40th Anniversary Reading Series

As part of our “ruby anniversary” season, WP Theater will be launching our Fortieth Anniversary Reading Series to take place this Spring. Past meets present as WP shares staged readings of five extraordinary plays from throughout its history, directed by recent alums and current members of the WP Theater Directors Lab…

Monday, March 25 at 7:00pm

Antigone Project
conceived by Sabrina Peck and Chiori Miyagawa
by Tanya Barfield, Karen Hartman and Chiori Miyagawa, Lynn Nottage and Caridad Svich
directed by Victoria Collado and Rebecca Martinez (2018-2020 WP Lab Directors)

Originally produced in 2004Produced at WP Theater in 2004, Antigone Project is a collection of short plays written by 5 celebrated women playwrights. Inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone, these plays examine moral courage in the face of unbridled power and tackle themes of civic, state and familial responsibility through the lens of one of dramatic literatures most well known heroines.

Monday, April 1 at 7:00pm

Still Life
by Emily Mann
directed by Arpita Mukherjee (2018-2020 WP Lab Director)
Originally produced in 1981

First produced at WP Theater in the 1980 season, Emily Mann’s Still Life went on to win the Obie for Best Production. Inspired by interviews Mann conducted at the conclusion of the Vietnam War, Still Life remains a layered masterpiece and potent interrogation of love, family, home and war as seen through the intertwined lens of a Combat Veteran, his wife and his Mistress.

Abingdon Square
by María Irene Fornés
directed by Melissa Crespo (2016-2018 WP Lab Director)
Originally produced in 1987

María Irene Fornés’ Abingdon Square, first produced by WP Theater in 1987, remains a relevant exploration of passions that erupt from a marriage between a young girl and an older man. Set in pre-WW1 Greenwich Village, this play exhibits a rich and incisive study of a young woman’s sexuality.

Friday, April 26 at 7:00pm

Aye Aye Aye I’m Integrated
by Anna Deavere Smith
Originally produced in 1984

&

Chain
by Pearl S. Cleage
Originally produced in 1992

directed by Tamilla Woodard (WP Associate Artistic Director, 2014-2016 WP Lab Director)

In a reading of their little known short plays, Anna Deavere Smith’s Aye, Aye, Aye, I’m intergrated and Pearl Cleage’s Chain, one evening will celebrate the voices of two powerful African American Women of the theater.

Friday, May 3 at 7:00pm

The Exact Center of Universe
by Joan Vail Thorne
directed by Sarah Krohn (2014-2016 WP Lab Director)
Originally Produced in 1999

“I never interfere! I intervene!” insists Vada Love Powell – Southern doyenne, adoring mother, and force of nature. Vada’s small-town universe is shaken to its core when her devoted son Apple follows his heart instead of mother’s expectations. Gossip whirls, barbs fly, and secrets emerge in this comedy, first produced at WP Theater in 1999, about a mother, a son, and the woman who dares come between them.