Theatre UAB picks “GUTTING” as Apsey Play Search winner

A staged reading of the 2013 Apsey Play Search winner, presented by Theatre UAB, will be performed Nov. 2.

apsey_s“GUTTING,” a play by Jeremy J. Kamps, is the winner of the 2013 Ruby Lloyd Apsey Play Search, presented by the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Theatre.

For the past 25 years, Theatre UAB’s Apsey Play Search has sought new and original full-length plays that confront racial or ethnic issues, especially those calling for ethnically diverse and/or multiracial casting. The Apsey Award offers a $1,000 prize plus a staged reading and audience talk-back at Theatre UAB and the possibility of a fully mounted production.

“GUTTING” is a poetic tragedy about people struggling to rebuild their lives in the devastated remains of New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Kamps will attend the staged reading of the play at Theatre UAB, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, in UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center’s Odess Theatre, 1200 10th Ave., South. The reading is free and open to the public. Theatre senior Markeitra Gilliam of New Orleans, La., will direct the reading. For more information, contact Assistant Professor of Theatre and Apsey Play Search Chair Lee Shackleford at leeshack@uab.edu.

Kamps, a New York-based playwright known most recently for his play “What It Means to Disappear Here,” earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in dramatic writing from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. He has been a finalist or semifinalist for The Lark, Woodward International Playwriting Contest and the Eugene O’Neill Playwriting Conference. In 2011, his play “Water Hyacinth” received awards from the NYU Festival of New Works and the Hudson Valley Writers Center. In addition to his work as a writer, Kamps also is a youth educator who has taught and worked in the United States, Latin America and East Africa.