Celebrating Women’s History Month, the third annual Liz Smith Reading Series, sponsored by the Miranda Theatre Company, kicks off on Tuesday, March 3 at 2 PM at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street, NYC.
The late columnist, Liz Smith, was a voracious reader, an advocate for Literacy Volunteers, and an avid theatre-goer was also a great supporter of the Miranda Theatre Company. “The Grand Dame of Dish” was ever the optimist, and therefore a true believer in the company’s mission of developing new work by female playwrights.
Readings are free to the public but reservations are recommended (click here). Here is the complete schedule of readings:
Tuesday March 3rd at 2pm
THE GARBOLOGISTS
by Lindsay Joelle
directed by Taylor Reynolds
New York City sanitation workers Danny and Marlowe have nothing in common except a 20-ton garbage truck. Thrown together by the job, they spend their shifts bickering, one-upping each other, and practicing the secret art of “mongo” — searching for treasure in the trash. But as their lives become increasingly entwined, they learn that some things are easier to toss than others. An unconventional buddy comedy in a garbage truck.
Tuesday March 10th at 2pm
BLOOD
by Nambi E. Kelley
directed by Signe Harriday
Three Black men. Three different generations. More than a hospital room, a television screen, or even the discovered notes in a discarded sax, this play, witnessed through the pen of a conflicted television writer named Hannibal, spans time, reality, and blood memory searching for the moral compass of these three respective generations. Blood explores the connective spine of love, ancestry, and survival.
Thursday March 12th at 2pm
PAPER DREAM
by Lyra Yang
directed by Helen Young
From 1910-40, roughly 175,000 Chinese immigrated to the United States through Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Paper Dream is the story of four Chinese women: a self-proclaimed aristocrat, her husband’s second wife’s obedient daughter, a working-class mother, and a talented young prostitute as they find themselves trapped like prisoners in a “land of freedom.” It is about the ghosts they left behind, the spirit of who they are, and the dream of what they might become. A haunting period drama that reckons with the spectre of nationalism still stalking immigrants at America’s borders.
Tuesday March 17th at 2pm
WATER IN MY HANDS
by Emma Gibson
directed by Valentina Fratti
Sorrel is busy preparing for her wedding even though her fiancé has just died, and Maria’s eyebrows are still not growing back. Gerry wants to know if the weather will improve so that he can lie on his back in the grass, and Eric’s wife has someone else’s heart beating inside her. Through a series of interweaving accounts, Water in My Hands lays bare the power of grief, and asks, ‘how do we move on when we are haunted by the life that we have not yet lived?’
Tuesday March 31st at 2pm
ALL FALL DOWN
by Lisa Ramirez
dramaturgy by Morgan Jenness
directed by Lisa Peterson
On the day of their Bobby’s funeral, in the now abandoned house where they all grew up, Jackie and Grace engage in an emotional, high-stakes struggle to dominate each other’s opposing version of the events that lead to their brother’s untimely and tragic death. Amidst the many voices of the Chorus of the Past and Ghosts of the Present – all living within the house – the sisters are overtaken by unfathomable memories about their powerful absent father, profoundly talented younger brother, and the family’s legacy of addiction and confused cultural identity – bringing them full circle.
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