Posted June 30, 2009
WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES NEW PLAYS BY HATCHER, LAWSON, LIPEZ, SMART, URBAN, AND WRIGHT FILL OUT THE FRIDAYS @ 3 READING SERIES
JULY 3 – AUGUST 7 IN THE PARESKY CENTER
Williamstown, MA (6/30/09) -- The Williamstown Theatre Festival announces the full line up of new plays to be read in the Fridays @ 3 reading series this summer in the Berkshires. Coming to Williamstown this summer will be playwrights Erica Lipez (Bottled Up, Recess), Jeffrey Hatcher (Tuesdays with Morrie, The Turn of the Screw), Craig Wright (The Unseen, “Lost”), Ken Urban (I _ KANT, The Female Terrorist Project), Mat Smart (The Hopper Collection, The 13th of Paris), and Steve Lawson (“St. Elsewhere”, Williamstown Film Festival). Fridays @ 3 invites playwrights to work on their plays with Festival artists and guests, and includes a reading of 2008 Weissberger Award Winner Ken Urban’s play Sense of an Ending. Readings take place Friday afternoons from July 3rd to August 7th at 3:00pm at the Paresky Center on the Williams College campus.
This Season’s schedule includes:
July 3: The Tutors by Erica Lipez Directed by Amanda Charlton
Joe and Toby, along with the many other residents of New York City who work a job in order to do something else, tutor high school students. Heidi anonymously helps write college admissions’ essays online. Together, they run a friendship-finding website from their apartment, except that their work with students starts to invade their lives and, in Heidi’s case, her subconscious. The Tutors by Erica Lipez tests what people who are so plugged into the digital world and online friendship do when confronted by the real thing.
July 10: Mrs. Mannerly by Jeffrey Hatcher Directed by John Rando
Jeffrey, Mrs. Mannerly’s new student, has, at 10 years old, a drive un-seen previously in the world of etiquette. He wants to get a perfect score on Mrs. Mannerly’s impossible test in front of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Will he do it? And at what cost? In this two-person comedy, Jeffrey Hatcher explores the differences between people who use manners and people who have them.
July 17: Mistakes Were Made by Craig Wright Directed by Jeremy Cohen With Joey Pantoliano
Theatre producer, Felix Artifex works and works all day from his desk. At any moment all ten of his phone lines could be full of people wanting and needing something. His only comfort is a huge, ugly Koi goldfish that lives in a tank in his office. As he tries to put his latest project—Mistakes Were Made, a play about the French Revolution—together he must appease a Hollywood star’s creative input, gently make suggestions to the writer, deal with agents, and free Italian-Americans carting trucks of sheep in a foreign land from a terrorist all in the name of theatre. At the end of the day, one wonders, is it worth it?
July 24: Sense of an Ending by Ken Urban 2008 Weissberger Award for Playwriting Winner Directed by Sam Gold
Charles, an African-American journalist, gets assigned to write a piece on the genocide in Rwanda through the story of two nuns being tried for crimes against humanity. These nuns are accused of knowing about the mass murder that happened within their church walls and doing nothing about it. Through his guide and another local man he meets, Charles struggles to understand the many crimes against humanity happening in Rwanda and ultimately must decide how to tell the story.
July 31: Samuel J. and K. by Mat Smart
Samuel J. surprises his adopted brother, Samuel K., with a trip back to his birth country of Cameroon for college graduation—but Samuel K. has no desire to face a place and a past that abandoned him. Samuel J. and K. challenges the traditional definitions of family and asks if a place we’ve only imagined can become home overnight.
August 7: Potomac Fever by Steve Lawson In association with the Williamstown Film Festival Directed by Steve Lawson
Congresswoman Kendall Chase fights for her bill on child nutrition but she soon learns she’ll have to play the game in order to get it passed, and as a woman on Capitol Hill, she has more than her personal image to protect. While she maneuvers through the political world of men, Kendall must decide what she can sacrifice and what she cannot.
Fridays @ 3 readings are held in the Paresky Center Auditorium and there is a suggested donation of $5.00 payable at the door. Reservations can be made by calling 413-597-3400, and are encouraged as seating is limited.
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Continuing its 55-year history under the artistic direction of Nicholas Martin, the Williamstown Theatre Festival is a celebration of theatre that brings together a vast array of award-winning actors, directors and playwrights to entertain and delight the Berkshire community of year-round and seasonal patrons. Every summer, WTF revisits the classics in exciting new productions on its Main Stage, develops and nurtures new work on its Nikos Stage, and offers audiences varied cultural events across its many other venues including Free Theatre, Late-Night Cabarets, readings, workshops and other special events, including the Greylock Theatre Project—a program for youngsters in North Adams area. In addition to its acclaimed productions, WTF has extensive training and professional development programs for the next generation of aspiring theatre artists and managers. In 2002, WTF received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.
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