WINTERWORKS 2015: A FESTIVAL OF ONES AND TWOS

American Renaissance Theater Company kicks off the New Year with a treat for “intimate theater” lovers as it presents WinterWorks 2015: A Festival of Ones and Twos.  Featuring a cornucopia of provocative one- and two-character plays, the festival runs from January 8-18 in The Shop at Cap21 and features a rotating repertoire of nine compelling works. All tickets are only $15.

“We're excited about the overall quality of the work and about presenting it to a wider audience,” says Co-Artistic Director Bill Cosgriff. “While good theater is always good theater, this festival allows us to explore the similarities and differences in telling dynamic, stage-worthy stories in the format of one-person and two-person plays.”

Presented over the course of two weeks, WinterWorks 2015 is comprised of material developed in the ARTC workshop. Through thirteen performances of nine plays, theatergoers will experience stories of troubled teens, Russian immigrants (past and present), Wall Street hijinks, Main Street travails and, of course, love affairs—from Shakespearean to septuagenarian.

“The pieces presented in this festival represent nine of our writers (not to mention many of our director and actor members), all of whom developed this work through our weekly workshop, a process of which we are very proud,” says Kathleen Swan, Co-Artistic and Producing Director.

WinterWorks 2015 consists of the solo shows Surf Avenue by Stephen Axelrod, On Becoming by Catherine Wolf and Paper Tigers by Nick Garr, with the curtain-raisers Rooms by Robert Quinn and Marc Castle's Fair Rosaline; plus a program of four two-character one-acts, A Marriage Proposal by Dan Socolov, For Now by Julius Landau, The Alabaster Virgin by Kathryn Grant, and The Language Tape by Bill Cosgriff.

Performers for the various pieces include Deb Armelino*, Stephen Axelrod*, Marc Castle*, Karin de la Penha*, Alex Emanuel*, Fernando Gamarra*, Nick Garr*, Megan Greener, Mikel Sarah Lambert*, Cari McHugh*, Edward O’Blenis*, Robert Quinn, Bernard Rachelle*, Gina Tuttle*, and Catherine Wolf* (*these Actors are appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association).

The production team includes directors Elowyn Castle**, Bill Cosgriff, Mikel Sarah Lambert, David Andrew Laws, Stephen Nachamie**, Robert Quinn, Joseph R. Sicari, and Kathleen Swan (** SDC). Hailli Ridsdale serves as Production Manager/ Stage Manager and Louis Lopardi provides sound design.

For 40 years, the American Renaissance Theater Company (ARTC) has provided an artistic home for theater professionals to explore and develop their gifts. In the nurturing but challenging environment of our weekly workshop, actors stretch their boundaries, directors develop projects, and writers conceive, collaborate, and create new plays. 

New work has always been the core of who we are.  We have presented pubic reading series for decades.  ARTC’s playwrights have received numerous grants and awards including the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, the Shubert Fellow in Playwriting, the Puffin Award, the MCAF Award, the Berilla Kerr Award, the Thomas Barbour Award and, of special pride, ARTC’s own Jerry Kaufman Award in Playwriting.  Our directors work throughout the country and overseas; our actors appear regularly in all entertainment media.

With this WinterWorks Festival of 2015, we are thrilled to present the work of 9 different writers, several of them Kaufman finalists, and all of them members of ARTC whose plays were developed through our workshop.

WINTER WORKS 2015: A FESTIVAL OF ONES AND TWOS runs January 8-18 at The Shop at Cap21 (18 W. 18th St., 6th Floor). Tickets are $15. Purchase today at brownpapertickets.com (enter "WinterWorks") or call 1-800-838-3006; also at door. Full schedule included below.