The 19th annual OctoberFest will run, logically, Oct. 1-31, on Off-Broadway on the Ensemble Studio Theatre's two stages. New playwrights and some of EST's 400 established members will join together for the month-long celebration of readings and semi-staged and fully staged productions.
Among 1999's playwrights are Leslie Ayvazian, Edward Allan Baker, Keith Alan Benjamin, Horton Foote, Arthur Giron, Bryan Goluboff, Jack Heifner, Shirley Lauro, Kaiulani Lee, Quincy Long, Peter Maloney, Ellen Maraneck, Paula Marchese, Rita Nachman, David Riedy, Sean Sutherland, Jeffrey Sweet, Cherie Vogelstein, Michael Louis Wells, Shel Silverstein and Tennessee Williams. Specific details as to which plays have been chosen and what their schedules are will be released early next week.
Last year's program included Teresa Rebeck's Drinking Problem, Tim Gallagher's The One the Wolves Pulled Down, Paul Zindel's Every Seventeen Minutes the Crowd Goes Crazy!, Lawrence Luckinbill in his own one-man play Clarence Darrow, the late Shel Silverstein's A Japanese Doll or The Lifeboat Is Sinking and Horton Foote's The Man Who Climbed the Pecan Trees.
OctoberFest 1999 is free (donations are accepted), but reservations are required. To save a place, call (212) 247-4982 one week prior to the performance date. The Ensemble Studio Theatre is located on the web at http://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org.
