First Stages

BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS' THEATRE PRESENTS:
Sundays and Mondays at 7 PM, April 23 through May 8

FIRST STAGES
Annual staged readings of plays by this year's graduate playwrights:

Bruce Ward
Amy Adler
Leah Maxwell
David Ervin
Brody Lipton
Leslie Harrell Dillon

Readings are performed by some of the best professional actors in the Boston area. A talk-back with the playwrights & actors will follow each reading

April 23 (Sunday at 7 PM)
Lazarus Syndrome
by Bruce Ward
Directed by Bridget O'Leary
Featuring Jerry Kissel, Ted Kazanoff, Joseph Zamparelli, and Michael Kaye
Elliott has not emerged from his apartment in thirteen days. But solitude isn't that easy to maintain when loved ones show up to disrupt one's isolation. A chicken soup recipe of love, loss, family, and renewal. By the author of the nationally-acclaimed solo play, Fabulous Ride into the Unknown (seen in Boston as Decade).

April 24 (Monday at 7 PM)
The Spectators
by Amy Adler
Directed by Melissa Wentworth
Featuring Helen McElwain, Rob Najarian, Karen Woodward Massey, and Nat McIntyre
Four lives intertwine over the course of several years as a writer, his wife and their two friends tread the fine line between love and sex, and face the consequences of a passionate encounter. After the boundaries of friendship are collapsed, these four friends have nothing left to hide behind. The Spectators pushes the envelope of art imitating life, and questions how to be good, even when no one’s looking.

April 30 (Sunday at 7 PM)
Sainte Agathe
by Leah Maxwell
Directed by Bridget O'Leary
Featuring Helen McElwain, Jen Allison, Rena Baskin, Petra Denison, Brinley Vickers
Agathe is a funny sort of saint -- caring for a mother who might not need it, a sister who most definitely does, and all the while coping with the protesters clamoring at the door of her women's clinic. She yearns for a life of her own, please. Quirky, but always desperate, this family clashes at picnics and carries picket signs to boot in this theatrical drama about sisterly forgiveness and other sorrows.

May 1 (Monday at 7 PM)
The Weight of Rain
by David Ervin
Directed by Sid Friedman
Featuring Joe Zamparelli, Matt Peterson, Leslie Dillen, Amanda Sywak
Left without parents, sixteen-year-old Rainey Holcomb wants to run away from home, but brother Adam cannot allow it. A dark family secret must be confronted before either of them can move on with their lives, and Adam is afraid to face it. Can these siblings find forgiveness, or is the pain of betrayal too great? And how great a burden is the past? A family drama about denial and its repercussions.

May 7 (Sunday at 7 PM)
The Housewarming
by Brody Lipton
Directed by Eve Muson
Featuring Ken Baltin, Joseph Zamperelli, Jr., Gabriel Kuttner, Julie Jirousek
There is some wisdom in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell; and securing
for oneself a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire. - Arthur Schopenhauer.
All Frank wants is to be alone in his new home. But some members of his new community conspire to flush him out -- whether he likes it or not. A two-act comedy of menace exploring the trials of lonelinessand the difficulties of change.

May 8 (Monday at 7 PM)
The Reckoning
by Leslie Harrell Dillen
Directed by Melissa Wentworth
Featuring Elise Manning, Robert Najarian, Judy McIntyre
It's Christmas Eve in the Sangre de Cristo mountains outside Santa Fe, and Hillary wants to leave her store. She want to get out in the storm and ski the new snow. A mysterious young man buys a coyote coat and follows her up the mountain into the storm. Time shifts, space fractures, and the young man finds Hillary in a world where the Spirit of Coyote decides. From the award-winning author of the solo plays Me & George and Dressed Up!

(And don't miss our Sister City staged reading on Tuesday, May 9, at 7 PM)

All shows are free and open to the public.
Donations are greatly appreciated and are accepted at the door.
There are no advanced ticket sales for First Stages productions.
Reservations are not required.
A talk-back with the playwrights will follow each reading
CALL OUR OFFICE AT 617-358-PLAY (7529) FOR MORE INFO.

About our Graduate Playwriting program