“WEST stands at the base of the tree. He looks at the tree, and it’s as if the tree looks back at him. He rubs the back of his neck, and then shakes his head out. He grabs a pencil, lays the childlike blueprint on the ground and starts to draw on top of it.”

Life has been easy for West, a 27 year old RISD graduate, who has just spent the past seven years of his life working as a customer service rep at an online banking company, that is until a collapse at work and subsequent diagnosis puts an expiration date on West’s life. West see’s a doctor who lays it out on the table for him, he is dying, he has a few months to live, and his brain tumor is inoperable. She then encourages him to stay with family and do the things he’s always wanted to do. Shocked by the news West quits his job and moves back to semi-rural Amherst, Massachusetts, back to his overbearing yet nurturing Mother’s home, where he sets out to build the tree house of his dreams before his time runs out.

Part of the Next Voices Festival, featuring four readings by our Next Voices Playwriting Fellows:
False Flag by Walt McGough – Saturday June 4 at 3pm
Jesus Girls by Lila Rose Kaplan – Saturday June 4 at 7pm
When Herod Came to Georgia by James McLindon – Sunday June 5 at 3pm
Dream House by Cassie M. Seinuk – Sunday June 5 at 7pm

New Rep’s Next Voices readings are free and open to the public.
Call the Box Office at 617-923-8487 to reserve your complimentary spot.

Cassie M. Seinuk is a Jewish Cuban playwright, AEA stage manager, and visual artist with an MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen from Lesley University, and her BA at Brandeis University with High Honors in Theatre Arts and Creative Writing. Her play Occupy Hallmark is the 2015 Winner of the Gary Garrison National Ten Minute Play Award at The Kennedy Center. Seinuk’s full-length play From the Deep is the second place recipient of the 2014 Latinidad Playwrights Award at The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, the 2014 winner of the Pestalozzi Prize for best New Play at the Firehouse Center for the Arts, a Global Age Project semi-finalist at the Aurora, and a semi-finalist for the nuVoices Festival in at the Actors’ Theatre of Charlotte NC. She was a Kennedy Center Fellow and Playwright Observer at The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference 2014 and 2015. She is the recipient of the Boston University Jewish Cultural Endowment grant for From the Deep with Boston Public Works. Seinuk’s short play Leave A Message is a Region 1 regional semifinalist for the National Ten-minute Play Award. Occupy Hallmark and Playing Checkers were national finalists at Region 1 for the National Ten-Minute Play Award at KCACTF 2015. Her newest play Eyes Shut. Door Open will receive a production with Wax Wings Productions this August. It is also a 2014 Inkwell Finalist, and has received development with Interim Writers, Wax Wings, and Argos Productions. In addition, Seinuk is the co-founder of Interim Writers, and is a member of their Accomplice Writers’ Group. Seinuk is a member of Boston Public Works Theatre Company (P2), a Dramatist Guild member and Ambassador, and a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.  (Website / New Play Exchange Profile)