New Play Readings

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2024
7:00 PM
FREE – reservations not required

 

Paul and Emile,

or, The Masterpiece

by Kai Maristed
directed by Rebecca Berger

 

Paul Cezanne and Emile Zola were inseparable as schoolboys in Aix-en-Provence.  Once up in Paris they shivered sharing a bed and eating broiled sparrows, impatient for the world to recognize their genius, one as painter, the other as writer. Then, inexplicably, came a bitter falling out. A mystifying two decades of silence.

But what might happen when a curious playwright (yes) brings them together again, unexpectedly, in Cezanne’s studio, at the height of their separate life journeys? Joy? Rage? Old secrets dragged into the light? Tears? Homicide?

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2024
1:00 PM
FREE – reservations not required

Word of Rich Relations

by Jody O’Neil
presented in collaboration with Sailor Beware

 

Money changes everything in this Southern Gothic horror-fantasy that chronicles the psychological unraveling of a woman recently retired from a life spent in servitude to ruinous men. Word of Rich Relations takes its cue from the power dynamic found in the trio of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire by reimagining the Stella character on a journey of her own.

 

 

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2024
7:00 PM
FREE – reservations recommended

It Can’t Happen Here – Again

sponsored by Writers for Democratic Action
adapted by James Carroll
directed by Jeff Zinn
featuring Dennis Cunningham, D’Arcy Dersham, Susan Lambert, Bob Seay, Sallie Tighe, and William Zielinski

 

In 1936, It Can’t Happen Here, a stage adaptation by Sinclair Lewis of his own bestselling novel, opened simultaneously in 21 theaters in 17 states across America, one week before that year’s presidential election. It was a warning against the rise of fascism in America.

This past July 19th you may have been part of the audience at WHAT who witnessed a staged reading of It Can’t Happen Here – Again! That sold out event also played at 91 locations in 71 cities and towns in 24 states, before thousands of voters. Now, on October 27th, we’re going to do it again with a newly revised and updated version of the script!