James McDaniel and Amari Cheatom star in Lower Ninth, a play by Beau Willimon featured at the 2007 Summer Play Festival
August 1, 2007 - In its fourth year, the Summer Play Festival (SPF) is once again making a substantial contribution to New York’s theatre community by offering a venue for ground-breaking theatrical production, as well as opportunities for artists and producers to learn more about their craft.
From July 10th to August 5th, the Summer Play Festival presents sixteen full-length plays at the Theatre Row complex just off Times Square in New York City. The featured plays represent sixteen exceptionally talented and engaging writers, selected from over 1,100 submissions by a panel of highly regarded theatre professionals from the United States and the United Kingdom. All sixteen artistic teams were provided with the financial and administrative resources to produce the work for the general public, at absolutely no cost to them.
In addition to the festival, SPF and its umbrella non-profit organization, The Living Room for Artists Inc., joined with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting (MOFTB) to present a “Meet the Producers” panel on July 14. Free to the public, this panel included some of the most successful producers on Broadway today. Producers Randall Wreghitt ("Grey Gardens"), Kristin Caskey ("Legally Blonde"), and Adam Epstein ("Hairspray") all spoke about what it takes to make it in theatre production. SPF's very own Sam Levy moderated the panel, as producers reminisced about the beginnings of their careers, and what led them to their current roles as Broadway producers.
The panel was the sixth in a series that explores careers in theatre management, theatrical production and support, and acting.
Under the guidance of founder and renowned Broadway producer Arielle Tepper Madover, The Living Room for Artists Inc./Summer Play Festival is dedicated to helping emerging talent in the theater world grow and develop. Additional initiatives include the alumni reading series and SPF’s annual residency program with the award-winning Donmar Warehouse in London.
