PAVEMENT GROUP ANNOUNCES 2012 SEASON OF WORLD PREMIERE PLAYS
2011 Year Will Close With 2nd Annual Amuse Bouche This December
CHICAGO – Pavement Group is thrilled to announce their 2012 season of two World Premiere productions, “Girl You Know It’s True” By Bixby Elliott, which will play the Chopin Theatre April 12 – May 13, 2012 and “Breaks and Bikes” By Mallery Avidon, which will be produced in fall 2012. A Chicago-based collaborative of theatre artists, Pavement Group searches nationally for emerging voices to provide a platform for fresh, new works.
Luckily, audiences will not have to wait until 2012 to catch another taste of Pavement Group, as the second annual Amuse Bouche will run Dec. 9 – 11 at Collaboraction’s space in the Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave. This festival of immediate short plays brings emerging playwrights, directors, and actors together for a four day marathon theatre making event. In 72 hours six new plays are commissioned, rehearsed, and produced, using a list of “ingredients” curated by the Pavement Group audience. Performances will be Friday, Dec. 9 and Saturday, Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 11 at 3 p.m.
Pavement Group 2012 Season
“Girl You Know it’s True” will play the Chopin Theatre (downstairs) April 12 – May 13, 2012. Written by the dangerous new voice in American Theatre, Bixby Elliott, and directed by Pavement Group Artistic Director David Perez, “Girl You Know it’s True” is a bold indictment of the institution of theatre and true intent behind the act of creation. When a forty-something, Caucasian male playwright fails to get his work produced he conjures up a radical new identity for himself. Instantly his stand in – an African American Lesbian woman in a wheelchair – shoots to fame. Told in tandem with the infamous Milli Vanilli scandal, ”Girl You Know it’s True” is a divisive new play that is certain to provoke discourse. Tickets will go on sale at a later date to be announced.
Bixby Elliot’s play “Blueprint” was produced by Tony Award winning producer Arielle Tepper Madover as part of her new works Summer Play Festival (SPF). This production was directed by Drama Desk Nominee Jonathan Silverstein and starred Emmy Award-winner Peter Strauss. Bixby’s next play “Abraham Lincoln was a Faggot” was a finalist for the O’Neill Theater Conference in 2010, as well as a finalist for New Dramatists, Seven Devils Development Conference, Pandora New Play Competition and a semi-finalist for New Harmony Workshop. The play has previously been developed by Epiphany Theater. His newest play “Girl You Know It’s True” (inspired by the rise and fall of the pop/rock duo Milli Vanilli) was a semi-finalist for the O’Neill Conference in 2011, finalist for New Harmony, finalist for Kitchen Dog Theater New Works and an advanced round entry for PlayPenn 2011. Other plays include “Treasure Island, FL” (Southern Rep New Play Festival Winner, New Orleans), “PN1923.45 LS01 volume 2: The Book Play” (New York Premiere: NYC International Fringe Festival – director Stephen Brackett), “Hotel Oracle” (New York premiere: Walkerspace/SoHo Rep – director Stephen Brackett) and “I Am Not Peter Pan” (New York premiere: Cherry Lane Theater; Edinburgh Fringe Festival – Best of Fest Winner – director Cary McClelland). Bixby is a graduate of the MFA playwriting program at Columbia University. Current projects include work on two original television projects and a new play titled “Birds Do It.”
In fall 2012, Pavement Group will present a new commission, “Breaks and Bikes,” written by Artistic Associate Mallery Avidon and directed by David Perez. What happens when a thirty-year-old hipster winds up in the hospital after a bad bike wreck? How do people steeped in irony and disaffection deal with grief? What happens when your mother and three of your ex-girlfriends are in a room together watching you sleep? As a young man struggles to hang on, all of the disparate elements of his life converge and threaten to cause more damage than a car ever could. Performance dates and location will be announced at a later date.
Mallery Avidon’s plays have been developed or produced by Soho Rep, Target Margin Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, Little Theater @ The New Dixon Place, On The Boards, The Attic Theater Company, The Bay Area Playwrights Foundation, Pavement Group & angry BLVD, among others. Her plays include “Bikes & Breaks,” “Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love,” and “The Past is Not a Foreign Country (very personal) Maps of Seattle.” She is an affiliated artist with New Georges in New York, a member of the 07/08 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab & currently teaching at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. She spent last summer traveling across the country with two filmmakers interviewing people who have been laid off because of the recession as research for a new piece. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brown University.
About Pavement Group
Founded in 2006, Pavement Group is a Chicago based collaborative of theatre artists who look nationally for emerging voices to produce fresh plays that make contact with new audiences. The company is committed to immediate and immersive work that is thought provoking, not thought providing. Pavement Group unlocks a conversation between the audience and their humanity. Pavement Group was founded by Brittany Barnes (Managing Director), Julia Dossett Morgan, David Perez (Artistic Director) and Tim Schoen. The company now also includes Chip Davis, Heidi Koling, Keith Neagle, Mary Krupka (General Manager) and Jeremy Smith. Artistic Associates include Mallery Avidon, Cyd Blakewell, Matt Farabee, Jeff Kelley, Alexander Lane and Aimee Plant.
