National New Play Network, the country’s alliance of nonprofit theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays, announces the launch of its 91st Rolling World Premiere (RWP): ALABASTER by Audrey Cefaly.
The Roll continues with this production’s opening night on Saturday, January 26th at Capital Stage (running through February 23rd). This production opens as the first production in the RWP at Florida Repertory Theatre comes to a close the same night. The play will continue to travel across the country to 16th Street Theater (Berwyn, IL), Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas, TX). Shrewd Productions (Austin, TX), Know Theatre of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH), Phoenix Theatre (Indianapolis, IN), Williamston Theatre (Williamston, MI), New Jersey Repertory Company (Long Branch, NJ), Salt Lake Acting Company (Salt Lake City, UT), and Oregon Contemporary Theatre (Eugene, OR). NNPN Rolling World Premiere (RWP) models a process for developing and producing new plays that results in stronger work overall and the momentum needed for a play to join the repertoire of frequently produced new American works. Each Rolling World Premiere connects three or more NNPN Member Theaters that choose to mount the same new play within a 12-month period, allowing the playwright to develop the work with a new creative team in each theater’s community. To date, NNPN has championed RWPs with over one million dollars in financial support. Alumni plays have received hundreds of subsequent productions, recognition in markets across the world, been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, won Steinberg/ATCA, Stavis, PEN and Blackburn awards, and been adapted into feature films.
ALABASTER is an all-female darkly comic southern drama about women on the verge, art, and the power of human connection. After a tornado barrels through a North Alabama town leaving nothing but death and destruction, only June and her pet goat Weezy live to tell the tale. When Alice, a prominent photographer, arrives to take pictures of June’s scars, every living soul on the farm is tipped to the breaking point in this epic tale of life after death.
Audrey Cefaly is a southern writer and Alabama native based in the DC region. Her plays include The Gulf (Edgerton Award, Lammy Award, Samuel French OOB Fest Winner, Charles MacArthur Award Nominee); Alabaster (2019 NNPN Record-Breaking Rolling World Premiere, 2019 Kilroys, 2018 NNPN Showcase, David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize, BAPF Semifinalist); Maytag Virgin (Women’s Voices Theater Festival); The Last Wide Open (Cincinnati Playhouse commission); The Story of Walter (adaptation of her podcast by the same name); and Love is a Blue Tick Hound (a collection of award-winning one-acts).
Cefaly has developed plays with the National New Play Network, Everyman Theatre, Signature Theatre, Vermont Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, About Face, Florida Rep, Kitchen Dog Theatre, Circle Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, Aurora Theatre, Theater Alliance, Quotidian Theatre Company, University of Alabama – Birmingham, and Contemporary American Theater Festival. She is published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus (two volumes of Best American Short Plays), and Applause Books. Cefaly is a member of the 2019 Playwrights’ Arena cohort at Arena Stage and was recently named a Traveling Master by the Dramatist Guild Foundation.
She is an outspoken proponent of silence in storytelling and has authored numerous articles on the topic of playwriting for HowlRound and Samuel French’s Breaking Character Magazine. Cefaly is a recipient of grants from the Boomerang Fund for Artists as well as the Alabama and Maryland state arts councils. audreycefaly.com
Article from Broadway World.