Blog Posts - THE ROBERT A. FREEDMAN DRAMATIC AGENCY, INC.

"Review: In 'Bliss,' women from Greek myths fight the patriarchy in midcentury New Jersey" LA Times

11/9/2018

“Bliss (or Emily Post Is Dead!)” by Jami Brandli is playing through December 2nd at Moving Arts at Atwater Village Theatre

"Funny and powerful in equal measure, “Bliss (or Emily Post Is Dead!)” is a terrific spirit-rouser at a time when women everywhere are calling out bad behavior and demanding equality — and, this week, boosting their numbers in the halls of government. Moving Arts energetically brings Jami Brandli's script to life in a presentation at Atwater Village Theatre.
This is a big year for the North Hollywood-based playwright. Her “Through the Eye of a Needle” was well-received when introduced by the Road Theatre Company in North Hollywood in the spring, and “Bliss” has been rolling out in a three-part world premiere, with stagings in San Diego and Chicago preceding L.A.’s." Daryl H. Miller, LA Times

We are thrilled to welcome Lia Romeo to our client roster!

11/2/2018

Lia Romeo’s plays have been produced at 59E59, Project Y Theatre Company, Unicorn Theatre, HotCity Theatre, Stillwater Theatre, Renegade Theatre Experiment, Forward Flux Productions, New Origins Theatre Company, Jersey City Theater Center, and Xpressions Performing Arts Network, and have been developed at the Lark Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, Abingdon Theatre, Writers Theatre of New Jersey, Orlando Shakes, New Jersey Repertory Theatre, Kitchen Dog Theatre, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for the American Theatre Critics’ Association’s Steinberg Award for best new play, the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She has been recognized by the O’Neill (finalist), the Heideman Award (finalist), and the Kilroys List (honorable mention). She was the National New Play Network Emerging Playwright-in-Residence at Writers Theatre of New Jersey, and she is currently a member of the Project Y Playwrights Group, the Athena Theatre Playwrights Group, and the BMI Librettists Workshop. She earned her B.A. from Princeton University and her M.F.A. in playwriting from Rutgers. She is also the literary manager at Project Y Theatre Company, and the author of a novel, Dating the Devil (BelleBooks), and a humor book, 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About (Abrams Image), which has sold over 35,000 copies worldwide.

Lia's play THE FOREST is being produced by New Jersey Repertory Theatre in its 2020 Season.

Autumn News

10/29/2018

NOW PLAYING...
Muthaland written and performed by Minita Gandhi comes to PCPA . In Muthaland, MinitaGandhi takes us on the epic coming-of-age journey of a first-generation Indian-American woman. Inspired by true events, Muthaland navigates the tragic and magical on the way to a new sense of home.

Moving Arts Presents The Joint World Premiere of BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) by Jami Brandli . It is a farcical, domestic tragicomedy where the classical Greek heroines, Clytemnestra and Medea, have been recast as pill-popping housewives, and Antigone is the lovelorn, teenage girl next door. Their “blissful” lives are upended when Cassandra, a colored girl new to town and cursed with the gift of prophecy, arrives with a mind to free them from their dark destinies.

Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale in “ The Lifespan of a Fact ," byJeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell is a new play adapted from a 2012 book about the real-life, multiyear, wildly tortured editing of a magazine essay about an adolescent’s suicide. Opening October 18, 2018 at Studio 54.

REAL LIFE ADVENTURES OF JIMMY DE LAS ROSAS by Ricardo Gamboa is back at Free Street Theater ! The Real Life Adventures blends comic books, telenovelas, sci-fi, chisme, and samurai stories to tell a tale of extraordinary things happening just around the corner. It’s a show for all ages, with a story anyone can relate to.

Hostages by Yussef El Guindi plays at Radial Theater Project . Two college professors have left their homeland for a country that soon devolves into a war zone. They're accustomed to lives of comfort, but it's hard to get comfortable when you're chained to a radiator. Hostages explores how human beings cope when they’re deprived of personal contact and torn from the pleasantries of everyday life.

COMING SOON...
MCC Theater presents the New York Premiere of THE LIGHT by Loy A. Webb , directed by Logan Vaughn.
Ubuntu Theater Project presents the World Premiere of florissant & canfield
by Kristiana Rae Colón .
Broken Nose Theatre to produce the Midwest Premiere of Language Rooms by
Yussef El Guindi.
Teatro Vista presents the World Premiere of The Abuelas, the companion play to the critically acclaimed play The Madres, by Stephanie Alison Walker .
Aline Lathrop 's critically acclaimed play The Hero's Wife come toSynchronicity Theatre .
His Shadow by Loy A. Webb has its World Premiere at 16th Street Theater.
A Contemporary Theatre (ACT) presents the World Premiere of People of the Book by Yussef El Guindi .
Friends With Guns by Stephanie Alison Walker receives a Joint World Premiere with The Road Theatre, Uprising Theatre and Chapel Theatre Collective.
Elevator Girl by Donna Hoke is presented in a Joint World Premiere withVanguard Arts Collective and InProximity Theatre .
Apple Season by E.M. Lewis gets its World Premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company .

IN THE NEWS...
The Gun Show by E.M. Lewis is published by Samuel French.
Mia McCullough discusses Shakespeare, playwrights and the patriarchy in a new article in Book and Film Globe .

PLAYS TO READ...
Merit by Lenelle Moise
Technicolor Life by Jami Brandli
The Fixer by Susan Pak
How the Light Gets In by E. M. Lewis
When They Came by MT Cozzola
The Sister House by Stephanie Alison Walker
Household Spirits by Mia McCullough
The Wizards by Ricardo Gamboa

Ubuntu Theater Project presents the world premiere of florissant & canfield by Kristiana Rae Colón

10/4/2018

Ubuntu Theater Project's 2019 Season, Moral Humans/Immoral Society, explores the systems in which we live—whether economic, political, or social—and the ways in which we struggle to transcend them.

AUG 31–SEP 16, 2019
A World Premiere

florissant & canfield
By Kristiana Rae Colón

This World Premiere from acclaimed playwright Kristiana Rae Colón dives into the community in Ferguson, Missouri following the death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer in 2014, taking a closer look at grief, activism, and identity as young people form the center of a national political movement.

Moving Arts Presents The Joint World Premiere Of BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) By Jami Brandli

10/4/2018

Moving Arts Presents
BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) By Jami Brandli
A joint world premiere presented by Moving Arts at Atwater Village Theatre in association with Moxie Theatre, San Diego, CA, & Promethean Theatre, Chicago, IL

It's 1960 and America is in the midst of a civil upheaval. But in North Orange, NJ, an immaculate suburb with all the trappings of a prosperous, modern society: afternoon tea parties, shiny electronic appliances, and JELL-O!; "Progress and Science" are the buzzwords of the day.
Moving Arts' Artistic Director Darin Anthony directs Ann Noble, Jacqueline Misaye, Becca Gordon, Jasmine St.Clair, and Andrew Carter in Jami Brandli's farcical, domestic tragicomedy where the classical Greek heroines, Clytemnestra and Medea, have been recast as pill-popping housewives, and Antigone is the lovelorn, teenage girl next door. Their “blissful” lives are upended when Cassandra, a colored girl new to town and cursed with the gift of prophecy, arrives with a mind to free them from their dark destinies.

TICKETS

Broken Nose Theatre to produce the Midwest Premiere of Language Rooms by Yussef El Guindi

9/14/2018

From The Chicago Tribune:
"On Thursday, Broken Nose Theatre announced its seventh season, featuring a world premiere and two Midwest premieres...
The third show will be the Midwest premiere of Yussef El-Guindi’s dark comedy “Language Rooms,” directed by Kaiser Zaki Ahmed (April 19 – May 18, 2019). When a rumor spreads through the office that he may not be as loyal to America as he lets on, Ahmed works double-time to prove that he's the most dedicated employee at this particular Homeland Security detainment facility.

LANGUAGE ROOMS
Written by Yussef El-Guindi
Directed by Kaiser Zaki Ahmed
Runs April 19 – May 2018, 2019

Jami Brandli is one of the winners of the HUMANITAS 2018 Play LA Prize!

9/9/2018

Congratulations to Jami Brandli and all the winners of the 2018 Play LA Prize!

JAMI BRANDLI’s plays include Technicolor Life, S.O.E., M-Theory, ¡SOLDADERA!, Sisters Three, Through the Eye of a Needle, Medusa’s Song, O: A Rhapsody in Divorce,and BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) which was named in the 2014 Kilroys List. Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, Launch Pad, The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, Chalk REP, Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Lark, among other venues. Winner of John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award, Ashland New Plays Festival and Aurora Theatre Company's GAP Prize. Finalist for the 2016 PEN Literary Award for Drama, Playwrights’ Center Core Writer Fellowship, Princess Grace Award and the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference; nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. This year, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) receives a joint-world premiere with Moxie Theatre and Promethean Theatre, ending with Moving Arts’ production this fall at Atwater Village Theatre. Sisters Three will receive its world premiere with The Inkwell Theater in December, and Through the Eye of a Needle also received its world premiere at The Road Theater this past spring. A proud member of The Playwrights Union, the Antaeus Playwrights Lab, and The Dramatist Guild, Jami teaches dramatic writing at Lesley University's low-residency MFA program. She is represented by the Robert A Freedman Agency and Gramercy Park Entertainment and is absolutely thrilled to be a part of Humanitas’ PLAY LA.

Festival Information

The Lifespan of a Fact by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell comes to Studio 54!

9/8/2018

The Lifespan of a Fact
Based on the true story of D'Agata's essay What Happens There, The Lifespan of a Fact follows Fingal, who has a small job: to fact-check articles for one of the best magazines in the country. His boss has given him a big assignment: to apply his skill to a groundbreaking piece by legendary author D'Agata. But now Fingal has a huge problem: D'Agata made up a lot of his article. What starts professional quickly becomes profane.
Written by
Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell
Based on the book by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal
Preview
Sep 20, 2018
Opening
Oct 18, 2018
Closing
Jan 13, 2019
TICKETS

Gordon Farrell is a playwright, screenwriter, and video game designer. He has directed theatre in San Francisco and New York, holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and has been on the faculty of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for over 20 years. Plays he has written have been presented at Primary Stages and the 13th Street Repertory Theater in New York, the Yale School of Drama, Tour de Force and William Shakespeare & Friends in San Francisco, and The Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo. He was also on the team that created the Empire Earth video game franchise and currently works as lead writer on the MMORTS game "Medieval Kingdom Wars." In his spare time, he wrote and co-produced "Why The Hell Is She Asking Me That?!"

The Squirrel Plays by Mia McCullough: "...carried off with subtlety and aplomb"

9/3/2018

The Squirrel Plays by Mia McCullough "is a vital production for those in search of feminist theatre ."

"The Squirrel Plays could so easily have been a heavy-handed approach to abortion, made ridiculous by the unusual metaphor of squirrel infestations. Those looking for a preaching, angry play, however, will have to look elsewhere at the Fringe. The Squirrel Plays carries off its concept with subtlety and aplomb...
What is normally an unavoidably hard hitting, sober subject is elevated in The Squirrel Plays by a refusal to allow the theme to supress other shades of emotion – tenderness, humour, even boredom, all find their place in the play." Maya Little, Cherwell

"The double meaning has been carefully crafted so that the ridiculousness of the entire situation is made darkly comic throughout. There is a delightfully scathing parody of the American constitution itself, cheekily sheathed in a neighbourhood vote. There are also painfully sad moments. Amy Reitsma captures Sarah’s heartbreak at hearing the squirrel’s heartbeat through the walls of her house with quietly devastating poignancy." CJ Bulford, Theatre Weekly

"Many productions at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year discuss female freedom of choice, but few do so as creatively as The Squirrel Plays...
The Squirrel Plays is a vital production for those in search of feminist theatre at the festival. Part of the Main have created a sharp and polished performance that captures a wide spectrum of opinions on abortion without lecturing the audience. It’s complex yet comprehensible." Carla van der Sluijs, BroadwayBaby

"In exploring the role of men in issues of female reproductive rights McCullough raises yet another issue so pertinent in the current political climate. The Squirrel Plays is a sensitive and timely analysis of the issues surrounding female reproductive health and bodily autonomy." Grace Lavender, The Skinny

"McCullough’s writing has managed to take an extremely polarising, taboo subject and inject strong comedy into its core. The metaphor of squirrels allows enough distance for the audience to find the plays light-hearted and entertaining while still maintaining the knowledge of the subject’s sensitivity." Matthew Cleverly

Once In My Lifetime: A Buffalo Football Fantasy by Donna Hoke is now playing!

8/31/2018

Once In My Lifetime
By Donna Hoke
Shea's Smith
August 28-September 8, 2018

For one night, fans at the downtrodden Miracle Bar discover that the impossible happens when you believe it can.

TICKETS

The Antaeus Playwrights Lab Festival Lab Results include plays by Paula Cizmar and Stephanie Alison Walker

8/31/2018

LAB RESULTS
The Antaeus Playwrights Lab Festival

The Antaeus Playwrights Lab supports a select group of award-winning, mid-career writers as they develop the classics of the future. The Lab incubates new works that provide compelling roles for actors, and creates a nurturing and supportive artistic community.

Saturday, September 29
11:00 am
Along The River, Almost Winter
by Paula Cizmar
directed by Stephanie Shroyer
Perdita knows something is off in her life and she longs to know what happened to her mother in this update of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Set along the Sacramento River Delta during the time of the Gold Rush, Along the River, Almost Winter is a journey from betrayal to forgiveness — told from the point of view of a bear.

Saturday, September 29
1:30 pm
The Abuelas
by Stephanie Alison Walker
directed by Eli Gonda
Gabriela is an Argentine concert cellist living a good life in Chicago with her American husband and adjusting to life as a new mom until a visit from two strangers upends everything. The Abuelas explores the long and devastating repercussions of Argentina’s military dictatorship from 1976-1983, and the heart’s capacity for forgiveness even in the face of the harshest betrayal.

ANPF 2018 Winning Playwrights Announced

8/31/2018

The Ashland New Play Festival 2018
Winning Playwrights include
The Abuelas
By Stephanie Alison Walker
A visit from two strangers exposes a 37-year-old secret about the
ongoing and devastating repercussions of the military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s and ‘80s. The Abuelas explores the heart’s capacity for resilience and forgiveness even in the face of the most incomprehensible betrayal.

Stephanie Alison Walker is a returning ANPF Fall Festival winner, previously winning in 2016 for The Madres, which is receiving four consecutive productions in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, and Austin, as part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere this year. The Abuelas is a companion piece. Walker is a NNPN Affiliate Artist and a member of the Playwrights Union and Antaeus Playwrights Lab. She lives in Los Angeles.

Teatro Vista will be producing the World Premiere of The Abuelas in February of 2019.

Aline Lathrop and Minita Gandhi get nominations for Jeff Awards Best New Work!

8/28/2018

Aline Lathrop's The Hero's Wife and Minita Gandhi's Muthaland both get Jeff nominated for best new work!

The striking final moments will stay with you, as will the warmth and humor shared by the characters even as they literally fight for their relationship and try to create a world where they can exist together.
Kerstin Broockmann, Chicago Stage Standard

Highly Recommended! “Minita Gandhi grabs our attention and keeps it for the full 90 minutes of this rich, resonant, sometimes hilarious, at times deeply moving autobiographical piece.”
Jack Helbig, Chicago Reader

Playing at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe: The Squirrel Plays by Mia McCullough

8/8/2018

Playing at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe!
The Squirrel Plays
by Mia McCullough
There’s only one thing you need to know about newlyweds Tom and Sarah: they are definitely not squirrel people. Not that they judge, of course. So when they discover a critter in their attic, they’re faced with a marriage-testing decision: to exterminate, or not to exterminate? But the squirrels aren’t only invading Tom and Sarah’s home. They’ve infested the whole neighbourhood. This time, the issue doesn’t only tear Sarah and Tom apart. It threatens the peace of an entire community. Using both absurdist humour and emotional truth, award-winning playwright Mia McCullough sheds new light on timely matters.
Aug 8-12, 14-27
TICKETS

The critics are raving about The Hero's Wife by Aline Lathrop!

8/6/2018

THE HERO'S WIFE
by Aline Lathrop
directed by Ann Filmer and Miguel Nunez
16th Street Theater
through August 18 2018

...it’s a lacerating and relevant portrait of how hard it can be for two people to find their way home to each other in the wake of the living nightmare of war.
Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune

The striking final moments will stay with you, as will the warmth and humor shared by the characters even as they literally fight for their relationship and try to create a world where they can exist together.
Kerstin Broockmann, Chicago Stage Standard

Thank you North Berwyn Park District for making this quality theater available to the greater Chicago area! They are currently doing a World Premier of Aline Lathrop’s dynamic “The Hero’s Wife”
Alan Bresloff, Around The Town Chicago

...Aline Lathrop’s new play The Hero’s Wife, now playing at Berwyn’s 16th Street Theater. A fast-paced one-act, it uses two richly drawn characters to explore what it means to love someone with a mental illness and where to draw the line at how much self-sacrifice to invest in a marriage.
Jacob Davis, Picture this Post

Aline Lathrop's deft two-hander, codirected by Ann Filmer and Miguel Nuñez and currently receiving a joint premiere production (with Atlanta's Synchronicity Theatre) at Berwyn's 16th Street Theatre, tackles the timeless theme of how war damages soldiers and makes it hard for them to adjust to life after war. But Lathrop makes one simple and less frequently employed adjustment that makes all the difference: she tells the story from the wife's point of view. The choice gives Lathrop an opportunity to explore more sides of a sadly familiar story. It also gives her tale a tighter focus; everything we learn about the returning soldier is through his wife's eyes. This gives the play a subjectivity that makes the more intense parts of the play—the returning soldier experiences violent night terrors—all the more terrifying.
Jack Helbig, Chicago Reader

I think it's the best play I have seen, and I have seen a number, about PTSD.
Jonathan Abarbanel, The Dueling Critics

The Hero’s Wife is a highly recommended 90 heart-pounding minutes of intense drama describing an issue that needs to receive every American’s full attention. Christensen and Fisher are well cast as the loving couple who must come to grips with a roaring and dangerous elephant in the room threatening to stampede their idyllic life.
Ruth Smerling, Theatre World Internet Magazine