Cultural Conversations Playwrights to Participate in Roundtable Discussion
February 22, 2008
Playwrights Damon Chua and Sean Christopher Lewis, whose works will be performed as part of the Cultural Conversations new play festival Feb. 27-March 5, will participate in a roundtable discussion at noon on Wednesday, Feb. 27, in the Pavilion Theatre on the University Park campus. Cultural Conversations is the only new works festival of its kind in the country, presenting new plays by national and international playwrights that are based on themes of local and global diversity.
Sean Christopher Lewis is currently the National New Play Network Emerging Playwright-in-Residence at InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia. He has received the Norman Felton Fellowship in Playwriting and is currently working on a commission through Mural Arts Project of Philadelphia that has him creating a piece with prisoners at Graterford maximum security prison. Lewis’ The Aperture, which details the story of a child soldier in Uganda who is made to pose for pictures as a child soldier after he has escaped to America, will be performed on February 27 and March 1 at 8 p.m at the Pavilion Theatre. The Aperture will be one of two productions (along with the musical Ordinary Days, by Adam Gwon) performed by Penn State students at The York Theatre, one of the premiere off-Broadway venues in New York City, on April 5–6 as part of “Penn State at The York,” a unique collaboration between a university and a professional theatre that bridges the gap between training and practice.
Chua, a native of Singapore, has written a number of award-winning plays that have been presented in Los Angeles, London and Singapore. He received the 2007 Ovation Award for Best World Premiere for his full-length play Film Chinois, beating six other nominees, including Tony Award-winner David Henry Hwang. He recently completed a stint as playwright-in-residence at Long Beach’s Upper Reaches Theatre Company and currently heads the Playwrights Group for Company of Angels, Los Angeles’ oldest non-profit theatre company. Chua’s play Aziza, which deals with the current unease between Islam and Christianity, will be performed at the Pavilion Theatre on February 28 and March 2 at 8 p.m.
In addition to new plays, Cultural Conversations features visiting dance artists, student one-acts and visual art. All events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule, visit www.culturalconversations.org. The festival is funded by the School of Theatre, the College of Arts and Architecture Diversity Committee, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, and the Josephine Berry Weiss Chair in the Humanities Endowment.
Contact: Susan Russell, artistic director of Cultural Conversations, sbr13@psu.edu