NEW YORK - Diverse City Theater Company ("DCT") announces full cast and creative team for "FOUR PLAYS," the company's Equality Playwrights Festival ("EPF") season offering from August 11th to August 26th at Theatre Row's Clurman Theatre at 410 West 42nd Street in New York City. The Equality Playwrights Festival is the recipient of Disney Foundation's Cast Community Fund Award.

As previously announced, "FOUR PLAYS: The Equality Playwrights Festival" is a presentation of commissioned one-act plays on gender identity:

• Robert Askins' absurdist CLEAN LIVING, directed by Steven Ditmyer: Set in an Army barracks, two men Norm and Al try to uncover George's sexuality but Clever George will not tell, and Norm and Al can't ask;
• Joe Byers' VEILS, directed by Gregory Simmons, explores an American soldier's experience in a war-torn Middle-Eastern country and his first sexual encounter with a local woman;
• Stuart Harris' ONNA FIELD, directed by Carlos Armesto, is about a top student and resident artist at Sidehill Boys School in West Omaha whose F in gym and concerned gym coach threaten to prevent him from being admitted to a high-ranking design school in Chicago;
• Jorshinelle Taleon-Sonza's COLD FLESH, directed by Adam Fitzgerald, follows a newly-emigrated Filipino woman investigating significant people in her late husband's life in America to reconstruct the man she knew versus the man he has supposedly become.

All four plays were commissioned by DCT as part of its annual mission to develop plays that revolve around one diversity issue of cultural significance. Launched in December 2005, this season's festival focus is on "gender identity issues of the 21st century."

In describing what the festival offers to today's theater audiences, Maxine Kern, DCT's Festival Director, commented: "Four plays, four voices, envisioning the drama of gender identity in our lives. While the process has been collaborative the plays present widely different and exciting parables for our time."

The EPF company of actors features Steve Buck, Liz Casasola*, Michael Early*, Randy Falcon, Christopher Kromer, Victor Lirio*, Natasha Marco**, David Newer* and Adam Schneider.

* Appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association
**Member of Canadian Actors Equity Association

EPF will run from August 11 to August 26 with the following performance schedule:

• Friday - Sunday (week 1): August 11th and August 12th @ 8PM, August 12th & 13th @ 2PM
• Tuesday - Sunday (week 2): August 15th - August 19th @ 8PM, August 20th @ 2PM
• Tuesday - Saturday (week 3): August 22nd - August 26th @ 8PM, August 26th @ 2PM

Producer: Linda Faigao-Hall; Festival Curator: Maxine Kern; Associate Producers: Derek Chatrakul and Debra Derr; Set Design: Brian Ireland; Lighting Design: Ryan Mueller; Sound Design: Betsy Rhodes; Costume Design: Rahnel Romasanta; Technical Director: Aron Deyo; Production Stage Manager: Chandra LaViolette.

Tickets can be purchased through Ticket Central by calling 212-279-4200 or online at www.ticketcentral.com. Tickets $18.00.

The Equality Playwrights Festival is made possible due, in part, to the generous support from Disney Foundation's Cast Community Fund, CD101.9FM and Interep National Radio Sales.

ABOUT DIVERSE CITY THEATER CO.:
Formed in April 2003, Diverse City Theater Company -- run by artist playwrights, directors and actors -- is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) theater developing and producing organization based in the world's most diverse city, New York. Its mission is to promote multiculturalism in the theater arts by developing and producing works that explore and examine our society’s diversity issues -- social, cultural, gender and demographic -- from a global perspective; create multiculturally fluent theater audiences; and advocate the non-traditional casting of actors to reflect the rich spectrum and diversity of our national culture.

Formed in 2003, Diverse City Theater Co., Inc. is based in New York City. For more information, visit the organization's website at www.diversecitytheater.org.

Contact:
Janet Appel
212-258-2413
janetappel54@aol.com