ALL SHOWS
are Thursday. Friday and Saturday at 8.00PM, with select
Sunday and matinee performances on a to-be-announced
basis.
OUR BOX
OFFICE opens 30 minutes before curtain.
Our seating is open, so reservations, while they’ll
be honored, will not guarantee your choice of seat unless
you are a member.
OUR
BOX OFFICE LINE will ask for your name,
telephone number, number of seats, price range (concessions
for students or seniors or general admission), and the
performance you wish to attend. Generally, your call
will not be returned unless you instruct us otherwise
AND/OR if we cannot seat you.
Eric Bentley, our Board Member
Emeritus, is internationally renowned for his literary criticism
and translations (of the plays of Brecht, in particular) and
as a playwright whose dramas bend gender or the boundaries
of theatre. Each year, the New Phoenix Theatre annually launches
THE ERIC BENTLEY NEW PLAY COMPETITION, a national search for
bold new writing that tests the boundaries of theatricality,
gender, sexuality or identity.
Plays can address any combination of these challenges in any
way, but must be un-produced, full-length works in order to
be considered. MSS should be sent with an SASE and a $25.00
handling fee to Eric Bentley New Play Competition,
New Phoenix Theatre On The Park, Buffalo, NY 14201.
Last
year’s winner was ORGANIC MOVEMENT OF THE CHAIR AND
PITCHER (pictured), Tim McPeek’s exploration
of eroticism and representation in the work of painter Egon
Schiele. Our 2006/2007 winner, EMBODY, which
was last year named runner-up and is by Atlanta playwright
Lauren Gunderson, also concerns a painter: Leonardo
Da Vinci. The play, which draws on Renaissance legal texts
and Leonardo’s notebooks, finds the young genius imprisoned
on sodomy charges at age 24 and suggests than an unlikely
affair may have saved the legacy of his genius.
Lauren Gunderson is an Atlanta-based
playwright, screenwriter, short story author, and actor. Her
work has received national praise and awards including the
Berrilla Kerr Award for American Theatre, Young Playwright’s
Award, Essential Theatre Prize, Virtual Theatre Prizes and
many others. She will work with South Coast Rep in California
on a new commission this year, as well as projects with Actors’
Express and Synchronicity Performance Group in Atlanta. She
has been produced off-Broadway (Parts They Call Deep), off-off
Broadway (Sus Manos), recently had many new plays produced
in Atlanta (including Leap and Background), as well as commissions
for the Alliance Theatre’s Collision Project, Actors’
Express Theatre, Out of Hand Theatre, and Synchronicity Performance
Group. Her play Leap has just been published with Theatre
Emory’s Playwriting Center, and her first collection
of plays Deepen The Mystery: Science and the South Onstage
was published with iUniverse this January. She has developed
plays with The Magic Theatre in San Francisco, Kitchen Dog
Theatre in Dallas, Horizon Theatre in Atlanta, JAW/West in
Portland, WORDBride, Brave New Works, and others. She is an
annual participant in Dad's Garage Theatre's 8 1/2 x 11 Festival.
Her short story Cancer/Dish was recently awarded the Noremberga
Short Fiction Award.
Winner of
the 2005/2006
Eric Bentley New Play Competition
ORGANIC
MOVEMENT OF THE CHAIR AND PITCHER
By Tim McPeek
Each year, we select a brand new play that
explores the boundaries of theatricality and/or gender for
its World Premiere at the New Phoenix.
Last
year’s winner was ORGANIC MOVEMENT OF THE CHAIR AND
PITCHER (pictured), Tim McPeek’s exploration
of eroticism and representation in the work of painter Egon
Schiele. Our 2006/2007 winner, EMBODY, which
was last year named runner-up and is by Atlanta playwright
Lauren Gunderson, also concerns a painter: Leonardo
Da Vinci. The play, which draws on Renaissance legal texts
and Leonardo’s notebooks, finds the young genius imprisoned
on sodomy charges at age 24 and suggests than an unlikely
affair may have saved the legacy of his genius. 
