Season Five
Four Performances: September 7 to 9, 2017
At the Studio Theatre on Manhattan's Theatre Row, 410 West 42 Street
ABOUT THE PLAYS:
Precious Things is the re-imagining of two one-act plays by Wil Calhoun about the intersection of class and gender in New Orleans in the early 1990s. Each play chronicles the trials of blue-collar everyman Eddie and his failed attempts for intimate connection. In the first play, Call It Clover, Eddie visits Sandy, a former aspiring model who is now bedridden with a paralyzing illness. In the second, Affections of an Alleycat, Eddie and sex worker Denise have different ideas about where their relationship is headed. Both plays challenge our assumptions about agency and desire, ability and disability, feminism and modernity, and class and gender in late-capitalist America.
PROJECT HISTORY:
In 2016 we invited screenwriter Wil Calhoun to come from Los Angeles to New York to workshop these little-known plays. Excited at the prospect of featuring them together for the first time, Wil spent a week with New Brooklyn Theatre in 2016 exploring how these separate but related pieces stood in conversation with one another twenty years after their original publication. In the midst of rehearsal one day, Wil revealed to us that these plays were so intertwined that he imagined they might have happened on the same day. That is, Eddie could have left Sandy's house and gone straight to Denise. This solidified our original instinct that the greater picture created by the stories together was more than the sum of its parts. Our development process led to a reading at Ars Nova in 2016 and a full production in 2017 at the Studio Theatre on 42 Street.
Click here for an interview with Samantha Levitt.
WHO WE ARE:
WIL CALHOUN (Playwright) is a writer, showrunner, and television producer. He is known for his work on Friends (writer, executive producer), What I like About You (co-creator), Jesse, Sons & Daughters, Caroline in the City, Kath & Kim, Gary Unmarried, and Whitney (showrunner). Other plays by Calhoun include One Balcony (Circle Repertory Company, with Jonathon Hogan and Cynthia Nixon).
JESSI D. HILL (Director) is a theatre director based in New York City. New York credits include new work at New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, The Playwrights’ Center, Primary Stages, Labyrinth, The Women’s Project, 59E59, The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, P73, terraNOVA Collective, Culture Project, The Acting Company, The Barrow Group, PS122, Abingdon, Baruch Performing Arts Center, New Dramatists, The Lark, The Playwrights Realm, New Georges, Naked Angels, The Wild Project, and others. She has been a director and teacher in professional training programs at Yale School of Drama, Juilliard, The Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center/NTI, Fordham University, Long Island University, Powerhouse/NY Stage & Film, NYU/Tisch, Strasberg, CAP21, The Atlantic School, Playwrights HorizonsTheatre School, Hunter College, Marymount Manhattan, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and others. Jessi is a recipient of the Denham Fellowship from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, an Alumna of the Women's Project Lab, and an Affiliated Artist at New Georges. She served as Associate Artistic Director of terraNOVA Collective from 2009–2015 where she co-created the Groundbreakers Playwrights Group and Groundworks new works program. She is currently the Artistic Associate at Flying Carpet Theatre Company and the Literary Team Director at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Her work has been seen internationally in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand, Berlin, and Hamburg. MFA: Yale. Member SDC. Current projects: www.jessidhill.com
PRODUCERS: Samantha Levitt & Emily Kaplan
CAST: Dave Coleman, Emily Kaplan, Samantha Levitt, Hunter Thore
GENERAL MANAGEMENT: Emma Hills
SET DESIGN: Jason Simms
LIGHTING DESIGN: Paul Hudson
SOUND DESIGN: Matthew Fischer
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER: Yve Carruthers