Salt Lake Acting Company                                  News Release

PRESS CONTACT: CYNTHIA FLEMING | 801.363.7522 | [email protected]

July 20, 2017

For Immediate Release

Salt Lake Acting Company &

The David Ross Fetzer Foundation For Emerging Artists

Host Workshop and Free Reading of New Play

The Salt Lake Acting Company (SLAC) and The David Ross Fetzer Foundation for Emerging Artists (The Davey Foundation) are proud to host and sponsor a weeklong workshop and free public reading of Rae Binstock’s LAND OF NO MERCY.

Ms. Binstock’s play was selected from nearly 40 script submissions received from around the country as the recipient of a grant that will provide a weeklong professional workshop of her script as well as her housing and travel to Salt Lake City. Culminating in a free public reading on July 31, 2017 at 7pm at Salt Lake Acting Company (168 W. 500 N.), this workshop will provide Ms. Binstock a professional team of actors and designers as well as director Jamie Rocha Allan.

The team includes:

Cast – Flo Bravo, Gordon Dunn, Louis Hillegass IV, Natalie Keezer, Ali Kinkade, Heidi Mendez, Ashley Marian Ramos, and Ryon Sharette

Dramaturg – Sydney Cheek O’Donnell

Stage Manager – Ash Crystal

Designers – Martin C. Alcocer, Cara Pomeroy

Playwright Rae Binstock says: “LAND OF NO MERCY is a play about making a home in America, and it doesn't speak only to immigrants. Whether home-grown or foreign-born, we are all interwoven with the unbroken thread of hope that runs from our country's past to our present. I could not be more grateful for the opportunity to sit down and explore this play with talented individuals with their own fascinating histories. This is my chance to hear my work come alive, and to learn how it speaks to Americans of all shapes and sizes.”

Director Jamie Rocha Allan says: “I'm really excited to be working on this project. SLAC continue their mission of bringing new and important work to the stage, Rae Binstock articulates in her play a message that while reflecting on America's history, is also vital in the current political climate.”

The Davey Foundation’s Executive Director Betsy Ross says: “The Davey Foundation is excited to support emerging playwrights!  Salt Lake City is so fortunate to have the commitment and talents of those who help to make each year's staged reading such a success.  Thank you, Salt Lake Acting Company for all you do to make this reading possible, and congratulations to this year's winner, Rae Binstock!”

ABOUT THE PLAY

The apartment sits on the corner of Monroe and Clinton, tucked away in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It’s a cozy little place, just big enough for two—but which two? Yetta and Solomon, the Jewish immigrants from 1915, business owners fighting to get through each day and hold on to a world thousands of miles away, while they worry about starting a family in the Land of Opportunity? Or Maria and Alex, the millennial oddballs of the present who sweep into the neighborhood on a tide of gentrification, struggling to keep their college relationship viable in the face of new stressors, new ambitions, and new neighbors? A century apart but close enough to touch, two couples inhabit the same cramped apartment. Their stories weave together, contrasted throughout history, a collage of youth, hope, and uncertainty in what Tony Kushner calls “the melting pot where nothing melted”.

BIOS

Rae Binstock (Playwright) was raised in Cambridge, MA and earned her BA from Columbia University, where she was mentored by Ellen McLaughlin and David Henry Hwang. Her full-length plays include WATCH ME BURN (LezPlay – Pride Films & Plays, Idle Muse Theatre’s Athena Festival, The Fresh Fruit Festival), EXPEDITION (Monster Piece Theatre Collective, National Theater for Student Artists, Seymour Brick Memorial Prize for Playwriting), WE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD (Red Theater’s National Playwriting Prize, winner of the 84th National Writer's Digest Writing Competition) and THE SNOWSTORM (2016 Historic Elitch Theatre New Works Festival, Harold Clurman Playwright’ Division Pick). Rae is a member of New Perspective Theatre’s Short Play Lab, a contributing writer at Slate.com, and a co-creator of the web-series Rejected. She is an O’Neill Conference semifinalist and the recipient of a 2017 artistic residency with The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico. Rae lives in Brooklyn, NY.

The Davey Foundation was created to honor the life of David Ross Fetzer and his commitment to the film and theatre arts. The Foundation is excited to make grants available to artists 35 and younger for the development of innovative film and theatre projects, and to provide the mentoring framework that will allow the Davey grantee to flourish. More information at www.thedaveyfoundation.org

Salt Lake Acting Company’s mission is to engage and enrich community through brave contemporary theatre. Founded in 1970, SLAC is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 professional theatre dedicated to producing, commissioning, and developing new works and to supporting a community of professional artists. SLAC has been nationally recognized by the Shubert Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Edgerton Foundation, among others. SLAC operates under a STP Actors Equity Association contract and is a Constituent Member of Theatre Communications Group (a national organization for non-profit professional regional theatres), and the National New Play Network (a national alliance of non-profit professional theatres that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays). More information at www.saltlakeactingcompany.org