Recent Unsettling Events by Andrea Stolowitz, is the Portland Civic Theatre Guild’s New Play Award Selection for 2020 Fertile Ground: A City Wide Festival of New Works.
The Portland Civic Theatre Guild is delighted to announce that Recent Unsettling Events by Portland playwright Andrea Stolowitz will be the 2020 Fertile Ground New Play reading for the Portland Civic Theatre Guild’s Readers Theatre, Tuesday morning, February 4 at 10:30 am and February 5 at 7:30 pm, at The Sanctuary, home of triangle! Theatre Company.
Recent Unsettling Events centers on a small liberal arts college which erupts in protests over its required Western Civilization class. As the fights intensify and the entire campus takes sides, the complexities of identity politics, the limits of free speech, and the consequences of preserving the status quo are examined.
Andrea Stolowitz’s plays have been developed and presented nationally and internationally at theatres such as The Long Wharf, The Old Globe, the Cherry Lane, and New York Stage and Film. The LA Times calls her work “heartbreaking” and the Orange County Register characterizes her approach as a “brave refusal to sugarcoat issues and tough decisions”.
Andrea is the Lacroute Playwright-in-Residence at Artists Repertory Theater, a member of New Dramatists in New York City, and a core writer at The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis.
Andrea has won the Angus Bowmer Oregon Book Award for Drama three times for her plays Antarktikos, Ithaka, and Successful Strategies. Andrea’s short play “So I was Driving Along”
is currently touring as part of the Red Door Project’s play, Cop Out. Andrea’s semi-autobiographical play The Berlin Diaries was included on the 2019 Kilroy’s List of best new plays and received the 2018 New York City Mayor’s Office for Entertainment: Theatre, Film and Television Award. The Berlin Diaries will be produced in New York City in the spring of 2021.
Recent Unsettling Events is a Table, Room, Stage commission from Artists Repertory Theater. In addition to its Portland Reading as part of Fertile Ground 2020 as the winner of The Portland Civic Theatre Guild New Play Award, the play will have a week-long public showing and workshop in New York in the spring of 2020.
Andrea currently serves on the faculty of Willamette University. She has also taught at the University of Portland, Duke University and UC-San Diego.
The Portland Civic Theatre Guild is also pleased to recognize our four finalists for their outstanding works:
Confabulous by Susan Faust
Descent from the Andes by Rich Rubin
It’s Not Unusual by Brian Shnipper
Of Pine Wood and Mountain Face by Lindsay Partain
Recent Unsettling Events marks the eighth year of the Portland Civic Theatre Guild’s commitment to Portland area playwrights and new works through the Portland Civic Theatre Guild New Play Award. Each spring The Guild calls for submissions from Portland area playwrights, selects a new script, and provides everything the playwright needs to bring the new work from the page to the audience. Previous readings include The Sweatermakers by Andrew Wardenaar, Love is Enough by Donna Barrow-Green, Deception by Nancy Moss, Rimbaud’s Daughter in Louisiana (or the Drunken Pirogue) bySteve Patterson, Badge of Honor by Tim Blough, I Love You/Who Are You by Matthew Miller, and Shakespeare’s Skull by Rich Rubin.
This year PCTG will further our focus on local playwrights by including two additional new plays in our regular season: Crooked Numbers by Ellen Margolis on October 1, and Bible Stories for Agnostics by John Longenbaugh March 3. In 2020-21 we go even futher when our season will include four new works.
The Portland Civic Theatre Guild produces the First Tuesday Readers Theatre series from October to May at The Sanctuary located at 1785 NE Sandy Blvd. This year’s season kicks off Tuesday October 1 with Crooked Numbers by Portland playwright Ellen Margolis.
The Guild also serves the Portland theater community with annual awards and fellowships announced each year at the Drammys. These include the Isabella Chappell Award in Support of Theatre, the Mary Brand Theatre for Youth Award, and the Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship.
