Caridad Svich’s new play SPARK will honor US war veterans this November with multiple readings
An initial line-up of organizations that will present 2012 OBIE Award-winning playwright Caridad Svich’s new play Spark has been announced. This work, which is about a family of sisters who live in North Carolina, one of whom is a returning veteran from a recent war, is being made available for local presentations during the month of November (and selected venues in October) to honor US war veterans, shed light on the plight of female veterans in particular, and to raise increased awareness for their stories, by NoPassport theatre alliance & press, an unincorporated collective dedicated to the advocacy, production and publication of works expressive of cross-cultural and aesthetic diversity in the arts.
A special reading of the play will be held at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City on November 11, 2012 produced by T.e.l. and Mannatee Films, in collaboration with NoPassport, under Scott Schwartz’ direction (casting TBA soon). Among the other theaters and venues that will be presenting the play are Atomic Age Theater Company in collaboration with Emerson College in Boston, MA; Bristol Riverside Theater in Bristol, PA; Cummins Theatre in Western Australia; Ex-Pats Theatre in Chicago, IL; Off-the-Hyphen Productions in Baton Rouge, LA; Moxie Productions in Vermont; New Dramatists in NYC; Profile Theatre in Portland, OR; Pygmalion Theatre in Salt Lake City, UT; Trap Door Theatre in Chicago, IL; Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque, NM; Working Title Playwrights in Atlanta, GA; and over fifteen US universities including Penn State University, Reed College and the University of Washington-Seattle in collaboration with The Hansberry Project. Additional presenting venues will be announced in the near future.
The play was commissioned by, among others, JT Rogers, Peter Lichtenfels, and Tamilla Woodard, and was developed, in part, at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City. Spark is a two-act play with five characters that focuses on poverty in America, what happens when soldiers come home, and the strength, ultimately, of family. Caridad Svich’s other plays include 12 Ophelias, The Way of Water, and The House of the Spirits, based on the novel by Isabel Allende. The line producer for the NoPassport reading scheme for Spark is Lanie Zipoy, and the dramaturgy team is led by Zac Kline with Heather Helinsky (as consulting dramaturg). The play’s premiere has not yet been announced.
For more information about Caridad Svich’s Spark, visit http://www.nopassport.org/spark
NoPassport theatre alliance and press, Email: NoPassportPress@aol.com,Website: http://www.nopassport.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Lanie Zipoy | 646.399.8650 | lanie.zipoy@gmail.com
KATHLEEN CHALFANT TO HOST VETERANS DAY READING OF
CARIDAD SVICH’S SPARK AT THE CHERRY LANE THEATRE NOVEMBER 11TH
Cast Includes Louis Cancelmi, Marin Ireland, Peter Jay Fernandez, Gloria Mann & Jocelyn Kuritsky
New York, NY — A special Veterans Day reading of the new play Spark by OBIE-award winning playwright Caridad Svich will be held at the Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street) in New York City on Sunday, November 11, 2012 at 8:00 pm, followed by an expert panel discussion on the experience of women veterans facing trauma and assault while serving.
Produced by Gloria Mann, TECL / Mannatee Films, in collaboration with NoPassport, the cast includes Louis Cancelmi (Blasted, Soho Rep), Marin Ireland (Tony Award nominee, reasons to be pretty), Peter Jay Fernandez (The Lady from Dubuque, Signature Theatre) Jocelyn Kuritsky (Woodshed Collective, 13P), and Gloria Mann (Ashes to Ashes, Walkerspace). Scott Schwartz (Golda’s Balcony) will direct the reading.
Spark centers on a family of sisters in North Carolina, one of whom is a returning veteran from a recent war. Along with hosting the event, after the reading, Tony Award-winning actress Kathleen Chalfant will participate in a distinguished panel on the role of women in the US military, psychological and physical health for veterans, and the role of art in the healing process.
Moderated by Omega Institute program strategist Michael Craft, the panel will also feature one of America’s leading physicians working with military trauma, former Air Force Major Nisha Money MD; acclaimed documentary filmmaker, JulieHera DeStefano, whose new film, Journey to Normal: Women of War Come Home, recounts the unprecedented story of women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan; Gulf War veteran Susan Lynch, Executive Director of There and Back-Again (www.thereandback-again.org), a nonprofit supporting active service-members and providing reintegration support services to combat veterans of all conflicts, Helen Benedict, author of The Lonely Soldier, and Kayla Williams, linguist and former intelligence specialist for US Army and the author of Love My Rifle. The Cherry Lane evening for Spark is sponsored, in part, by Oliver Kita Chocolates and Michael Boris Clothing.
Spark is the third play in Caridad Svich’s American quartet of plays addressing national issues/global concerns that include 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award-winning Guapa and The Way of Water. Spark will receive dozens of readings, including the Cherry Lane Theatre event, across the United States and internationally throughout November 2012. Among the additional national venues that are participating in the national reading scheme are Bristol Riverside Theatre in Pennsylvania, Profile Theatre in Portland, Stages Repertory Theatre in Houston, The Playwrights Center of Minneapolis, Theatre Project and Bump in the Road in Baltimore, DNAWorks with Teatro Paraguas in Santa Fe, and Tricklock Theatre in Albuquerque.
The line producer for the NoPassport international reading scheme for Spark is Lanie Zipoy, and the dramaturgy team is led by Zac Kline with Heather Helinsky (as consulting dramaturg) and Erin Kaplan. The play’s premiere has not yet been announced. Tickets to the Spark reading at The Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street, Subway: 1 to Christopher Street), which are free and open to the public, will be available starting November 4th at http://www.nopassport.org/spark. For more information about Caridad Svich’s Spark, visit http://www.nopassport.org/spark
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My monologue WONDER, part of the My America series at Center Stage, is now live online as a short film directed by Hal Hartley.
Caridad Svich from CENTERSTAGE on Vimeo.
Caridad Svich is recipient of a 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, and a 2011 Primus Prize from the American Theatre Critics Association. She has been short-listed four times for the PEN USA Award in Drama, including in 2012 for her play Magnificent Waste. She is alumna of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance & press, associate editor of Routledge/UK’s Contemporary Theatre Review, and Drama Editor of Asymptotejournal. Visit her at caridadsvich.com.
New September 2012 Release from Eyecorner Press:
BLASTED HEAVENS:
Five Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks
by Caridad Svich
Between worlds? Only through a blasted heaven.
THE BOOK: A collection of five daring, radical reconfigurations of ancient plays and myths by US playwright Caridad Svich, winner of a 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement. From the mediatised archival landscape of the haunting Antigone Arkhe to the brutalised labyrinth-city of Steal Back Light from the Virtual to the eerie, broken universe of Wreckage, Svich burns through the core of mythic stories with a heightened sense of theatricality and ecstatic poetry
Request a Review Copy: editor@eyecornerpress.com
THE AUTHOR: Caridad Svich is a playwrightsongwriter-
ISBN: 978-8792633187 http://www.eyecornerpress.com
All book orders must be placed with either amazon.com or amazon.co.uk
Frank Theatre in Minneapolis presents from September 14-30, 2012
a workshop production of
THE WAY OF WATER
a new play by Caridad Svich
Directed by Wendy Knox
The Way of Water is a play that pits the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico next to the lives of those affected by it. It’s a play about poverty in America, rumors and truth, what is said and what gets written, and the quest for an honorable life.
Cast: Emily Zimmer, Hope Cervantes, H. Adam Harris, Eric Sharp
Sets: Joseph Stanley
Lights:Michael Wangen
Costumes: Lori Opsal
Sound: Mike Croswell
The Way of Water was developed at the Lark Play Development Center in New York and through a NoPassport theatre alliance intl reading scheme with cooperation from The Earth Institute, Positive Feedback and the Waterkeeper Alliance (www.nopassport.org/wayofwater
Frank Theatre
performing at The Playwrights Center of Minneapolis
Minneapolis, MNwww.franktheatre.org http://www.franktheatre.org/
Lark Play Development Center presents a roundtable* reading of
SPARK
a new play by Caridad Svich
Director Liaison: Jose Zayas
Cast includes: Audrey Esparza, Keira Keeley, Flor De Liz Perez, Steven Rishard, Juan Francisco Villa
Dramaturgs: Heather Helinsky, Zac Kline
on Sept 5, 2012 at 6:30 PM
Roundtable readings are closed to the public.
“All of us are born to burn.”
–Lexie in Spark
Spark is a play about three sisters living in the US caught in the mess of a recent war’s aftermath. It is about what happens when soldiers come home, when women of little economic means must find a way to make do and carry on, and the strength, ultimately, of family. A contemporary US story of faith, love, war, trauma, and a bit of healing.
Credits: SPARK was publically commissioned by Elaine Avila, Daniel Banks, Raymond Dooley, Amparo Garcia-Crow, Amy Gonzalez, Peter Lichtenfels, Charlotte Meehan, Christi Moore, Flor De Liz Perez, Marisel Polanco, Teresa Perez-Frangie, Otis Ramsey-Zoe, Claudio Raygoza, J.T.Rogers, Meghan Wolf and Tamilla Woodard.
I first dipped my toes into a swimming pool when I was five years old. I was at a hotel in Miami, Florida on holiday with my parents. We had a week in the sun before traveling back to Paterson, New Jersey, where we lived at the time. I was absolutely terrified of swimming, but was attracted to the water, and moreover the freedom everyone in the pool seemed to possess with such remarkable ease. There was something thrilling, sensual and dangerous about the pool, and I was eager to let go of my fear and take my first stab at this thing called “swimming.”
My dad, a former athlete and enviably powerful swimmer, called at me from inside the hotel pool. “Dip your toes in,” he said in his Argentine-inflected Spanish, “and then slowly let yourself in. We’ll learn one step at a time.” The combination of south Florida sun and the slightly inappropriate beauty of a hotel swimming pool steps away from the Atlantic Ocean was too much to resist, and so, I, stepped in.
I don’t know what I expected. Some sort of magic? Life transformation? But the water was just water. Warm from the sun with a slightly cool undertow. I tugged at my blue bathing suit and kept walking into it. My dad was waiting for me and held my hand, and slowly, slowly, I had my first swimming lesson. What I remember most was the feeling—one that continues to this day when I swim, especially in pool water—of absolute yet controlled freedom, and at the same time, eerie otherworldliness. If swimming in the ocean is meeting Nature, swimming in a pool is about meeting yourself, and also an extension of yourself.