ZK Lowenfels is a 20 year-old female, and this summer when her play stages at the 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival, she will be the youngest female playwright in America.

Making her playwriting debut with Sewer Rats at Sea – a daring genre-bending production that is a playfully crooked cross between clever bar banter and a JD Salinger novel, Lowenfels will be showcasing an even more important issue in American theatre:

Female playwrights represent less than 17% of all staged plays and staged productions in this country.

This will make her premiere a whopping triumph for herself and young women everywhere, along with The Hollywood Fringe’s decision to “break from the ordinary” and present her play.

“The Fringe Festival is a great opportunity to showcase ZK’s brilliance,” commented Aaron Lyons, a veteran director of the festival, to be held this June, who initially surprised by the age of the playwright, also commented “It’s a fantastic script with such a strong base. It hits you on so many levels.”

The drama plays out at sea as characters trapped on a yacht find their secrets slipping out. The tension mounts as one final, all-important secret looms ahead like an enormous iceberg in the fog, a truth that will shipwreck the status quo and cast preconceptions into freezing water.

Writing has always had a place of high importance in Lowenfels life at a very young age.  And it could also be said that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.  Ms. Lowenfels had great influences starting with her great-grandfather, avant-garde poet Walter Lowenfels, fueled by the works of some of his friends and fellow troublemakers (Beckett and Henry Miller, among others). She’s been writing since age 5 and published since age 7.

Z was also encouraged by the rave reviews of her readers, and the help of her closest friend, young producer Gia Vangieri. Assisted by the muscle of Mr. Lyons (Pulp Shakespeare, Rise) this summer her words will come to life  in Los Angeles.