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Feffer play opens free series at Whole Art Theatre

Feb. 17, 2006

KALAMAZOO--Western Michigan University's Steven Feffer, assistant professor of English, is one of four professional playwrights whose work will be featured in the Playwrights in Process series at the Whole Art Theatre in downtown Kalamazoo.

Feffer's "Mr. Rebbetzin" opens the series with a single performance at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23. The play chronicles the life of a young New York music critic of questionable ambition, who suddenly learns he may be the lost rabbinical heir of a struggling Hasidic Jewish sect--the Lubgovskiers.

All plays in the Playwrights in Process series will be presented as fully staged readings. Admission is free, and an audience discussion and reception follows each performance.

Playwrights in Process is co-sponsored by Shenandoah International Playwrights and Whole Art Theatre. The series includes four new plays, two by playwrights from Michigan and two written by Shenandoah International alumni. Shenandoah alumni whose work will be featured are John Walch, "The Nature of Mutatio," March 11, and D.W. Gregory, "October 1962," April 27. The second Michigan playwright has not yet been selected.

Feffer's plays have been produced by theatres nationwide, including the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York, Philadelphia Festival Theatre, National Jewish Theatre in Chicago, and Stages Repertory Theatre in Houston. His play "The Wizards of Quiz" is published by Dramatist Play Service, and his one act "Little Airplanes of the Heart" is published in "Best American Short Plays" (Applause Books) and "Plays from the Ensemble Studio Theatre" (Faber and Faber).

Feffer has won a number of national playwriting awards, including the Jamie Hammerstein Award and Stages Repertory's Children's Playwriting Award. He also received a new play grant from the Council of Jewish Theatres and the Jewish Endowment for the Humanities.

Shenandoah International Playwrights is in its 26th year with more than 250 playwrights from 39 states and 31 countries thoughtout the world. The company recently moved its corporate headquarters to Southwest Michigan.

The Whole Art Theatre is located at 246 N. Kalamazoo Mall. For more information, visit the Whole Art Theatre on the Web at www.wholeart.org.

Media contact: Thom Myers, (269) 387-8400, thom.myers@wmich.edu

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