September 21, 2009, New York, NY: The Indo-American Arts Council and the Lark Play Development Center are proud to announce the selections for the 16th Annual Playwrights' Week 2009. Eight plays were chosen from over 600 submissions. The playwrights will spend a weeklong residency at the Lark developing their work with professional actors, a director, and Lark staff; they will then present that work in a public reading during the Festival which runs from Wednesday, September 30th - Sunday, October 4th 2009.

The Festival kicks off with a Meet the Writers reception on September 30th, hosted by Morgan Jenness, where the playwrights will be introduced, interviewed, and will read excerpts of their work. The Festival will come to a finale on October 4th with a special presentation of the 2009 IAAC Playwright-In-Residence to Rehana Mirza, followed by a closing party, hosted by the Indo-American Arts Council, which will include excerpt readings from past awardees Anuvab Pal and Aladdin Ullah. As the 2009-10 recipient Mirza will receive a $1,000 cash award, support from the Lark for the year as she develops new work through roundtable readings, and a public reading at the end of the year. Mirza is the founder and Artistic Director of Desipina Productions, a company focusing in film and theatre, which is dedicated to promoting cross-pollinations of artistic, political, and cultural dialogues. About this opportunity Mirza says, "There are millions of reasons out there to stop being a playwright. But the one reason I keep at it is for the love of telling a story that wouldn't (or couldn't) get told by anyone else. For the next year, I'll have a second reason: a place for the story to be heard, and an artistic community to help shape it. This fellowship is coming at just the right time, as I've been constantly hoping for that extra push that can better connect me to my work, and that can connect others to it."

This year's selections include:

THAT MEN DO by Chad Beckim, a modern-day ghost story involving whispering Scrabble boards, the Giant Buddha of Leshan, earthquakes, and Martin Lawrence.

MISS LILY GETS BONED by Bekah Brunstetter, in which a virginal Sunday school teacher is forced to re-examine her faith

THE ATLAS OF MUD by Jennifer Fawcett concerns a flooding city, a boat full of birds, and a mother and child trying to find each other in a world of water.

FUTURE ANXIETY by Laurel Haines, about the future America plagued by Tsunamis, strawberry riots, and China calling in its debt, while everyone wants to board a homemade spaceship.

LUTHER, by Ethan Lipton, supposes a world in which abandoned veterans of war are adopted in the fashion that we now adopt abandoned animals. (And Walter and Marjorie are not exactly the best of parents).

THE OLD SHIP OF ZION by Natalia Naman in which a dying deaconess, a troubled church boy, and a college girl all in the midst of tragedy must join a congregation to move on.

NILA by Jen Silverman concerns an ancient bog queen pursued by the men who discovered her, the bog-man who loved her, and a musician in search of a muse.

SWEET NOTHING: A GRIM (FAIRY) TALE by Stephanie Timm takes us to a pillaged land once upon a time where a girl is offered a promise of living happily ever after by marrying a stranger across the sea, and discovers that hope might just be her worst enemy.

Plays developed in Playwrights' Week regularly go on to full productions at theaters across the country. In the summer of 2009, Lila Rose Kaplan's WILDFLOWER was produced by Second Stage Theatre. In February of 2008, Trista Baldwin's SAND will be produced by Women's Project, and Aditi Kapil's LOVE PERSON has received multiple productions across the U.S. from Minnesota ( Mixed Blood Theater, Minneapolis), to Califonria (Marin Theater in the Bay Area), and to Indiana (Phoenix Theater, Indianapolis).

All plays are free but reservations are required. For a complete schedule and to reserve seats, please visit, www.larktheatre.org

Lark Theatre is located at 939 Eighth-Avenue, Suite 301, (bet 55th - 56th Streets), New York, NY 10019
Subways: A,B,C,D,1 to Columbus Circle / N, Q, R, W to 57th St

The Indo-American Arts Council has an exciting line-up of events this Fall. A key highlight is the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIACC) Film Festival from November 11-15. For other upcoming events organized by the Indo-American Arts Council, please visit .

INDO-AMERICAN ARTS COUNCIL is a registered 501(c) 3 not-for-profit, secular service and resource arts organization charged with the mission of promoting and building the awareness, creation, production, exhibition, publication and performance of Indian and cross-cultural art forms in North America. The IAAC supports all artistic disciplines in the classical, fusion, folk and innovative forms influenced by the arts of India. IAAC works cooperatively with colleagues around the United States to broaden our collective audiences and to create a network for shared information, resources and funding. IAAC's focus is to work with artists and arts organizations in North America as well as to facilitate artists and arts organizations from India to exhibit, perform and produce their works here. For more information, please visit .

A laboratory for new voices and new ideas, the LARK PLAY DEVELOPMENT CENTER provides playwrights with indispensable resources to develop their work. The Lark brings together actors, directors, playwrights and the community to allow writers to learn about their own work by seeing and hearing it, and by receiving feedback from a dedicated and supportive community. The company reaches into untapped local populations and across international boundaries to seek out and embrace unheard voices and diverse perspectives, celebrating differences in language and worldviews. The Lark also plays a leading role in advancing unknown writers and their works to audiences through carefully stewarded partnerships with a host of theaters, universities, community-based organizations, and NGOs, locally, nationally and globally. The Lark is led by Producing Director, John Clinton Eisner and Managing Director, Michael Robertson, and Artistic Program Megan Monaghan. For more information, please visit www.larktheatre.org.

Media Contact:
Peepul PR: Gayatri-Hingorani-Dewan/ 917.346.0551/ gayatri@mypeepul.com