BTW Unbound 2008
A Festival of New Plays
Boston Playwrights' Theatre
July 10 – 13, 2008
Produced by Literary Manager Bridget Frey

BTW Unbound 2008 is made possible by a generous
anonymous gift and a grant from the LEF Foundation.

"Boston Theatre Works has a proven knack for identifying fresh young talent."
                   Bay Windows

BTW Unbound is a great showcase of the hottest new work by some of the country's best emerging playwrights and a terrific opportunity to see several pieces in progress. Over the past nine years, BTW has produced eight world premiere productions and developed over 60 new plays. Works that were developed at BTW and later premiered in New York City include Emily Mann's Meshugah, the Off-Broadway hit Bug by Tony Award winner Tracy Letts (August, Osage County), and the new musical Love Kills, which went on to premiere at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2007. You’ll never know who you’ll discover at the next BTW Unbound.

1st Prize:
12 Dogs by Jeanne Drennan

2nd Prizes:
Beautiful American Soldier by Dano Madden
Listening by Joe Rudy

Honorable Mention:
Coma, Patient by Shaun Raviv

Thursday July 10, 7:30pm: Listening
Friday July 11, 8:00pm: Beautiful American Soldier
Saturday July 12, 8:00pm: 12 Dogs
Sunday July 13:
     2:00pm: Coma, Patient
     4:00pm: Listening
     5:30pm: Beautiful American Solider
     7:00pm: 12 Dogs

Show Information

• Discussions with the playwrights follow most performances
• Boston Playwrights Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Ave, Boston click for directions
• There is street parking in the area
• Parking for $1/hr is available at Lot A beneath the Agganis Arena next door
• Tickets: $10 for one play or $15 for a Festival pass
• To reserve seats, call 617.728.4321 or click here to e-mail

About the Plays

1st Prize:
12 Dogs by Jeanne Drennan    Sat at 8:00 and Sun at 7:00
In a bleak, post-apocalyptic outpost of the American empire, a young teacher is trying to nurture and protect a brilliant 17-year-old student. Her efforts to win opportunities for him endanger their home and everyone in it, but in a world where poetry, comic books and particle physics have a power to transport and elevate characters with few choices and grim futures, nothing is impossible. As the story moves backward and forward in time, this futuristic world provides a warning for what America has the potential to become – paperless, despoiled, warlike and politically oppressive.

12 Dogs was a 2006 finalist for the National New Play Network's Smith Prize and a 2007 finalist for both the Reva Shriner Prize of Bloomington Playwrights Project and the Lark Play Development Center's Playwrights Week. Jeanne Drennan has six times received fellowships from the PA Council on the Arts to support her work, which includes Wrong Side Out (4x5 Festival at City Theatre), Asparagus (Gemini Theatre; Open Stage Theatre), Limoges (Upstairs Theatre) and Medea at Athens (Pittsburg New Voices).

2nd Prize:
Listening by Joe Rudy     Thu at 7:30 and Sun at 4:00
What happens when you discover that the government has been spying on you and you develop a relationship with the agent assigned to be your "listener?" Part comedy and part thriller, Listening is a response to the domestic spying policies of the Bush administration and explores the changing world that we create when we start from a place of fear and paranoia.

Joe Rudy is a San Francisco based writer who's plays include Bed (featured in a May 2003 Village Voice article on the best plays not yet seen in New York) and Does Dancer Equal Dumb (produced at Moving Arts annual one-act festival; winner of the "audience favorite" award). In July 2007 he was featured in The Dramatist's "50 Playwrights to Watch" article. He writes for the SF Source and Paper Magazine.

2nd Prize:
Beautiful American Soldier by Dano Madden     Fri at 8:00 and Sun at 5:30
Two sisters, unexpectedly lost along a quiet roadside in war-torn Iraq, develop an unusual friendship with a man peddling junk in the desert. Together, their shattered hearts must find a way to deal with the consequences of war. Beautiful American Soldier is a simple but powerful story of love, loss and redemption that challenges our ideas about Iraq and the impact of the war. Beautiful American Soldier was awarded first place in the 2006 New Works of Merit Playwriting contest and second place in the University of Tulsa's 2007 New Plays for Women contest.

Dano Madden was recently named one of the “50 Playwrights to Watch” by The Dramatist. His play In the Sawtooths was the winner of the Kennedy Center's 2007 National Student Playwriting Award. In the Sawtooths has received readings at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, The Northwest Playwright's Alliance, the Midtown International Theatre Festival and Boise Contemporary Theater. His other writing credits include The Wealthy Life of Sam Tyler (The National New Play Network's University Playwright's Workshop); The Save (Mile Square Theatre); Ella, Billy's Suitcase and Caravaggio Called (Rutgers University); Yo-yo (State Theater in Olympia, Washington); The Raccoon (Idaho Theatre for Youth); Forecast (Honorable Mention, University of Idaho's one-page play festival); The New (Actors Theatre of Louisville); The Soft Sand (Idaho Governor's Awards in the Arts); and Drop (SAMUEL FRENCH, Inc). Drop was the winner of the Kennedy Center's 1997 National Short-Play Award. Mr. Madden is from Boise and was the recipient of the 2001 Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowship in playwriting. He received his MFA in playwriting from Rutgers University.

Honorable Mention:

Coma, Patient by Shaun Raviv     Sun at 2
Nurse Pat's new patient, a cold-blooded murderer who is facing trial and the possibility of the death penalty, is brought to the trauma ward paralyzed, brain-damaged and tongue-less. While attempting to care for him, she is drawn into a comedic circus of legal manuevers, media attention and family dynamics that forces Pat to question her beliefs about justice and the definition of the word "alive." Coma, Patient is a comedy about the absurd questions that we must face in an increasingly complex and morally polarized world.

Shaun Raviv's play Feed Me recently closed at the Washington D.C. Arts Center. His play Planted was a finalist in the 2007 Strawberry One-Act festival in NYC. His short play Stay Still was presented as part of Theatre J's 5x5 Program and his short play RATS is being produced at the Snowdance Festival in Racine, WI and at Theatre Three in Port Jefferson, NY. He is the founder of The Book Inscriptions Project (bookinscriptions.com) and works at The Atlantic Monthly.