangin’ It, TCG Fellowship with New Georges. Productions: Soldier X (Ma-Yi; Brooklyn College; 2015 Kilroy); Lonely Leela (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center); Barriers (Desipina and Asian American Theater Company). Commissions: NNPN/InterAct for Neighborhood Watch; E.S.T./Sloan for Particles of Pakistan; La Jolla Playhouse for The Colonialism Trilogy (w/ Mike Lew); NYSCA/Lark for Soldier X; Kennedy Center commission (w/ Mike Lew.) MFA: Columbia University; BFA: NYU Tisch.www.rehanamirza.com

Pirronne Yousefzadeh

(Director) is a Brooklyn based director, writer, and educator. Recent projects include Utopia, Minnesota by Meg Miroshnik (2016 Sagal Fellowship, Williamstown Theatre Festival), That High Lonesome Sound (Actors Theatre of Louisville; 2015 Humana Festival) and We Are Proud To Present A Presentation… by Jackie Sibblies Drury (InterAct Theatre Company), And If You Lose Your Way, or A Food Odyssey (Invisible Dog). Her productions of The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane by Jen Silverman (InterAct Theater Company) and In The Blood (Theatre Horizon) together received a total of fifteen Barrymore Award nominations, including Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Overall Production. She has directed/developed work at The Public, New York Theatre Workshop, Ars Nova, Soho Rep, Playwrights Horizons, Atlantic Theater Company, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Rising Circle Theater Collective, Woodshed Collective (The Tenant: Best of 2011, L Magazine), Partial Comfort, Noor Theatre, Rising Phoenix Rep, HERE Arts Center, New York Musical Theatre Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Wild Project, Dixon Place, Living Theatre, Lark Play Development Center, New Dramatists, Juilliard, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Geva Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Two River, Milwaukee Rep, On The Boards, Perseverance Theatre, Berkshire Fringe Festival, Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre, and Hangar Theatre, where she was a 2006 Drama League Directing Fellow. M.F.A. in Directing from Columbia University, (Shubert Presidential Fellow). Current and upcoming: Mad Forest by Caryl Churchill (Columbia), Veil’d by Monet Hurst-Mendoza (Astoria Performing Arts Center), The Invisible Hand (Cleveland Playhouse). Member, SDC. www.pirronne.com

Catherine Yu

(Playwright) plays include Le JetéStargaze, The Sun Experiment (FringeNYC 2014 Award for Excellence in Playwriting; Time Out New York’s Top Ten Music and Nightlife Events of The Week, published by IndieTheaterNow), and The Day Is Long To End. Her short plays have been commissioned by the 52nd Street Project, UglyRhino, and Culture Project. Her short play “A Sand Romance” was a 2016 Heidman finalist. Her poem “To the Movement” was featured in a recent Planned Parenthood fundraiser. She has been a NYTW Emerging Artist of Color and Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab writer, a 2016 NYSCA/NYFA Playwright Fellow, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow. She is currently working on a play set in Mexico City and a libretto for a Chinese opera. BA: Stanford University. MFA: NYU.