NEW PLAYS: A TALK WITH THEATER ARTISTS FROM NEW YORK CITY

You are cordially invited to a free gathering for the purpose of sharing ideas, inspirations and techniques for making new plays more original, unique and innovative. Playwright Ruth Margraff, Composer Nikos Brisco & their CAFÉ ANTARSIA ENSEMBLE will talk about new tools for playwriting, performance and composing from the current New York City theater scene, and emerging from some of the most exclusive American graduate and professional playwriting programs such as New Dramatists, Brown University, Michener Center for Writers, Yale School of Drama, Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. Ruth and Nikos will talk about their work in New York City and America, and their travels to various festivals and venues in Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Russia, Greece, Canada, England, Japan, etc.

Asking the questions: How can new plays be inspired by travel? Can a new play take its form from other genres and forms of art? Can new plays have interdisciplinary or hybrid influences such as Chinese Shaolin martial arts fighting styles, Greek blues, Bollywood, etc? How can research or music lead to writing or performance practices for inspiration? We will look at some recent American plays with alternative forms such as those from Play: A Journal of Plays from Brown University, Moon Marked and Touched by the Sun, Divine Fire: 8 Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks and talk about ways of developing a new play and new playwrights from the page, from music, from rehearsal and from the world.