An American Center for New Plays
Recipient of the Regional Theater Tony Award

Monday, January 21 2008

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Readers Theater

Tuesday 3/4/2008 7 pm
Rutherford’s Travels
by David Barr III and Ilesa Duncan 7pm

A cavalier, self-confessed ‘rascal’ named Rutherford Calhoun is a recently freed slave in 1830 New Orleans. Deeply in debt to a local gangster, he is about to be forced into marriage with his prissy but cunning schoolteacher girlfriend, so he sneaks aboard an outbound ship, ‘The Republic’. Rutherford’s clever ‘escape’ backfires when he discovers the ship is actually a notorious ‘slaver’ headed to Africa to retrieve their precious ‘Black gold’ for an unholy transport back to America. Thus begins a voyage of horror and self-discovery that will change our young hero forever.

3/10/2008 Suicide, Incorporated
by Andrew Hinderaker 7pm

Welcome to "Legacy Letters," a consulting agency that will critique and rewrite your suicide note. There's Scott, the meglomaniac boss who dreams of taking his company public. There's Perry, the poetry major whose farewell notes always wax a bit sentimental. And then there's Jason. The new hire. The one with the talent... as well as a hidden agenda. And from the moment Jason's first customer walks through the door, it becomes apparent that this editor has no intention of helping his clients die.

Blending dark humor and drama, SUICIDE, INCORPORATED asks why so many young men choose to end their lives. And what must be done so that more choose to live.

 

 

Previous 2007/2008 Readers Theater Performances

 

 

9/17/2007 girls
by Elizabeth Brandon

10/15/2007 As Reaper in Summer Grain
by Keith Byron Kirk


10/29/2007 Standing In Mattoon
by Tim Clue

Standing in Mattoon is a play about a small town, with big stories. A recently divorced factory worker is planning to relocate while a reverend from a small church loses his congregation to the mega church. These two desperate souls enter a unique contest of endurance in hopes that they can change their lives. A funny, sad story about funny, sad people that want to change their funny, sad lives.

11/19/2007 Quark Gloria
by Bond Clunie

With commercial flights into outer space a reality, will we soar into the great beyond or feed the starving children on this planet? Dr. Alexandra Seabold, an astrophysics professor, and her husband Terry, a kindergarten teacher, face personal challenges and humanitarian urges as they struggle to decide “Is a taste of space worth it?”

Quark is a finalist in the STAGE (Scientists Technologists Artists Generating Exploration) International Script Competition for best new play about science and technology.

12/10/2007 The Wrong War
by Lee Kalcheim

The Wrong War explores World War II through the eyes of Churchill and Hitler.

12/17/2007 Jerusalem
by Richard Harris

Conflicts abound when a real estate developer persuades 4 old buddies to invest in developing an outlandish Las Vegas resort-casino.

 

 

1/21/2008 And When We Awoke There Was Light And Light
by Laura Jacqmin 7pm

High school senior Katie thinks she's made friends online with a child soldier in Uganda named David. When she offers to help him come to the United States, she faces obstacles in the form of her liberal parents (who would rather just write a check) and her guidance counselor (who just wants to see her get into Harvard). When she learns that David hasn't been honest about his past, will she abandon the idea or trust a veritable stranger?

Essential Info

Opening: January 21, 2008
Closing: March 10, 2008

Readers Theater 08-09

 

 

 

 

12/4/2008 7:00 pm

HARLEQUIN

written by Ruth Margraff
directed by Loy Arcenas
at Victory Gardens Biograph Theater
(upstairs in the Biograph Rehearsal Room)
2433 N. Lincoln Avenue

Set in 1994 Providence, Rhode Island, a poetry graduate student meets an Iraqi refugee in a bookstore cafe. Their conversation sweeps them across many landscapes, imprints of history, urgent immediacy, and the masquerades of foreboding.

HARLEQUIN is commissioned by the 2006-07 McKnight National Commission & Residency at the Playwrights Center developed with dramaturg Polly Carl and director Lisa Peterson (Minneapolis) and by a Hedgebrook/Alpert award residency (Seattle) http://3togetready.org/PDF/McRes06-07.pdf

"Ruth Margraff is a distinguished innovator capable of bending boundaries in opera and musical theater.  Her newest work HARLEQUIN is a pre-911 story of a poet who meets and falls for the leader of an Iraqi opposition group in New England; Margraff's latest promises to be lyrical and sensual, providing a reminder of the world's shape during the last decade of the previous century." ~ City Pages (Minneapolis) Quinton Skinner March 14, 2007~

 

 

 

Previous 2007/2008 Readers Theater Performances 

9/17/2007 girls
by Elizabeth Brandon

10/15/2007 As Reaper in Summer Grain
by Keith Byron Kirk


10/29/2007 Standing In Mattoon
by Tim Clue

Standing in Mattoon is a play about a small town, with big stories. A recently divorced factory worker is planning to relocate while a reverend from a small church loses his congregation to the mega church. These two desperate souls enter a unique contest of endurance in hopes that they can change their lives. A funny, sad story about funny, sad people that want to change their funny, sad lives.

11/19/2007 Quark
by Gloria Bond Clunie

With commercial flights into outer space a reality, will we soar into the great beyond or feed the starving children on this planet? Dr. Alexandra Seabold, an astrophysics professor, and her husband Terry, a kindergarten teacher, face personal challenges and humanitarian urges as they struggle to decide “Is a taste of space worth it?”

Quark is a finalist in the STAGE (Scientists Technologists Artists Generating Exploration) International Script Competition for best new play about science and technology.

12/10/2007 The Wrong War
by Lee Kalcheim

The Wrong War explores World War II through the eyes of Churchill and Hitler.

12/17/2007 Jerusalem
by Richard Harris

Conflicts abound when a real estate developer persuades 4 old buddies to invest in developing an outlandish Las Vegas resort-casino.

 

 

1/21/2008 And When We Awoke There Was Light And Light
by Laura Jacqmin 7pm

High school senior Katie thinks she's made friends online with a child soldier in Uganda named David. When she offers to help him come to the United States, she faces obstacles in the form of her liberal parents (who would rather just write a check) and her guidance counselor (who just wants to see her get into Harvard). When she learns that David hasn't been honest about his past, will she abandon the idea or trust a veritable stranger?

Tuesday 3/4/2008 7 pm
Rutherford’s Travels
by David Barr III and Ilesa Duncan 7pm

A cavalier, self-confessed ‘rascal’ named Rutherford Calhoun is a recently freed slave in 1830 New Orleans. Deeply in debt to a local gangster, he is about to be forced into marriage with his prissy but cunning schoolteacher girlfriend, so he sneaks aboard an outbound ship, ‘The Republic’. Rutherford’s clever ‘escape’ backfires when he discovers the ship is actually a notorious ‘slaver’ headed to Africa to retrieve their precious ‘Black gold’ for an unholy transport back to America. Thus begins a voyage of horror and self-discovery that will change our young hero forever.

3/10/2008 Suicide, Incorporated
by Andrew Hinderaker 7pm

Welcome to "Legacy Letters," a consulting agency that will critique and rewrite your suicide note. There's Scott, the meglomaniac boss who dreams of taking his company public. There's Perry, the poetry major whose farewell notes always wax a bit sentimental. And then there's Jason. The new hire. The one with the talent... as well as a hidden agenda. And from the moment Jason's first customer walks through the door, it becomes apparent that this editor has no intention of helping his clients die.

Blending dark humor and drama, SUICIDE, INCORPORATED asks why so many young men choose to end their lives. And what must be done so that more choose to live.

 

 

 

Essential Info