Padua Playwrights Press publishing program consists of anthologies of new plays written by established and developing playwrights within this loose-knit but aesthetically cohesive community of playwright-directors. Based in Los Angeles, but with roots in New York’s Off-Off Broadway movement, Padua began under the direction of Obie-Award winning playwright Murray Mednick as a new play festival that ran annually in the LA area from 1978-1995, featuring such important voices as Sam Shepard, Maria Irene Fornes, John O’Keefe, John Steppling, Kelly Stuart, Susan Mosakowski, Leon Martell and Marlane Meyers. Featuring new plays produced site-specifically, the Festival also featured an intensive writing workshop out of which emerged a new generation of voices including LA-based playwrights Guy Zimmerman, Sharon Yablon, Hank Bunker and Wesley Walker, as well as Joseph Goodrich of New York. Resuming as a regular new works theater company in 2001 under Zimmerman’s artistic direction, Padua Playwrights continued to stage initial productions of new writing, indoors now but drawn from the same community and featuring a poetic, body-centered mode of composition and intensive collaborations with a family of LA-based performers. Mounting over 40 productions (many multiple award winners), and moving several to stages in New York, Atlanta, Edinburgh, Berlin and elsewhere, Padua retains an important place in the cultural ecology of Los Angeles.
Email: info@paduaplaywrights.org