Look inside...

Welcome to another installment of Play in the Drawer, featuring the New Dramatists. This week we conclude Victor Lodato's Motherhouse, described as: "Clive arrives at the house of his mother and sister. He says that he’s fleeing from the police—but perhaps it’s just another one of his delusions. Unbeknownst to him, he has shown up on a tragic anniversary; three years prior, his sister’s child was killed in a brutal shooting."

Victor’s work has been produced at The Magic Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Theatre Na Zabradli/Prague, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, SPF/NYC, Quartieri dell’Arte Festival, and Mill Mountain Theatre. He has received commissions from South Coast Repertory and the Magic Theatre. Victor is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University, and a member of The Dramatists Guild of America.

After the jump, Motherhouse...

Look inside...

Welcome to another installment of Play in the Drawer, featuring the New Dramatists. This week we continue Victor Lodato's Motherhouse, described as: "Clive arrives at the house of his mother and sister. He says that he’s fleeing from the police—but perhaps it’s just another one of his delusions. Unbeknownst to him, he has shown up on a tragic anniversary; three years prior, his sister’s child was killed in a brutal shooting."

Victor’s work has been produced at The Magic Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Theatre Na Zabradli/Prague, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, SPF/NYC, Quartieri dell’Arte Festival, and Mill Mountain Theatre. He has received commissions from South Coast Repertory and the Magic Theatre. Victor is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University, and a member of The Dramatists Guild of America.

After the jump, Motherhouse...

Look inside...

Welcome to another installment of Play in the Drawer, featuring the New Dramatists. This week we continue Victor Lodato's Motherhouse, described as: "Clive arrives at the house of his mother and sister. He says that he’s fleeing from the police—but perhaps it’s just another one of his delusions. Unbeknownst to him, he has shown up on a tragic anniversary; three years prior, his sister’s child was killed in a brutal shooting."

Victor’s work has been produced at The Magic Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Theatre Na Zabradli/Prague, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, SPF/NYC, Quartieri dell’Arte Festival, and Mill Mountain Theatre. He has received commissions from South Coast Repertory and the Magic Theatre. Victor is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University, and a member of The Dramatists Guild of America.

After the jump, Motherhouse...

Get a Grip: Victor Lodato

Welcome to another installment of Play in the Drawer, featuring the New Dramatists. This week we begin Victor Lodato's Motherhouse, described as: "Clive arrives at the house of his mother and sister. He says that he’s fleeing from the police—but perhaps it’s just another one of his delusions. Unbeknownst to him, he has shown up on a tragic anniversary; three years prior, his sister’s child was killed in a brutal shooting."

Victor’s work has been produced at The Magic Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Theatre Na Zabradli/Prague, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, SPF/NYC, Quartieri dell’Arte Festival, and Mill Mountain Theatre. He has received commissions from South Coast Repertory and the Magic Theatre. Victor is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University, and a member of The Dramatists Guild of America.

After the jump, Motherhouse...

Plaid About You: Jason Grote

Welcome to the triumphant return of the Play in the Drawer feature. This week we feature an excerpt from "This Storm is What We Call Progress" by New Dramatist and fellow blogger Jason Grote.

Jason Grote's plays include 1001, This Storm is What We Call Progress, Hamilton Township, Maria/Stuart or Platzangst, and Box Americana. Current and upcoming: 1001 in New York (with P73 - visit 1001nyc.com for info) and Seattle (with ACT); commissions from Clubbed Thumb, Denver Center Theater, and Ensemble Studio Theatre; and a collaboration with the performance group Radiohole. He is a member of PEN and New Dramatists, and a contributor to Comedy Central's "Indecision 2008" blog. Visit him at jasongrote.com.

After the jump, Storm excerpts.

Get it off your chest

Welcome to the final installment of Caridad Svich's Steal Back Light from the Virtual. For those who don't recall: "Six figures move like fractals in a city-labyrinth overrun by brutality, violence and displaced desires and the ghost of a Minotaur. Fractured love stories for a globalised age."

Win, lose, or drawer

Welcome to the third installment of Caridad Svich's Steal Back Light from the Virtual. For those who don't recall: "Six figures move like fractals in a city-labyrinth overrun by brutality, violence and displaced desires and the ghost of a Minotaur. Fractured love stories for a globalised age."

We're open...

This week we offer Part II of Caridad Svich's Steal Back Light from the Virtual. For those who don't recall: "Six figures move like fractals in a city-labyrinth overrun by brutality, violence and displaced desires and the ghost of a Minotaur. Fractured love stories for a globalised age."

Ruff and Ready: Caridad Svich

We--okay, me--at Sightlines are attempting a new format for our popular Play in the Drawer column. Instead of merely teasing you with a titillating excerpt, for the next several weeks, we will provide you with an entire play, presented serially.

We're beginning with the work of the multitalented Caridad Svich, one of the several New Dramatists we'll be featuring. Ms. Svich is a playwright-songwriter-translator and editor of Cuban-Spanish, Argentine and Croatian descent. She is the recipient of a Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Bunting fellowship, a TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist Grant and has been twice short-listed for the PEN USA-West Award in Drama. Recent premieres: The Tropic of X, Thrush, Iphigenia: a rave fable, Antigone Arkhe. She has also translated Federico Garcia Lorca's major and minor plays, and works by Calderon de la Barca, Julio Cortazar, and Ugljesa Sajtinac. She is resident playwright of New Dramatists. She is on the editorial board of Contemporary Theatre Review (Routledge/UK), and contributing editor of TheatreForum.

She is editor of Trans-global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries (Manchester University Press), and Divine Fire: Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks (BackStage Books). She is co-editor of Conducting a Life: Reflections on the Theatre of Maria Irene Fornes (Smith & Kraus), Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latina/o Theatre & Performance (TCG), and Theatre in Crisis? (MUP/Palgrave). Some of her translations are collected in Federico Garcia Lorca: Impossible Theater (Smith & Kraus). She holds an MFA from UCSD. Her catalogue can be found at www.alexanderstreetpress.com. Her website is www.caridadsvich.com

She describes this play, Steal Back Light from the Virtual: "Six figures move like fractals in a city-labyrinth overrun by brutality, violence and displaced desires and the ghost of a Minotaur. Fractured love stories for a globalised age."

After the jump, the first installment...

Brooke, not babbling

Welcome back to Play in the Drawer. I'm so pleased the drawer is full gain. This week we offer an excerpt form Cake, by Brooke Berman. Brooke's been hanging out in L. A. for a while, but I wish she'd come back. Brooke’s plays have been produced at the Humana Festival, The Second Stage, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Play Company; Naked Angels and others. She is the recipient of a Berillla Kerr Foundation grant, two Francesca Primus prizes, the Helen Merrill Award, two Lecomte du Nouy awards and a commission from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. Her play Defusion was included in Christine Jones’s “The Theater for One” project at New York Theatre Workshop and recently published in an anthology of one-act plays edited by Craig Lucas. Recently, Brooke has been working on a screenplay adaptation of Smashing for Natalie Portman, a new play for Arielle Tepper Productions and an original screenplay for Fugitive Films. She has been teaching playwriting and creative process labs for eight years.

Of Cake, Brooke says, CAKE was my final project at Juilliard, 1999. it's only 50 pages. when i got out of school, some agents were into it but felt it was too short, they asked me to make it longer - i got caught up writing new things - and then, i didn't end up working with those agents but with morgan who said, "MUD was 50 pages too. don't worry about it." but for some reason, the play never had a real life. i love the first scene.