Thurs, May 20 @ 6 P.M: Book Party for Eric Lane's Heart of the City. Wine and Cheese Reception and Book Signing (Free) @ The Drama Book Shop

Join us for a wine and cheese reception to celebrate Playscripts' publication of Heart of the City. Cast members from the play's off-Broadway premiere, Scott Kerns and Martin LaPlatney, will join actresses Jenny Gammello and Susan Greenhill to read selections from the script. Meet award-winning playwright/editor Eric Lane, who will be on hand to sign copies of his new play.

Eric Lane is a playwright, book editor and filmmaker. His works have been performed in the U.S., Europe and China. Plays include Heart of the City (Theatre at 30th St.), Ride (W.H.A.T.), Times of War (A.T.F.), Cater-Waiter (HERE) and Dancing on Checkers' Grave, which starred Jennifer Aniston. With Nina Shengold, Eric has edited a dozen contemporary play anthologies for Vintage and Penguin Books. Honors include a Writer's Guild Award, the La MaMa Playwright Award and the Berrilla Kerr Award. Eric is an honors graduate of Brown University and artistic director of Orange Thoughts Productions, a not-for profit theater and film company in NYC.

About the Play:
A mismatched romance on a Brooklyn subway, an unexpected date, a couple struggling to have a baby, an artist re-discovering his passion: these stories and more are artfully woven together to create a tapestry of humor, love, sorrow, and romance. Through a series of short scenes, Heart of the City is a valentine to the joys and challenges of contemporary life that will take you on a dazzling ride through the trials and triumphs of the heart.

Reviews:

"Buoyed by its palpably benign worldview. Unlike many social mosaics, it does not, for once, amount to a blunt condemnation of urban existence. How refreshing." --Andy Webster, The New York Times

"Eric Lane writes a play like a magic lantern. Ingmar Bergman's magic lantern. Real people crisscross everywhere, like beating hearts, behind the characters in Heart of the City. The whole play jolts into life, like an unforeseen synthesizing burst of electricity." --Jerry Tallmer, The Villager

"There are moments of insight, compassion, and wisdom -- and they're all illuminated by the energetic cast." --TheaterMania

Heart of the City
Playscripts, 2010.
Acting Edition: $8.99
(Please call to order: 212 944-0595)

Melissa Miller and Scott Kerns in Heart of the City, produced by Fern Kershon & Orange Thoughts Productions at the Theatre at 30th Street, New York City (2009). Photo: Jeramy Peay