LITTLE ROCK, AR -- Arkansas Repertory Theatre (The Rep) has announced that Lynn Nottage and Luis Valdez will be honored at an awards ceremony August 16, 2007, during The Rep’s inaugural Voices at the River. The playwrights’ residency program is designed to support Latino- and African-American playwrights nationally and in Arkansas. Plays to be developed during the residency include new works by Vanessa Garcia, Javon Johnson, Guillermo Reyes, and Ajene D. Washington. Free public readings will be held at Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock, AR, August 15 – 18, 2007.



Honoree Lynn Nottage is the author of Intimate Apparel (produced at The Rep in 2006), Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Las Meninas, and Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine. She is a visiting lecturer at her alma mater, the Yale School of Drama, and is the recipient of an Obie Award for Playwriting, a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, an Outer Critic Circle Award, and Audelco Awards.



Honoree Luis Valdez is the founder and artistic director of the groundbreaking and internationally renowned El Teatro Campesino, which prompted a national Chicano theater movement. A Presidential Medal for the Arts recipient, Valdez is perhaps best-known for the film La Bamba. He also wrote and directed Broadway’s Zoot Suit.



A soiree to honor the participating playwrights will be held at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock on August 16. The following day, in partnership with the Clinton School of Public Service, Nottage and Valdez will discuss the instrumental role the arts can play in motivating social change. Free to the community, the discussion will be held at noon at the Clinton School’s Sturgis Hall.



“These two playwrights have made significant contributions to the American ...