Actors Theatre Announces Panel Lineup for 36th Humana Festival

Actors Theatre of Louisville's Artistic Director, Les Waters and Managing Director, Jennifer Bielstein announce the complete schedule of panel discussions during the 36th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, running now through April 15, 2012. The Festival, which annually has a lineup of up to ten new world premieres will host four dynamic panel discussions that will feature national-known playwrights, theatre professionals, artists and local business leaders listed below. All panel discussions are FREE and open to the public. Tickets are required and can be reserved by calling The Actors Theatre Box Office at 502-584-1205 or in-person at 316 West Main Street, Louisville, 40202. Visit http://actorstheatre.org/ for more information.

Actors Theatre of Louisville has formed a new partnership with IF University, a program of Idea Festival, to present two community-centric panel discussions focused on creative and innovative thinking. Kris Kimel, founder of Louisville's IdeaFestival , will facilitate a panel discussion The Groupthink: How Communities Solve Problems on Saturday, March 10 at 11 a.m.exploring how communities have banded together to generate solutions to current issues. The panel will feature a cross-section of artists, educators and entrepreneurs who will share their insights on the problem-solving power of "crowd" intelligence. The panel will include: Louisville-based Filmmaker and Entrepreneur,Gill Holland;Russel Hulsey,Artist;Nat Irvin, University of Louisville Business School;Will McAdams, Theatre artist specializing in community- devised work, and Dr. TEd Smith, Director of the newly-formed Office of Economic Growth and Innovation.There is Another Way! – How artistic thinking inspires new ideas,a discussion on the power of creative thinking in innovation and the role of the artist on stage and beyond, will take place on Sunday, March 18 at12 p.m.and feature Rick Johnson, Kentucky Science and Technology Corp;Lisa Kron,Playwright (The Veri**on Play)and Jae Rhim Lee, MIT Artist-in-Residence. Panel discussions are free but tickets and will be held in the Pamela Brown Auditorium.

This year attendees of the 36th annual Humana Festival will have more opportunities to interact with and learn more about the hot topics in American theatre today from some of with American theatre's practitioners and leaders in the field. During Industry weekends, March 23-25 and March 30- April 1 Actors Theatre will host two panel discussions, The scribes speak: a playwrights' forum on March 25 at 11:30 a.m. will feature members of Actors Theatre's National Playwright Advisory Team including: Molly Smith Metzler, Allison Moore, Adam Rapp and Steven Sapp. Critiquing Criticism: (re)imagining the future on Friday, March 30 at 10:30 a.m. will be moderated by Polly Carl, Editor, Howlround (HowlRound.com) and includes: Sasha Anawalt, Publisher, www.Engine28.com,Bill Hirschman, Theatre Critic and Chair of New Plays Committee American Theatre Critics Association;Thomas Graves, Co-Producing Artistic Director, Rude Mechs;Ilana M. Brownstein, Director of New Work, Company One;Deborah Stein, Playwright. Tickets to the panels are included in Industry Weekend Packages.

Actors Theatre will also partner with New Play TV, a project of www.howlround.com , to livestream the Humana Festival panel discussions. All four panels will be live streamed on New Play TV's project public channel page http://newplaytv.info or via the livestream channel #NEWPLAY TV. During each panel discussion, online viewers can submit questions via Twitter using #HumanaFest.

The Humana Festival of New American Plays draws local, national and international attention and attracting arts professionals and theatre enthusiasts from across the country. Last year's Humana Festival boasted more than 100 performances and attracted visitors from 44 states and 9 countries. This year's Festival showcases seven full-length plays, including a play by five writers commissioned by Actors Theatre and featuring the Acting Apprentice Company, and an evening of three ten-minute plays. The productions will run in rotating repertory in Actors Theatre's 633-seat Pamela Brown Auditorium, 318-seat Bingham Theatre and 159-seat Victor Jory Theatre.

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