Thanks for a SUPER Reading of Susan Kathryn Hefti's New Play OFF THE BENCH at the Lark!

Many thanks to the Lark Play Development Center; its fearless leader John Clinton Eisner; the Lark's dramaturg extraordinaire Suzy Fay; the Lark's Megan McClain; director Vernice Miller and the amazing cast assembled for a super Reading of Susan Kathryn Hefti's new play, Off The Bench, or The Schedule, at the Lark on Tuesday, March 1, 2016!

Off The Bench explores the dramatic journey of a community of people with wildly disparate backgrounds, origins and ages who - due to their unfortunate circumstances - are forced to live together at Sunnydale, a fictional place along the Hudson River. 

As we begin the process of exploring and developing this new script, it was a huge help for playwright Susan Kathryn Hefti to have the opportunity to finally hear these colorful characters brought to vivid - and at times rather explosive - life by such an incredibly talented cast! 

A huge round of applause and many thanks to the generous ensemble of actors who donated their time, energy and talent to allow playwright Susan Kathryn Hefti the rich opportunity to hear her new script read aloud for the very first time: Sarah Wharton  (Holly); Jim Nugent (Norman); Clare Mahoney (Colleen); John Devaney (Thornton); Vernice Miller (Myrtle); Emily Kratter (Grace); Eva Kaminsky (Nurse Lizzie/Frances Pidgeon) and Jim Conroy (Louis/Richard/Johnny/Stage Directions).

Thank you all for so beautifully bringing Off The Bench to life! We are grateful to each and every one of you!

And thanks again to Suzy Fay, Vernice Miller and all the wonderful people at the Lark for giving playwright Susan Kathryn Hefti the invaluable opportunity to begin the development process in an environment wholly committed to nurturing artists and their new works!

And, as always, thanks to everybody for your continued interest in Susan Kathryn Hefti's work and for your very generous & loyal support!  

As we continue the journey that is Off The Bench, or The Schedule, we'll be sure to keep you all posted on its progress!

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To learn more about Susan Kathryn Hefti's plays, or to make a tax-deductible gift to support the continued development of her work, please visit The Emerging American Artist's Fund by simply clicking on this link provided by her fiscal sponsor, the non-profit arts organization Fractured Atlas. And thanks again for your very generous support!

Playwright Susan Kathryn Hefti's 'Dear Prudence' Lights Up Paris Stage!

Ooh là là! Things are really heating up on the Paris stage this fall: On October 14, 2010, Susan Kathryn Hefti's hit comedy Dear Prudence - which enjoyed an extended run Off-Broadway in 2003 - was back on the boards again in the city of lights!

Translated and produced by the popular French actress Myriam Blanckaert - best known to American audiences for her memorable role as Evelyn the Paris Bookstore owner in the final episodes of Sex and the City - Chere Prudence, a playfully bawdy farce about a lovable nymphomaniac named Prudence, proved a perfect match for the Parisian audience in this exciting staged reading at La Comédie Bastille this fall!

So keep your passports at the ready, as we all may be jetting off to Paris before too long!

Special thanks again (Merci! Merci!) to Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr. for taking a chance on an unknown playwright by hosting the original Backer's Reading for Dear Prudence in his living room, raising all the money for the original NYC production in just one night!

As Chere Prudence continues to wind its way from page to stage - in preparation for a Paris production - we'll keep you all posted on her very exciting progress!

  

Congratulations again to Myriam and the rest of her marvelous cast on the very exciting staged reading of Chere Prudence in Paris on October 14th: C'est si bon! 

Playwright Susan Kathryn Hefti

Susan Kathryn Hefti is an American Playwright. An active member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Hefti's debut work for the stage was launched by the highly successful 2003 world premiere of her play Dear Prudence which enjoyed an extended run Off-Broadway.

Hailed by Gay City News as "a light, wonderful play that will have you laughing all the way through", Dear Prudence is now wowing a whole new audience - this time in Paris - having enjoyed exciting staged readings at Théâtre Mélo d'Amelie in June 2010 and again at La Comédie Bastille in October 2010 - in preparation for an upcoming French production!

The impressive success of Dear Prudence also led Tony Award winning Arielle Tepper Productions to select Hefti as Guest Speaker for the 2003 Syracuse University Tepper Theater Program in Manhattan.

Hefti's next play, Keepin' Cool, was honored as a Semi-Finalist for the 2004 Princess Grace Award. Inspired by the tragic and sudden death of one of her Yale students, Keepin' Cool is a bittersweet love story exploring questions of fate, romance, loss, the boundaries of social convention and the deep connections that can transcend them all when unlikely souls unexpectedly collide.

In 2006, Hefti's history play A Defiant Soul, set in 1661 and bringing to life the dramatic battle of wills between New Amsterdam‘s Dutch Director-General, Petrus Stuyvesant, and the English Quaker John Bowne, whose dangerous and singular act of civil disobedience led directly to the establishment of religious freedom in the new world, was presented Off-Broadway (directed by Vernice Miller) as part of a city-wide program entitled 5 Dutch Days.

A Defiant Soul was later adapted to be used as a teaching tool in the NYC school system, where it has been widely performed by students exploring early NYC history and the establishment of religious freedom in America.

The success of that play also brought Hefti a commission from the City of NY; to write the narrative for the related exhibit on the 1657 document protesting religious intolerance in New Amsterdam. The exhibit, The Flushing Remonstrance: Who Shall Plead For Us?, was designed to travel around the country following its celebrated 2009 NYC debut.

Hefti's other full-length plays include American Dames (or…Waiting for Dolley); Off The Bench; Robbed and The Cocktail Party about a clutch of Columbia University Professors whose annual Christmas party devolves into tragedy evoking the cannibalism referenced in the T.S. Eliot play by the same name. Impressed by its wit and insights, Playwrights Horizons wrote of The Cocktail Party, "[w]e found it bitingly wry and intelligent."

In 2003 Hefti authored a series of one-act plays entitled, The Farmer Trilogy - comprised of The Home Stretch, Parlor Beauty and Tea & Sympathy. Her other one-act plays include Actias Luna; Positively Glowing; Eros & Sophia; Venus Under Water; Broadway@Fulton and Crashing Into Moonlight.

Nominated to the 2010 Nantucket Screenwriters Colony by acclaimed filmmaker Mitchell Lichtenstein (Teeth, Happy Tears), Hefti is the author of the screenplays The Polka Dot Tea Party and Sum Luv Kitchen. With Canadian filmmaker Chris Smets, Hefti co-authored the screenplay Bad Dates a dark comedy about dating and mating in NYC based on Hefti's original story idea.

Hefti also spent a number of years working as a journalist and writing for television and radio. Her column, The Preservation Diaries, is published online by NY Theater Critic Leonard Jacobs at The Clyde Fitch Report.

A 2004 recipient of a PEN American Center Writers Grant, Hefti has taught at several Universities including Brown and Yale.