Because the McKinney Avenue Contemporary — Kitchen Dog’s Uptown home — will eventually be moving to new quarters south of downtown but all that’ll take awhile, the Kitcheners have found temporary digs for their next season at the Green Zone, the Design District warehouse that has been Project X Studio, a converted warehouse space that has hosted an on-and-off series of theater, music and dance events . Kitchen Dog Theater will announce its new HQ once current negotiations have been finalized.

Anyhoo, this will be the 25th season for KDT, and it’ll feature two regional premieres:  I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, about a female actor making her off-Broadway stage debut and reading her reviews with her playwright-father. It was written by Halley Feiffer, currently a scriptwriter for the cable series, The One Percent. And the other premiere is Peter Sinn Nachtreib’s political satire set during a gubernatorial race in Nebraska, The Totalitarians. Nachtrieb is best known locally for Hunter Gatherers, which Second Thought Theatre presented in 2010.

Rounding out the season will be the Harold Pinter classic, The Dumb Waiter, which will open the season at the Green Zone in September, plus two new plays both by Steve Yockey performed in repertory — Blackberry Winter and The Thrush and the Woodpecker — during the company’s New Works Festival.

The full release:

Kitchen Dog Theater Announces 2015-16 season

Dallas – Kitchen Dog Theater proudly announces a power-packed lineup for its 25th season. The 2015-16 season promises to excite and engage audiences with a mix of classic work and regional premieres. A staunch champion of new work in North Texas, KDT’s season will also include the 18th year of its New Works Festival, featuring six premiere staged readings selected from hundreds of submissions from around the globe and the 15th year of PUP Fest, its award-winning high school playwriting program co-produced with local youth organization, Junior Players.

Kitchen Dog’s 25th season will take place at The Green Zone, the theater’s temporary home in the Dallas Design District: 161 Riveredge Dr., Dallas, TX 75207. The company is in lease negotiations for a permanent home and will announce the location once finalized.
Kitchen Dog Theater’s 2015-2016 season schedule is as follows:
(All dates and programs subject to change)

THE DUMB WAITER by Harold Pinter
“A thrill with some hearty laughs.” – The Telegraph

The Play: A humorous and provocative story of two hit men as they wait in a basement for their next assignment. Told through Pinter’s unmistakable wit and poignant pauses, The Dumb Waiter is recognized for its exceptional writing and subtle character development.

The Playwright: Harold Pinter wrote twenty-nine plays including The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, and Betrayal, twenty-one screenplays including The Servant and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and directed twenty-seven theatre productions, including James Joyce’s Exiles, David Mamet’s Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray, and many of his own plays. Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Shakespeare Prize (Hamburg), the European Prize for Literature (Vienna), the Pirandello Prize (Palermo), the David Cohen British Literature Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, the Legion d’Honneur and the Moliere D’Honneur for lifetime achievement. In 1999, he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. He received honorary degrees from eighteen universities. Pinter died in 2008.
Director: KDT Artistic Company Member Tim Johnson
Theater: The Green Zone
Dates: September 18 – October 17, 2015

THE TOTALITARIANS by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, *Regional Premiere*
“Nachtrieb’s mastery of plentiful, surefire, unexpected punch lines and circuitous plot twists is on full display.” —The San Francisco Chronicle

The Play: We might be on the brink of revolution in Nebraska. Penny, a compulsive and compulsively-watchable candidate for state office enlists the help of Francine, a silver-tongued operative. Francine’s husband Jeffrey, a doctor, is lying to his dying patients – one of whom opens his eyes to Penny’s nefarious plans for the Cornhusker State. The Totalitarians is a raucous dark comedy about the state of modern political discourse, modern relationships and how easy it is to believe truths without facts.

The Playwright: Peter Sinn Nachtrieb is a San Francisco-based playwright whose works include boom (TCG’s most produced play 2009-10), BOB, (2011 Humana Festival for New American Plays at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Barrie and Bernice Stavis Award), T.I.C. (Trenchcoat In Common), Hunter Gatherers (2007 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award, 2007 Will Glickman Prize), Colorado, and Litter: The True Story of the Framingham Dodecutuplets. His work has been seen off-Broadway and across the country including at Ars Nova, SPF, Woolly Mammoth, Seattle Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, San Diego Rep, and in the Bay Area at A.C.T., Encore Theatre, Killing My Lobster, Marin Theatre Company, Impact Theatre, and The Bay Area Playwrights Festival.

Director: KDT Co-Artistic Director Christopher Carlos
Theater: The Green Zone
Dates: November 20 – December 19, 2015
I’M GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD by Halley Feiffer, *Regional Premiere*
“exhilaratingly toxic” –Entertainment Weekly

The Play: Ella is a precocious and fiercely competitive actress whose sole aim in life is making her famous playwright father David proud. Over the course of a boozy, drug-fueled evening, Ella and David deliberate over whether to read the reviews of her off-Broadway debut… and things unravel from there. Halley Feiffer’s dark, probing and very funny new play pulls the audience into the middle of a deeply complicated relationship and sheds new light on the eternal struggles of parents and children to find common ground.

The Playwright: Halley Feiffer Halley Feiffer is a New York-based writer and actress. Her full-length plays include How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them , Sidney and Laura, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologiconcology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She is currently a writer on the Starz series The One Percent. Her plays have been produced, commissioned and developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, New York Theatre Workshop, LAByrinth Theater Company, The O’Neill, The Orchard Project, Berkshire Theatre Group, Naked Angels, Cape Cod Theatre Project, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Keen Company, Partial Comfort Productions and the Amoralists.
Director: KDT Artistic Company Member Lee Trull
Theater: The Green Zone
Dates: February 12 – March 12, 2016

NEW WORKS FESTIVAL 2016

Mainstage: Two Plays by Steve Yockey (in repertory)

The Plays:

Blackberry Winter
Vivienne Avery recounts her memories of caring for an aging mother who is slowly fading away and the difficult decisions regarding her care. Vivienne shares her journey from the moment of her mother’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s to the present, inviting the audience into the world of this strange and debilitating disease. The drama unfolds through a series of interwoven stories about the memories sparked by a series of everyday objects. Interwoven with these stories is an evolving, wondrous 21st century Alzheimer’s creation myth — an origin story about a White Egret who tries to protect the animals of the forest as they lose their memories to a blind, oblivious Mole. Both the myth and the overall structure reflect the science behind Alzheimer’s in this funny, poetic and deeply moving play.

The Thrush and the Woodpecker
Brenda Hendricks has her hands full dealing with her son Noah after he is expelled from a prestigious college and unexpectedly returns to their isolated Northern California home. When an elegant and mysterious woman arrives on their doorstep dragging along buried secrets and stories about mysterious birds, Brenda and Noah find their world turned upside down in ways both intimate and epic. Both engaging and disturbing, The Thrush and the Woodpecker is a morality play with a fantastical twist.

The Playwright: Steve Yockey is a Los Angeles based writer with work produced throughout the country, Europe, and Asia. His plays include Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, CARTOON, Subculture, Very Still & Hard to See, The Fisherman’s Wife, and Wolves. Steve is a Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (2008). He was one of two writers selected for the first US/Australia playwright exchange in February 2013, sponsored by NNPN and Playwriting Australia and is the recipient of the 2013 LA Weekly Playwriting Award for Very Still & Hard to See.

Directors: KDT Co-Artistic Director Tina Parker (Blackberry Winter) & KDT Artistic Company Member Christie Vela (The Thrush and the Woodpecker)
Theater: The Green Zone
Dates: May 20 – June 25, 2016
STAGED READINGS AND PUP FEST

In association with the critically acclaimed National New Play Network, KDT is delighted to announce its 18th annual celebration of the newest and most exciting voices and visions of the American Theater. In addition to the mainstage anchor production, this year’s festival will also feature six staged readings of plays chosen from hundreds of submissions from across the country, as well as our annual PUP (Playwrights Under Progress) Fest, an afternoon of short plays written and performed by some of the Metroplex’s finest youth talent, co-produced with Junior Players.
Director/Plays: TBD
Theater: The Green Zone

A KDT Season Season Subscription is $100. KDT Season Subscription benefits include: advance seating at performances, advance invitations to special Kitchen Dog events, such as the killer HOOCH-N-POOCH gala, and complimentary ticket exchanges, email reservations and discounts on other events at NNPN theaters nationwide. Receive additional perks if you subscribe early. A FLEX 5 PASS, which gives a patron four single-use admissions to use however they want throughout the season, is $125. KDT is also continuing last season’s wildly successful budget-friendly package this year: First Timer ($150 regular or $162.50 FLEX 5), for patrons who have never been prior KDT season ticket holders can buy one regular subscription and get a second subscription for half price.

Single ticket prices range from $20-$40 for all productions. Discounts are available for members of TCG, KERA, STAGE, DART, ArtsCard, students and senior citizens/65+ (all with proper ID). Group rates are also available. All performances will be held at The Green Zone at 161 Riveredge Dr. Dallas, TX 75207. Pay-What-You-Can performances are available for the first 25 walk-up tickets on Wednesday & Thursday evenings. “Talk- Backs” with the director and cast follow the Sunday matinee performances. Seating for all performances is general admission.

Subscription tickets are available for purchase as of May 29, 2015. Single Tickets for all individual shows will go officially on sale August 14, 2015. For subscription and/or ticket information, please call the Kitchen Dog Theater box office at 214-953-1055 or check on our website: www.kitchendogtheater.org.

Kitchen Dog Theater is supported, in part, by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, The National Endowment for the Arts, National New Play Network, TACA, Texas Commission on the Arts, The Shubert Foundation and individual donors.
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