SCR Announces Second Newscripts Reading 12/7

Beau Willimon's Spirit Control, the story of an air traffic controller trying to avert a disaster, will have a staged reading Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. as part of South Coast Repertory's NewSCRipts series. Spirit Control is the 110th play to receive a staged reading in SCR's venerable play reading program.

Willimon is the author of Farragut North, which premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York one year ago and recently completed a successful run at the Geffen Playhouse in L.A. His latest play centers on Adam Wyatt, who has directed air traffic for the Spirit of St. Louis Airport for the last eight years without incident. Until now. When the pilot of a small Cessna plane has a heart attack, Adam must talk a young woman through landing the plane, a crisis which will irrevocably change both their lives.

Willimon is also the author of Lower Ninth and in 2006 organized and participated in a collection of one-act plays dealing with the Middle East crisis entitled The Middle East: In Pieces. Farragut North was nominated for two 2008 Outer Critics Circle Awards and is currently in development at Warner Brothers. Willimon is a recipient of the Lila Acheson Wallace Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship, two-time winner of the Lincoln Center Le Comte du Nouy Award, and was a 2008 Playwright-in-Residence at the Donmar Warehouse in London. He is currently working on commissions for Manhattan Theatre Club and the National Theatre of Great Britain. A resident of Brooklyn, Willimon holds a B.A. from Columbia University and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Columbia's School of the Arts.

The annual NewSCRipts series of three Monday evening play readings by emerging and established playwrights was launched in 1985 as a way to bring the audience into the process of creating new work. After each public reading, which take place on the Argyros Stage, audience members engage in lively exchanges with the playwright and become active participants in the play's development, providing invaluable feedback for the writer. Plays selected for the NewSCRipts series have earned six Pulitzer Prize nominations with Margaret Edson's Wit winning the prize in 1999.

South Coast Repertory's NewSCRipts series of play readings is generously underwritten by Elaine J. Weinberg.

TICKETS to the NewSCRipts reading of Spirit Control can be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or in person at the SCR box office. NewSCRipts tickes are $12 each and include audience discussions with the playwright and dramaturg.

LOCATION: South Coast Repertory is located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, at the Bristol Street/Avenue of the Arts exit off the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Folino Theatre Center, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Parking is available off Anton Blvd. on Park Center Drive.

COMING UP: Ordinary Days, a new musical by Adam Gwon. (West Coast premiere.) Jan. 3-24.