DOROTHY’S DICTIONARY

a NEW YORK Premiere Production

By E.M. Lewis

Co-directed by Andrew W. Smith and Michole Biancosino

Featuring Dana Jacks as Dorothy

Set Design by Yijun Yang

Light Design and Video by Courtney Smith

Costume Design by Summer Jack

Sound Design by Tate Abdullah

June 13, 14, 19, 21, 25, 27 at 7pm; June 22, 29 at 2pm Run Time 75 minutes

Sparks fly when Zan, an angry high school student, is forced to work off his community service assignment reading to Dorothy, an ailing librarian. But each of them might just have what the other lacks... if they can only find the words. Book by book, they begin to form an unexpected friendship… just when they need it most.

PRESS:

"DOROTHY’S DICTIONARY is a reminder of the beauty of shared stories and the surprising places we find connection." - BroadwayWorld

"Playwright E.M. Lewis has created a gentle, witty, and moving example of a two-character play." -DC Theater Arts

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PLAYWRIGHT

E. M. Lewis is an award-winning playwright, teacher, lyricist, and opera librettist. Her work has been produced around the world, and published by Samuel French. She received the Steinberg Award for How the Light Gets In and Song of Extinction and the Primus Prize for Heads from the American Theater Critics Association, the Ted Schmitt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a playwriting fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Commission, the 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama, and an Edgerton Award for Magellanica. Other plays include: Strange Birds (featured in UCSB LaunchPad), The Frankenstein Project (workshop production at Florida Atlantic University), Apple Season (National New Play Network rolling world premiere), The Gun Show (more than fifty productions across the country; Edinburgh Fringe), True Story, and You Can See All the Stars (a play for college students commissioned by the Kennedy Center). Lewis is playwright-in-residence at Artists Repertory Theater through the Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program, and is a proud member of LineStorm Playwrights, Opera America, and the Dramatists Guild. She lives on her family’s farm in Oregon.

Co-Director

Michole Biancosino is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company,

where she has developed and directed new work in Washington, D.C., New York City and

internationally for over 25 years. With Project Y, she has led various professional

productions, as producer, director, creator and writer. Credits included the long-running

shows, Trump Lear (co-created and directed) and the award-winning, David Carl’s Celebrity One-Man Hamlet (co-created and directed), both of which toured regionally and performed at Edinburgh Fringe, as co-productions with Richard Jordan Productions (UK), The Pleasance, and Underbelly. She directs solo artist Peter Michael Marino’s long-running solo shows, ShowUp! and Show Up Kids! which is now running in Spanish- and Japanese-language versions. Other work includes both the digital and on-stage versions of the Infallible Award-winner PLANET OF THE GRAPES LIVE FROM NYC (Zoo Venues, Edinburgh 2021), the cosmic raga opera, Waves of Gravity with Neel Murgai (LaMama CultureHub), and David and Katie Get Re-Married, which is headed to Edinburgh Fringe this summer. As a performer, Michole has spent the last two years acting as Jillian in Lia Romeo’s Yoga With Jillian, in NYC, regionally, and abroad. Michole is a producer of Project Y’s yearly Women in Theatre Festival. She has been featured by Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and The Brooklyn Rail. Recipient: SDC Gielgud Fellowship for classical directing. Her work has been supported by grants from The Puffin Foundation, ART/NY, NY Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), The Dramatists Guild, and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). She holds an MFA in Directing from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts. She is an Associate of Theatre at Middlebury College.

Co-Director

Andrew W. Smith is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company, where he has developed and directed new work in Washington, D.C., New York City and throughout the United States and internationally. With Project Y, he has served as Producer, Company Manager, Director, Technical Director, and Actor over the 25-year producing history of the company. He is a professional Actor and Director whose work has been seen throughout New York City, regionally, and internationally. Selected regional acting work includes: Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Pittsburgh City Theatre, Quantum Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Roundhouse Theatre, Potomac Theatre Project, Ars Nova, Studio Theatre, and Olney Center for the Arts. He toured with The National Players on their 50th anniversary as Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac. Filmwork includes Lucid, Shooting Script, Death of a Nation (Winner: Best Short, IndieFest 2011; Best in Show, Best Shorts Competition 2011), Under-Ground. Television work includes American Rust, GONE, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, One Life to Live, As the World Turns, Guiding Light. Directing: Yoga with Jillian, world premiere in New York City as a part of the Women in Theatre Festival and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023 and 2024 at the Pleasance Courtyard. With Project Y, he has received grants funding for work from New York State Council on the Arts, New York Department Cultural Affairs, Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Brooklyn Arts Council, and The Puffin Foundation. He was an invited guest and Master Teacher at the Summer Theatre Academy, in Sozopol, Bulgaria, in 2019. He is currently an Associate Professor of Acting at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. He is also graduate of the MFA Acting program at the University of California, San Diego, from which he received the Teaching Excellence Award upon graduation. www.smithandrewwilliam.com.

Dana has worked in New York Theater, film & television — including the acclaimed Off-Broadway production of Our Town directed by David Cromer. She wrote, produced, and performed in Fall Risk — a solo show chronicling her recovery from a Traumatic Brain Injury sustained in a cycling accident in Prospect Park — that’s been performed for doctors and residents at NYU Langone and received the inaugural Penny Marshall Award from the Brain Injury Association of New York State (BIANYS). The piece was developed at the Project Y Theater and featured in the Women in Theatre Festival. Thank you Andrew and Michole for your continued support and willingness to explore everything. Thank you EM Lewis for this beautiful piece. Thank you to everyone involved in the festival, I am so grateful to be here. Dedicated to Kati.

Gerardo Navarro (he/him) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and is a 2023 graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama. He was most recently seen in The Old Globe’s productions of Henry VI Parts 1 & 2, Esperanza Rising: The Musical workshop (ASCAP Foundation), and Soul Sacrifice (Frida Kahlo Theatre). You can also catch him in the Netflix Original film, Giving Voice. When he isn’t performing or writing, he loves spending quality time with his loved ones amongst good music, delicious meals, and loads of dancing. He is excited to be part of the NY premiere of this beautiful work and hopes these characters live in your heart as much as they do ours.

Lighting & Projection Designer

Courtney Smith (lighting & projection designer) is a lighting, scenic, and digital media designer for live performance. He works primarily in theatre, dance, and film but can also be found working on music videos, events, and anything with a solid story and a great group of people behind it. Courtney is ecstatic to be returning to Project Y Theatre Company and this year’s Women in Theatre Festival.

Previous projects include (select): Close (But Not Too Close), Yoga with Jillian, Momentary Exchange, Tiny Barn Theatre (Project Y); A Hundred Circling Camps, La Viuda (Dogteam Theatre Project); Lunch, Hot Fudge, Here We Go, Dog Plays, A Variant Strain (PTP/NYC); Now and Then (Public Theatre - Maine); A Christmas Carol (Idaho Repertory Theatre); Beauty and the Beast, Forever Plaid (Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre); Comedy of Errors (Montana Shakespeare in the Parks - regional tour); The Last Five Years, Levity, [title of show] (Warren Miller PAC)

Courtney is a member of United States Institute of Theatre Technology (USITT) and is an Associate Professor of Design, Technology, and Management at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

Set Designer

Yijun Yang, New York based production designer and set designer. She has an MFA in scene design from Carnegie Mellon University. Her set design includes Little Shop of Horror, Reunion, Musical Star Concert 2.0, She Kills Monster, Yoga with Jilian (NYC and Edinburgh Fringe), Reunion, Musical Star Concert 1.0, Stupid F**king Bird, Detroit ’67, etc. Her selected film credit includes: Venus, Quietly, Freeing Eurydice, Rain Likely Today , Wanqin(SIFF Selected), Northern Light, Runaway Father, etc. Her other associate and assistant credits include Sense and Sensibility, Syracuse Stage; Christmas Carol, Geva Theater, The Chinese Lady, Alliance Theater, Poor Yella Redneck, MTC, etc.

Costume Designer

Summer Lee Jack is a freelance costume designer & professor of Costume Design at Middlebury College. Recent New York theatre credits include: The Pied Piper of Hamelin with Project Y at Theatre 154, A Hundred Circling Camps and La Viuda with Dogteam Theatre Project, Morning Star & Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt with On Site Opera; Baghdaddy (Off Broadway) at St. Luke’s Theatre; The Tower at HERE Arts Center; The Elephant in Every Room I Enter at La Mama/NYTW; Romeo and Juliet at New York Classical Theatre; Sonata 1962 at New York Musical Festival; The Feigned Courtesans at The New School. Additional theatre credits include: Bossa Nova at Yale Repertory Theater; A Christmas Carol for The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey; Small Town Story, A Good Farmer at American Theater Group at SOPAC, The Junie B Jones Musical at Weston Playhouse, Kiss Me Kate, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Major Barbara, Mary Poppins, Skin of Our Teeth, The Playboy of the Western World, Awake and Sing! at Quintessence Theatre Company in Philadelphia. Summer is a proud member of United Scenic Artists Local 829 & she is a member in Wingspace Theatrical Design Collective. www.summerleejack.com

Sound Designer

Tauheedah “Tate” Abdullah is a sound designer based in Brooklyn, NY from Roswell, GA. They are so excited to be returning to Project Y’s Women in Theatre Festival this year! Their past Women in Theatre Festival credits include The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Bygone Fruit (Sound Designer). Broadway credits: Buena Vista Social Club (Assistant Sound Designer); Regional credits: Romeo and Juliet at American Repertory Theater (Associate Sound Designer), and Frozen at Ogunquit Playhouse (Associate Sound Designer). Tate is very thankful to Project Y and the entire creative team, cast, and crew of wonderful people.

Dana Jacks and Gerardo Navarro in DOROTHY'S DICTIONARY