The Rough Draft Festival Returns This Week

LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y., March 12, 2019 (Newswire.com) - LPAC proudly presents the 6th annual Rough Draft Festival starting on March 15. The festival, which was created by Associate Director and Festival Curator Handan Ozbilgin, is a celebration of meaningful work under development by a wide array of talented artists and organizations. Each year Ozbilgin seeks out exciting and impactful projects and provides these fresh voices with stipends and space to further develop their work-in-progress, which are tantamount to finished products; all while providing the audience window into the creative process. 

By providing these plays, that have previously had readings and workshops, this opportunity, Rough Draft is giving artists the chance to rework and further develop their pieces, and also allows them to have their work be seen again. The Rough Draft team is pleased to have been part of the growth of productions like Kyoung Park's PILLOW TALK, Radical Revolution's SONGS ABOUT TRAINS and Leila Buck and Tamilla Woodard's AMERICAN DREAMS.

This year’s plays offer a wide range of themes told by diverse voices. HOW TO MOURN AN AMERICAN (AN INSTRUCTIONAL) by Cherrye Davis is a dive through America's history and complicated relationship with loss allowing the audience to deeply consider what it takes to truly heal, as individuals, as community, as a nation. Nathan Yungerberg’s MOTHER OF PEARL tells the story of the surviving members of a horrific tragedy thirty years ago that turned jubilation into sorrow and friends into foes when they convene where many of their most cherished memories and worst nightmares were born. CLIMATE CHANGE: (AN OPERA?) by Zarina Shea follows the many ways a small drip builds to a colossal crash -- along the way breaking open the form of opera to question how we got here and where the hell we’re going. feminine octagon [or, aristotle can eat me] by Amy Gijsbers van Wijk is one hour, one night, one hundred nights in the search for an unforgettable, life-changing party. WELCOME TO LA MISA, BABY by Migguel Anggelo and David Drake delves into the Latino immigrant experience of what it means to be gay in America today with both humor and poignancy in equal measure. UNBLINKING EYE by Justin Anderson Taylor tells the story of a spiritual resurrection around the reality of war, inspired by Ferdinand Bruckner's Pains of Youth. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY TO YOU by Michael Kimmel examines a group of people infected by apathy, and the very wrong methods taken to finding a cure. babel by Sevan K. Greene looks at friendship in the middle of an occupation war and examines the price of friendship forged in wartime. PROSPERITY! by Sam Schanwald is a Brechtian drag epic that throws us head first into the psychological realities of our American dreams and in THE INTERNATIONALS, Jeton Neziraj parades figures, prominent and nameless to expose the hypocrisy of the international community in the face of war. 

THE ROUGH DRAFT FESTIVAL
March 15– April 13, 2019  
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center 
​at LaGuardia Community College 
31-10 Thomson Avenue Long Island City, NY 11101 
Tickets: $15 (Discounted student tickets available for select performances.) 

For more the full performance schedule, information or to purchase in advance visit: http://siteline.vendini.com/site/lpac.nyc/rd-2019--front-page

Media Contacts: 
Vera Sheps Scholl
Two Sheps That Pass...
Phone: 646-907-8787
Email: [email protected]

Dayana Isabel Sanchez
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center
Phone: 718-482-5151
Email: [email protected]

Source: LaGuardia Performing Arts Center