[Capdist-announce] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: WAM Theatre Announces 2015 Season Highlights

[Gail Burns]

February 24, 2015

Contact: Gail Burns, Marketing and Publicity Associate

www.wamtheatre.com <http://www.wamtheatre.com/#_blank>

pr at wamtheatre.com; 518.243.9627

Press Photos can be found at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wamtheatre/
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/wamtheatre/sets/72157648698789976/#_blank>


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


WAM Theatre Announces 2015 Season Highlights

The Berkshire-based theatre company launches its sixth season

with the second annual Fresh Takes reading series and the launch of a
comprehensive educational program


PITTSFIELD, Mass. (Feb. 24, 2015) — WAM Theatre’s Artistic Director Kristen
van Ginhoven announced highlights of the 2015 season today. The
Berkshire-based professional theatre company will celebrate its sixth year
with an inspiring and thought-provoking series of play readings, special
events, productions and educational programs that continue its mission to
use theatre to benefit women and girls.


“I’m delighted to announce the dynamic programming we’ve planned for WAM
Theatre’s sixth season,” said van Ginhoven. “While our main production
occurs in the fall and will again be unveiled at our summer benefit event,
we are thrilled to be offering an exciting line-up of events from February
through September that fulfills our mission to share the stories of women
and girls. This includes the second season of Fresh Takes, our series of
play readings that features local theatre professionals, and the launch of
our comprehensive three-stranded Education Program.”


2015 started off with a successful “mini-tour” of an enhanced staged
reading version of our critically acclaimed 2013 production of Emilie: La
Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight by Lauren Gunderson from
February 10-13. Almost the entire original cast returned for well attended
performances at Williams College (as part of the Off-Center Series), the
University at Albany (as part of the Prime Performance Series), and the
Berkshire Museum (as part of Pittsfield’s 10X10 Upstreet Arts festival).


In March, WAM Theatre will be a beneficiary of Jayne Atkinson’s special
event, Can You Hear Me Baby? Stories of Sex, Love and OMG Birth!,  which is
concluding this year’s Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. Adapted from
true stories that come from the hearts of mothers and fathers, this event
brings together birth stories and original music to dramatize the joy,
challenges, personal courage, and profundity of birth. Can You Hear Me Baby?
takes the stage at the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre in
Stockbridge, MA on March 27 at 7pm and March 28 at 2 and 7 pm. Proceeds
will benefit the National Perinatal Association
<http://www.nationalperinatal.org/>, Berkshire Festival of Women Writers
<http://www.berkshirewomenwriters.org/>, and WAM Theatre
<http://www.wamtheatre.com/>.


>From April through September, WAM Theatre will present their second Fresh
Takes series of play readings held in the gallery at No. Six Depot Roastery
and Café in West Stockbridge on selected Sunday afternoons at 3 p.m. Fresh
Takes, curated by WAM Theatre’s Artistic Associate Molly Clancy, will give
a stage to ground-breaking works – which have been successfully presented
elsewhere but are new to our Berkshire audiences - that tell women's
stories. Featuring local established and emerging actors and directors, the
series will explore the work of provocative contemporary voices. The series
includes a post-reading discussion and will encourage feedback on which
plays audience members would like to see WAM Theatre produce.

The series includes Silence by Moira Buffini, directed by Tod Randolph
(April 19); The Tall Girls by Meg Miroshnik, directed by Kelly Galvin (May
17); Noms de Guerre by Jacqueline E. Lawton, directed by Jayne Atkinson
(June 14), also part of the Lift E’vry Voice Festival; Water by the Spoonful
by Quiara Alegría Hudes, directed by Molly Clancy (Aug. 16); and The Effect
by Lucy Prebble, directed by Kristen van Ginhoven (Sept. 13). See below in
our season highlights for information about each play.


In July, WAM Theatre will hold its Annual Celebration and Summer Benefit where
the fall main stage production will be announced. This year the benefit
event will take place at Hilltop Orchards in Richmond on Wednesday, July 15.
The evening will include a sneak preview of the fall production and
performances
by local luminaries. In keeping with WAM Theatre’s unique double
philanthropic mission, a portion of the proceeds from the fall production
will be donated to an organization that benefits women and girls and that
beneficiary will also be announced at the July 15 benefit. The Annual
Celebration and Summer Benefit will be produced by Berkshire-based
playwright and In Darfur producer Jessica Provenz. Further details
forthcoming.


Launch of comprehensive WAM Theatre Education Program

Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven shares one of the most exciting
developments for 2015, “WAM Theatre aims to serve all of Berkshire County,
including the growing number of underserved women and girls. We envision a
world in which young women aspire to become confident leaders in their
communities. This year, towards those aims, we are launching our official
comprehensive Education Program, which consists of three strands of
outreach: Community, After School and Production.”

1) Community: Creative Collaborations

WAM Theatre currently works in collaboration with other artistic groups and
service organizations to provide specific theatre programs to groups of
women and girls. Our current partners include Girls Inc. in Pittsfield, ACT
NOW and the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, where WAM Theatre is a partner
on the South County Story Project.

In our community programs,  a WAM Theatre teaching artist works with
participants to produce original material that explores issues of
importance in their lives and serves the larger purpose of the community
partner.

The participants in our community outreach programs learn important skills
such as cooperation and collaboration, confidence in speaking, and group
creativity. The emphasis for this program is on the skills acquired during
the process. Anecdotally, words used by our current Girls Inc. participants
to describe what they would take away from the program include "kindness",
"confidence", "respectfulness", "helping", and "brave".


2) After School: WAM Theatre Girls Ensemble

The WAM Theatre Girls Ensemble is a new educational offering. The Girls
Ensemble will be a selective program, drawing from schools and groups
across the Berkshire region. The selection process will be by audition.
Auditions will be held on Saturday, September 12, 2015 and open to young
women aged 14-19 across Berkshire County.

The first Girls Ensemble pilot cohort will rehearse from September to
December and share their first original production in a professional
theatre space on December 11, 2015. The participants will form an ensemble
and use a devised theatre process to create their own original piece of
theatre. They will create a complete show, with production values, that
shares the perspectives and stories of the participants. This program will
be led by WAM Theatre teaching artist Barby Cardillo and thanks to our
sponsors, will be free for all participants.

Towards this end, a WAM Theatre teaching artist will visit eight committed
pilot schools in April 2015 to provide a mini-workshop to potential
participants. The eight pilot schools are: Bart Charter School, Hoosac
Valley High School, Lenox High School, Monument Mountain High School, Mount
Everett High School, Pittsfield High School, Taconic High School, and
Waconah Regional High School.

Additionally, this is an ISTA endorsed project.  The International Schools
Theatre Association (www.ISTA.co.uk <http://www.ista.co.uk>), based in the
United Kingdom, brings together young people, artists and teachers from
different countries in different settings to experience, create and learn
about theatre. WAM Theatre will use the established ISTA pedagogy and
curriculum for devising such pieces as the springboard for our program.
ISTA produces over 50 international arts events each year. WAM Theatre aims
to bring participants to an ISTA event within the first five years of our
Girls Ensemble program being launched.


3) Production: Engagement programming around our main stage productions

WAM Theatre generally produces one main stage production per year. To
heighten the cultural enrichment and impact of the overall experience of
coming to a WAM Theatre production, we want to provide access to our
audiences in two ways: a subsidized ticket program and an educational
engagement program. To date, we have provided subsidized performances to
over 100 underserved audience members and included educational engagement
opportunities for our last two fall productions Emilie: La Marquise Du
Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight and In Darfur.

Seed funding for this three-stranded education program has been provided by
multi-year grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Greylock Federal
Credit Union, the Dylandale Foundation, the International Schools Theatre
Association (ISTA) and Petricca Industries as well as grants from the
Feigenbaum Foundation, Interprint and local cultural councils: Lee, Lenox,
Hinsdale-Peru, Monterey, Northern Berkshire, Richmond, Washington and
Windsor.

Additional Sponsors for the 2015 season include Custom Business Solutions,
Garden Gables Inn, Regina Burgio, Nina Molin, MD, Jon Gotterer, DMD.

WAM Theatre will announce additional programming in the coming months. For
tickets and more information, see www.WAMTheatre.com
<http://www.wamtheatre.com/>.


WAM THEATRE’S 2015 SEASON HIGHLIGHTS


March 27 and 28

Jayne Atkinson’s Can You Hear Me Baby? Stories of Sex, Love and OMG Birth!

Written by Lisa Rafel, with music by Lisa Rafel and Gary Malkin. Directed
by Jayne Atkinson. At the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre, 6 East
St., Stockbridge, MA, on March 27 at 7pm and March 28 at 2 and 7 pm

Tickets $40 - $60. Proceeds will benefit the National Perinatal Association
<http://www.nationalperinatal.org/>, Berkshire Festival of Women Writers
<http://www.berkshirewomenwriters.org/>, and WAM Theatre
<http://www.wamtheatre.com/>. For more information, visit
www.canyouhearmebaby.com  Ticket link:
http://canyouhearmebaby.brownpapertickets.com/


<http://canyouhearmebaby.brownpapertickets.com/>

April through September

Fresh Takes Staged Reading Series

Curated by WAM Theatre’s Artistic Associate Molly Clancy and hosted by No.
Six Depot Roastery and Café on 6 Depot Street in West Stockbridge, MA, on
select Sundays at 3 pm.

There are only 25 tickets available per reading. Tickets are $20, which
includes a post-show discussion and the opportunity to meet the cast and
director. Refreshments will be available for purchase at the Café.

April 19, 2015

Silence

by Moira Buffini

directed by Tod Randolph

A bride and groom forge a pact to keep a secret in this dark comedy where
Shakespeare's cross dressers meet Monty Python's blithering knights. At the
end of the first millennium, Princess Ymma of Normandy was forced by
England's King Ethelred to marry a young Viking, Lord Silence of Cumbria.
The events conspire to send them dashing through the mud of England fleeing
an enraged despot's murderous rampage. Winner of a Susan Smith Blackburn
Prize and sparkling with deliberate clashes of period and style, WAM
Theatre embarks on a journey of  power, identity, gender and desire.

May 17, 2015

The Tall Girls

by Meg Miroshnik

directed by Kelly Galvin

Welcome to Poor Prairie, the dusty, desolate town where
fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Jean has been exiled as caretaker for her
wild-child cousin, Almeda. It’s a grim, dangerous place to eke out an
existence as a teenage girl—until an out-of-towner arrives with a brand-new
basketball in tow. As the town’s girls come together to form a team set on
making it out of Poor Prairie, a murky committee of townspeople threatens
to stamp out girls' sports altogether. Written by award-winning playwright
Meg Miroshnik this play dramatizes issues important to the WAM Theatre
community; the fight for class, education and gender equality.

June 14, 2015

Noms de Guerre

by Jacqueline E. Lawton

directed by Jayne Atkinson

Part of the Lift E’vry Voice Festival

Mira is a rising star in the Republican Party, but her campaign against
reproductive rights puts her at odds with her best friend, Jude, an
award-winning journalist. When Jude discovers that Mira’s war hero husband
Douglas is linked to a massacre of Afghan civilians, Mira is thrown into a
whirlwind of political intrigue and must decide whether to hold on to her
career or save her husband. WAM Theatre presents this haunting, lyrical and
passionate story nominated for a 2014 Kilroy, and written by Jacqueline E.
Lawton who was named one of the top 30 national leading black playwrights
by Arena Stage’s American Voices New Play Institute.

August 16, 2015

Water by the Spoonful

by Quiara Alegría Hudes

directed by Molly Clancy

Somewhere in Philadelphia, Elliot has returned from Iraq and is struggling
to find his place in the world. Somewhere in a chat room, recovering
addicts keep each other alive, hour by hour, day by day. The boundaries of
family and community are stretched across continents and cyberspace, birth
families splinter and online families collide. A winner of the 2012
Pulitzer Prize, WAM Theatre invites the Berkshire audience to partake in
this artful and heartfelt meditation on life on the brink of redemption.

September 13, 2015

The Effect

by Lucy Prebble

directed by Kristen van Ginhoven

In this clinical romance two young volunteers, Tristan and Connie, agree to
take part in an experimental drug trial. Succumbing to the gravitational
pull of attraction and love they manage to throw the trial off-course, much
to the frustration of the clinicians involved. This funny, moving and
perhaps surprisingly human play explores questions of sanity, neurology and
the limits of medicine. WAM Theatre presents this vibrant theatrical
exploration of fate, loyalty and the inevitability of physical attraction.
Written by Lucy Prebble, a finalist for the 2013-2014 Susan Smith Blackburn
Prize, the play garnered the Critics' Circle Award for Best Play.

WAM Theatre will announce additional programming in the coming months. For
tickets and more information, see www.WAMTheatre.com
<http://www.wamtheatre.com/>.

About WAM Theatre

Based in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, WAM Theatre was co-founded in
2010 by Canadian director, actor, educator, and producer Kristen van
Ginhoven to create professional theatrical events for everyone, with a
focus on women theatre artists and/or stories of women and girls.

WAM Theatre also has a philanthropic mission, inspired by the book Half the
Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas
Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and donates a portion of the proceeds from its
theatrical events to organizations that benefit women and girls.

Over the past five years, WAM Theatre has donated more than $15,000 to
seven nonprofit organizations and provided paid work to more than 100
theatre artists. In addition to the main stage productions and special
events, WAM Theatre’s activities include a comprehensive educational
outreach program and the Fresh Takes Play Reading Series. For more
information, visit www.WAMTheatre.com

<http://www.wamtheatre.com/>

## #

-- 
Gail M. Burns

*Marketing + Publicity Associate*
www.WAMTheatre.com <http://www.wamtheatre.com/>
413-458-4246

Click here <http://www.wamtheatre.com/donate/> to make a secure donation to
WAM Theatre

*Thank you for your support!*
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