PROFILE THEATRE has announced the titles for its 2014 In Dialogue Staged Reading Series, a program intended to explore and augment the mainstage season of plays by Sam Shepard. The plays are HUNGRY by Amy Claussen, BUENA VISTA by Edith Freni, and A LIE OF THE MIND by Sam Shepard. The readings will each have two performances, held at Profile’s new home at Artists Repertory Theatre. Tickets are currently on sale at Profiletheatre.org.

The In Dialogue Staged Readings are a series of new and contemporary plays in conversation with Sam Shepard‘s body of work, as well as readings of Shepard plays not included in Profile’s mainstage season or Festival of One Acts. This is part of the newly expanded In Dialogue Series, Profile’s additional set of lectures, pre- and post-show discussions, concerts, and other supplemental programming exploring the season’s featured writer’s world.

“Profile Theatre is committed to providing our audiences with opportunities to engage with our featured writer in unique and varied ways,” says Artistic Director Adriana Baer. “With the development of our In Dialogue programming, we expand the prism through which we view our featured writer’s work.”

Baer continues, “This season, we have the opportunity to share the work of two young female playwrights whose work speaks directly to Shepard’s themes exploring family dynamics, hidden pasts, sexuality, violence and mysterious surroundings. These two very different plays both resonate with Shepard’s writing – and yet are distinct. These writers are important contemporary voices in the American theater. Finally, we add Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, an important conclusion to his Family Trilogy unseen in Portland in many years.”

About the readings:

HUNGRY
By Amy Claussen
Directed by Adriana Baer
March 15, 2014 at 7:30 PM and March 16, 2914 at 2:00 PM

Taking place at The Phoenix Flower Cafe, deep and dry in New Mexico, a comically dysfunctional, fiercely cruel, and deeply loving family awaits the bloom of their namesake flower. HUNGRY has previously been presented at Primary Stages and Penguin Repertory Theatre in New York.

Amy Claussen is a game designer, freelance writer, and director based in the Bay Area. She most recently directed Lauren Gunderson‘s The Heath for Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Ground Floor Festival and is a Drama League Directing Fellow, having spent a season directing for the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca. She was the assistant director on Nora and Delia Ephron‘s off-Broadway hit Love, Loss, and What I Wore, starring a rotating cast of the actresses, including Rosie O’Donnell, Rita Wilson, Kristen Chenoweth, and Tyne Daly. Ms. Claussen holds a theatre degree from Carnegie Mellon in Directing.

BUENA VISTA
By Edith Freni
Directed by Desdemona Chiang
April 12, 2014 at 7:30 PM and April 13, 2014 at 2:00 PM

BUENA VISTA follows Noah, who shows up at his family’s isolated Colorado cabin, discovering his estranged mother has been squatting there for months. When his Dad walks in-questioning the reason for his son’s retreat-Noah’s weekend getaway turns into a bizarre, snowed-in family nightmare, unfolding in a frozen wooden box at 12,000 feet above sea level.

Edith Freni‘s work has been produced, and developed at theatre across the country includingSteppenwolf Theatre Company, New York Theatre Workshop, LAByrinth Theatre Company, The Public Theatre, Williamstown Theater Festival, and Ensemble Studio Theater. Current commissions include a trilogy of classics adaptations for the

University of Miami-where she is on faculty-and a new play for Steppenwolf. Ms. Freni is a former competitive amateur boxer and received her BFA and MFA in Dramatic Writing from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

A LIE OF THE MIND
By Sam Shepard
Directed by Megan Ward
With members of Third Rail Repertory Theatre’s acting ensemble
July 12, 2014 at 7:30 PM and July 13, 2014 at 2:00 PM

First staged off-Broadway in 1988, A LIE OF THE MIND explores the dysfunction of two families following an incident of spousal abuse. The gritty play is considered, by some critics, to be the conclusion of Shepard’s Family Trilogy which includes Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child, and True West.

Profile’s 2014 playwright, Sam Shepard was born in 1943 in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He worked as a farmhand and musician before moving to New York to begin his career as a playwright. At the start of his career, Mr. Shepard spent several seasons with La MaMa and Caffe Cino in New York and as playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. In 1979, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Buried Child. His screenplay for Paris, Texas won the Golden Palm Award at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. In 1986, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1992 he received their Gold Medal for Drama. Of his 57 plays, 11 have won Obie Awards. Mr. Shepard is also a director and accomplished film actor.