New Canaan
by Jessica Durdock Moreno
Featuring:
Debra Jo Rupp (That 70's Show and Friends)
and
Erin Treadway
directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby
PROJECT DRAMATURGY JED DICKSON
Bette, 70, a classy lady from Connecticut, will do whatever it takes to throw herself the fabulous birthday dinner party she’s earned and deserves--because no one else will. But when her daughter Mary, 40 and still living at home, attempts to sabotage Bette's efforts, the two women must decide between saving or destroying each other while battling out their lifelong mother-daughter crisis. Will they discover the root of and resolution to their epic love-hate relationship--or they will just do it all over again tomorrow.
The event is “Donate what you can.” All proceeds will benefit Covenant House.
Donors will receive a link to view the performances on YouTube. Live streaming on September 16 at 7pm, and then available on our Youtube channel until Monday September 20.
Jessica Durdock Moreno is currently an MFA candidate in the Department of Dramatic Writing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her first play “To Richard!” premiered at the 2019 Hollywood Fringe Festival, where it won the Encore Producers Award and was nominated for the Inkwell Theater Playwright’s Promise Award. She began her writing training at Los Angeles City College, where she won the 2019 Cinema and Television Department’s Best Screenplay Award for her television pilot “Filly.” She was selected as a finalist for the Theater Masters Take Ten 2020 Festival for her play “Shooting Stars,” and as a semifinalist for the Athena Project’s 2020 Plays in Progress Series for her play “Georgie D.” She recently participated in the Workshop Theater Fall 2020 Playwriting Intensive, also with “Georgie D,” which she will continue to develop in the 2021 Chain Theatre Playwriting Lab. This February, she will participate in the Full Circle Theatre Collaborative’s New Works Festival with her plays “Shooting Stars” and “Funeral.” She graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University with a B.A. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology (focus on North American Settler Colonialism).
Debra Jo Rupp Broadway: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Kathleen Turner. Off Broadway: The Cake, MTC (Nom: Drama League); Becoming Dr. Ruth (Nom: Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Conn Critics Cir); A Girl’s Guide to Chaos; Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune, The Butcher of Baraboo (Judith Ivey, Second Stage). Recent regional: The Cake (LA Stage Ovation Award, LA Drama Critics Circle Award) Mother's Day; Three Viewings; Time Flies and Other Comedies; The Cake; Love Letters; Kimberly Akimbo; Dr. Ruth, All the Way; To Kill a Mockingbird (Barrington Stage) Deathtrap (Berkshire Theater Group), (Chester), Annapurna (Rob Ruggiero, TheaterWorks Hartford), True West, A Flea in Her Ear (John Rando, Williamstown). Film credits include Big, Clockwatchers, Sgt Bilko, She’s Out of My League and over 200 television appearances, most notably: Wandavision, This is Us, The Ranch, That ‘70s Show, Seinfeld, Friends, NCIS: LA, Elementary.
Erin Treadway is a frequent collaborator with playwright/director Leegrid Stevens & their company Loading Dock. Recent roles with Loading Dock: Molly Jennis in Spaceman (Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance), Kailey Beck in A Peregrine Falls (The Wild Project), Clara in The Dudleys! (HERE), Julie in Ms. Julie, Asian Equities (The Dock at Loading Dock, Brave New World), Cleo in The Twelfth Labor (Gene Frankel Theatre). She is also a member of Workshop Theatre and Brave New World Rep.
Leslie Kincaid Burby is a director, dramaturge, and performer dedicated to developing new theatrical work in the New York City area. She has received the New York Innovative Theatre outstanding director award for her Drama Desk nominated production The Navigator by Eddie Antar at The Workshop Theater (New York Times Critic Pick). She also received the New York International Fringe Festival Overall Excellence Award for her direction of Sean-Patrick O'Brien's Zamboni. Leslie recently directed a critically acclaimed production of The Chekhov Dreams by John McKinney at the Beckett Theatre. She is a frequent director for Dephi, Pied Piper, and UP Theatre companies, and is proud to serve as an Associate Artistic Director at The Workshop Theater.
Jed Dickson has performed off-Broadway in The Mask and at several venues in and around the city including NY Theater Workshop, the Lark and the Fringe Festival. Regional credits include Berkeley Rep, Arkansas Rep, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Crossroads Theater, and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. He had over 40 appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman and had featured or recurring roles on All My Children and As the World Turns. He has a BA in English from Cal Berkeley and had over 10 years of freelance magazine writing experience. Jed has worked extensively over the past 20 years in new plays and new play festivals as an actor, playwright and dramaturg.