Pioneer Theatre Company will present the next production in its New Plays Initiative, the world premiere of Find and Sign by Wendy MacLeod.
Set in the New York City music industry (with a slight nod to Othello), Find and Sign takes us through the bumpy romance between an on-the-rise music executive and an idealistic public school teacher. When one of the teacher’s students turns out to be a gifted young hip-hop artist whom her boyfriend wants to “find and sign” to a recording contract, their tentative romance is complicated by a tug-of-war over the student’s future. (Contains strong language.)
The playwright, Wendy MacLeod, will be in residence at Pioneer Theatre Company during the rehearsal period of Find and Sign. MacLeod’s play The House of Yes became an award-winning Miramax film starring Parker Posey, which earned a Special Jury Award at Sundance. Juvenilia premiered at Playwrights Horizons, as did The Water Children, which was cited as the most challenging political play of 1998 by L.A. Weekly and earned six L.A. Drama Critics Circle nominations. Things Being What They Are premiered at Seattle Rep and was produced at Steppenwolf in Chicago. Her plays Sin and Schoolgirl Figure both premiered at The Goodman in Chicago, and Anvil Entertainment has optioned Schoolgirl Figure for film. A New Dramatist alumna and a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, she is the James E. Michael playwright-in-residence at Kenyon College, and has been a guest professor at Northwestern University’s film and theater departments.
Find and Sign is comprised of a six-member, all-Equity cast. Molly Ward plays Julia, whose search for romance leads her to someone she never thought she’d fall for. In New York, Ward has appeared in The Tenant (Woodshed Collective), Kin (Playwrights Horizons), Keep Your Baggage With You (Theater for the New City), Nick Jones’ Nosemaker’s Apprentice (Brick Theater), Crystal Skillman’s Nobody (RPR), End of Lines and The Shape of Metal (59E59 Theaters). Her regional credits include The Seagull and Romeo and Juliet at American Repertory Theater, Three Sisters and Othello, among many others. This is her PTC debut.
Karl Miller plays Iago, the object of Julia’s affections, the music industry executive more focused on his career than anything (or anyone) else. Miller’s New York credits include Completeness with Playwrights Horizons and columbinus with New York Theatre Workshop. His many regional credits include Completeness at South Coast Repertory, My Name Is Asher Lev with Arden Theatre, The Lieutenant of Inishmore at Signature Theatre, Passion Play, a cycle at Arena Stage, and many, many more. He won the Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Lead Actor for Forum Theatre’s Angels in America, Part I, trained at Wittenberg University and is a resident company member with Rorschach Theatre in Washington, D.C. This is his PTC debut.
GARDNER REED plays Mona, a Vogue editor who is Julia’s beautiful roommate. Reed’s credits include The 39 Steps (Portland Stage Company), Doubt (Kansas City Rep), Henry VI and Richard III at Alabama Shakespeare Company, The Crucible (Actors Theater of Louisville), Pride and Prejudice and Les Liaisons Dangereuses for Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and Jackie-O in Wendy MacLeod’s The House of Yes for Red Envelope Productions. This marks her PTC debut.
Keith Hamilton COBB plays Andre, Iago’s boss and Mona’s suitor. His other theatre credits include The Infernal Machine (The Jean Cocteau Repertory), Othello (New Jersey Shakespeare Festival), Hamlet (North Shore Music Theatre), Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet (The Shakespeare Theatre), The Beaux Stratagem (The Actors Theatre of Louisville), Cymbeline (The Huntington Theatre Company), Cuttin’ Up (The ALLIANCE THEATRE), Jitney (Stage Walker Productions), The Duchess of Malfi (The Red Bull Theatre), Hapgood (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble), A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ruined (The Denver Center Theatre Company). This is his PTC debut.
