(closer view)

The world premiere of The Poetry of Pizza by celebrated playwright Deborah Brevoort opened February 24th at the Centenary Stage Company.

(closer view)

The Poetry of Pizza is part of Centenary Stage Company's renowned Women Playwrights Series. Now in its 14th season, The Women Playwrights Series has been recognized for its commitment to give women playwrights, facing limited production opportunities, an environment to bring new works from development to production.

When American University professor Sarah Middleton arrives in Denmark to teach at Copanhagen University, her life is irrevocably thrown off-course when she suddenly and unexpectedly falls in love with a Kurdish pizzamaker, in the new romantic comedy by Deborah Brevoort, The Poetry of Pizza. In this comic and touching new play, the unlikely courtship of the two romantics from different cultures arouses the curiosity and passions of everyone around them, setting in motion a rash of culinary courtships and a chaotic comedy of errors.

The Director
CSC artistic and producing director Carl Wallnau

The Cast

(closer view)

(closer view)

The Cast will feature:

    Rehearsal photos:
        Cast Photo
        Ceremony
        Group photo over the pizza
        Three - in rehearsal
        Katrina Ferguson and Joseph Pisapia in rehearsal
        

Director, Carl Wallnau, with Playwright,     Deborah Brevoort, in rehearsal for     The Poetry Of Pizza.     (closer view)

The Playwright
Another 'Jersey Story!'
Deborah Brevoort is an internationally known award winning playwright and librettist/lyricist best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, which will be playing at New Jersey Repertory theatre later in March. Brevoort holds MFAs in playwrighting from Brown University and Musical Theatre writing from NYU's Tish School of the Arts, where she currently teaches. In New York, Brevoort also teaches Lyric Writing at Columbia University and Playwrighting and Production at the New School's Eugene Lang College.

The Women of Lockerbie was presented in New York in 2003 by The Women's Project and The New Group Theatre, and which garnered the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. Her many works for the stage include Signs of Life (winner of the 2002 Jane Chambers Award), Into the Fire (which won the 1999 Arnold Weissberger Award), Blue Moon Memphis (winner of the Lee Korf Award) , and her recent The Blue Sky Boys (commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre in conjunction with the Sloan Science Project). In musical theatre, Brevoort is the librettist of King Island Christmas, an oratorio for the stage, with composer David Friedman, which won the 1997 Frederick Loewe Award. She has received grants and commissions from the NEA, the Rockerfeller Foundation, the New York Foundation on the Arts, and Banff Playwrights Colony, among many others.
 

(closer view)

Playwright Deborah Brevoort was raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey and graduated from Ridgewood High School. While she was growing up, her parents performed in the Ridgewood Gilbert and Sullivan Opera company, and she and her brothers all attended, and sometimes worked backstage. After high school, Brevoort headed to Kent State University, where she majored in English and Political Science, and subsequently received her Masters Degree in Political Science. Brevoort moved to Alaska to work with the Alaska’s Governor’s office, at the same time that the Perseverance Theatre was getting started. She shortly “jumped tracks”, in her career, quitting her job in the Governor’s office to help get the theater started. She hasn’t left the theatre since! Also bitten by the theatre bug, her brother Greg is a director currently living in Los Angeles. Brother, John, a banker, lives in Ohio. Her parents enjoy the Jersey Shore life, living on Long Beach Island.

   Also see our
   Interview with the Playwright, Deborah Brevoort

Performance Schedule
The Poetry of Pizza will open of Friday February 24th and run until Sunday March 12th. The performance schedule for CSC plays is Friday and Saturdays at 8 p.m.., Sundays at 2:30 p.m., and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. There will also be Wednesday matinee performances offered on Wed. March 1st at 2:30 p.m., and Wed. March 8th at 11 a.m.

New "Access" Services

Open Captioned       Performance for       The Poetry Of Pizza       Mar. 12, 2005 / 2:30 pm

As part of a continued effort by CSC to make theatre accessible to all Americans, there will be an Open Captioned performance offered for the March 12th matinee. Open Captioning (often referred to as OC) derives from the text-based access to television broadcast programs, and offers theatre audiences with hearing impairment to view the dialogue in text-based unit mounted near the stage.

Tickets for The Poetry of Pizza are $20 for adults and $17.50 for seniors and students on Saturday evenings, $17.50 for adults and $15 dollars for seniors and students all other evening performances. Tickets for matinee showings will be $15 dollars.

For more ticket information please contact the Centenary Stage Company box office at 908-979-0900.

Tickets
Tickets for The Poetry of Pizza are

(L-R) Katrina Ferguson, Angela Della     Ventura, Joseph Pisapia     (closer view)

Women Playwrights Series
The Women Playwrights Series will reconvene in April once again, bringing three new plays in workshop presentations to the CSC audiences. For three Wednesday evenings, audiences will be invited to experience the talents of three exciting new women authors from around the country, and to play their own part in the development of new work through lively discussions with the playwright and cast following each presentation.

2006 Schedule:
    April 5 - The Queen's Two Bodies by
          Jeanne Murray Walker
    April 12 - TBA
    April 19 - TBA

Secure Online Tickets/Ordering

www.centenarystageco.org           boxoffice@centenarystageco.org
400 Jefferson Street, Hackettstown, NJ 07840       908-979-0900
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