NEXT from newTACTics:

CHRISTOPHER BURNS 
TACT: Incident at Vichy. New York: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Longacre Theatre); A Question of Mercy (NY Theater Workshop); Fool for Love; Satisfy Me (Studio Tisch); The Lady From the Sea (Century Center); F-Stop (Homegrown Theatre); Beyond Recognition (Abingdon); Ice Island: The Wait for Shackleton (Melting Pot Thtr. Co.); Boise; Suburban Motel: Problem Child (Rattlestick); Prides Crossing (Lincoln Center); Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Common Ground); Stones in His Pockets (US Tour). Regional: The Great Game (Broadway @ Duke University); The Crucible (St. Louis Rep. & Cincinnati Playhouse); Night of the Iguana (Dallas Theater Center); The Glass Menagerie (Intiman); Shakes. Theater of NJ, Portland Center Stage, Clarence Brown Theater, Virginia Stage Co., Colorado Shakes. Fest., Westport Country Playhouse. International: Extremities (Edinburgh Fringe) Stones in His Pockets. Film & Television: Ten Stories Tall; A Perfect Christmas; The Accountant; Clown Karma; Kings; Important Things with Demitri Martin; Rescue Me; Law and Order; Law and Order SVU; Guiding Light; All My Children.

SUSAN LOUISE O'CONNOR
TACT:  Debut.  Blithe Spirit on Broadway (Theatre World Award, Dorothy Loudon Fellowship, Outer Critics Circle Nomination). Recent NYC credits include: Vigil, Children at Play, Apostasy, What to Do When You Hate All Your Friends, Susan Gets Some Play and Nerve. Regional credits include: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Huntington Theatre, Barrington Stage & Portland Stage. NYC Fringe Festival's best actor award for the one-woman show, Take. Innovative Award for lead actress in Packawallop's the silent concerto. Films include: Flying Scissors, Coming Up Roses, Acts of Worship, The Day My Towers Fell & Parallel Passage. Television: Law & Order: Criminal Intent & Nate the Great. Member of Packawallop Productions. www.susanlouiseoconnor.com

LYNN WRIGHT
TACT: Company Member since 1994/95; 27 productions with the company, most recently, Candle-Light. Broadway: The Elephant Man. Off-Broadway: The Democracy Project (Culture Project/Naked Angels, Jonathan Bernstein, dir.); As Bees in Honey Drown (Mark Brokaw, dir.); Bread and Circuses (Lamb’s); La Mama E.T.C.; Jean Cocteau Rep.; Theatreworks USA. National Tour: M. Butterfly. Regional: Cakewalk (Marshall Mason, dir.); All’s Well That Ends Well (Old Globe, Sheldon Epps, dir.); Cymbeline (Huntington Theatre); Eleemosynary (Hartford Theatreworks); Top Girls, Picnic, Twelfth Night, The Seagull (American Conservatory Theatre), VITA Shakespeare Festival. Television: Another World; The Magic Lie. Ms. Wright is a graduate of the American Conservatory Theatre.


THE VIRTUAL THEATRE PROJECT
The Virtual Theatre Project is a non-profit theatre artist’s collective committed to identifying, developing and promoting new work written specifically for the stage. The company’s first developed piece, Belfast Blues was premiered in Los Angeles at The Black Dahlia Theatre. VTP’s production in collaboration with writer and performer Geraldine Hughes, received the Los Angeles Ovation, Garland and Drama Critics Circle Awards.

In support of their mission, VTP hosts The Pen is a Mighty Sword International new play competition. In its sixth cycle, competition winners include John Ahlin’s Gray Area, Kato McNichols, A Yankee Trader, Elizabeth Appell’s, Confessions of a Catholic Child. These plays were premiered at various theaters in Los Angeles. TorC by Vincent Delaney is the 2008/2009 winner of The Pen is a Mighty Sword and VTP is pleased to be collaborating with newTACTicts to bring this work to the attention of New York audiences.

For more information on The Virtual Theatre Project (Kim Terrell and Sean Mahon Producing Artistic Directors and Whit Andrews Literary Manager) see www.virtualtheatreproject.org.









About newTACTics

The Actors Company Theatre/ TACT and Silver Blue Pictures are proud to announce the new initiative : newTACTics.

newTACTics is a new initiative that will discover, develop, and explore new works for the theatre. Although TACT is known primarily for its rediscovery of rarely seen, and often unjustifiably neglected works, the company has considerable experience with the development of new plays. In 2002, TACT presented the World premiere of Noel Coward’s Long Island Sound and worked closely with his estate to adapt the play for production. In 2004, Artistic Director Scott Alan Evans, playwright Christopher Piehler, and members of TACT’s acting company, developed the script to The Triangle Factory Fire Project. TACT presented the World premiere production of Triangle in May of that year and the play has since been produced across the country (the published script is available through Dramatist Play Service). The company has also developed scripts through its Readings program, The Salon Series, including work by Dan O’Brien and a new translation/adaptation of a play by Alexander Ostrovsky.

newTACTics is not only dedicated to finding new plays that fit within the TACT aesthetic – theatrical works that focus on the text and the actor’s craft – but also plays from the past that have yet to be performed. We want to encourage new playwrights as well as experienced, produced writers to continue to write for the theatre and to discover new ways to use the extraordinary language of the theatre to tell their stories. newTACTics productions will be presented jointly by TACT and Silver Blue Pictures. Silver Blue Pictures was founded in 2002 by Barry Satchwell Smith in Los Angeles. The company’s goal is to tell stories plainly and simply. Their produced works include the World premieres of ‘MsTrial’ at the Court Theatre and ‘A Tad Bazaar’ at the Comedy Theatre. Their most recent movie ‘The Blue Hour’ was released last year and has been officially nominated at San Sebastian, Turino and Los Angeles.

newTACTics is interested not only in completed plays but also in works in progress, hoping to bring them to completion through the review, development, staged reading process.

For more information about newTACTics or to inquire about play submissions, email the Director of newTACTics, Barry Satchwell Smith at bss@tactnyc.org


THE FUTURE:
In June of next year, we will take 4 new plays and present one a week in this exciting new direction for newTACTics of TACT. More information will follow on this progress during the course of the year.

The newTACTics Process

Step 1 :
Plays up for serious consideration will be read by all TACT Company co-Artistic Directors (Cynthia Harris, Simon Jones and Scott Alan Evans) and also of newTACTics’ Director, Barry Satchwell Smith.

Step 2:
A meeting between these 4 will then decide which plays will move on for development.

Step 3:
A table reading for the selected plays will be presented at the TACT Studio for the TACT Artistic Directors and Company, the playwright and a few selected guests.

The objective of the table reading is to hear the play “off the page.” The TACT Artistic Directors along with the Director of newTACTics will determine next steps, of which there are 3 possible outcomes:
-No future consideration for newTACTics
-Further development of the play with the playwright for future newTACTics consideration.
-Step 4 (see below)

Step 4:
A fully rehearsed stage reading, will be presented for the play with 2 or more performances. The objective of this rehearsed reading is to give the play a true platform to be heard in its current form. The readings will be held at the TACT Studio, unless otherwise stated, and would be open to the Company, guests of the cast, TACT subscribers, Board members and industry guests of the playwright, and Director and Artistic Directors of TACT and often the public.

THE WRAP UP:
We are thoroughly excited at this new venture and hope you will come and experience this added direction with us.

Barry Satchwell Smith