Staged Play Readings 2015-16
The Merry Wives of Windsor
by William Shakespeare
directed by Brian McElligot
In The Merry Wives of Windsor, fat, disreputable Sir John Falstaff pursues two housewives, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, who outwit and humiliate him instead. Meanwhile, three suitors seek the hand of Anne Page, Mistress Page's daughter.
Falstaff hopes to seduce the wives so he can gain access to their husbands' wealth. Ford learns of Falstaff's approaches and is consumed by jealousy. In disguise, he befriends Falstaff to learn about Mistress Ford’s behavior. The wives, however, trick Falstaff and Ford. As Falstaff visits Mistress Ford, Mistress Page announces that Ford is coming. Falstaff hides in a basket of dirty laundry and is thrown in the river.
Another visit ends similarly: Falstaff disguises himself as “the fat woman of Brentford,” whom Ford hates. Ford beats "her" in anger. Finally, Falstaff is lured to a comical nighttime rendezvous where all of Windsor comes together, Falstaff is publicly humiliated, and Ford admits his folly. Two of Anne Page's suitors elope with boys in disguise while Anne marries her chosen suitor, Fenton.
Crowns
by Regina Taylor
directed by Vicki High
Crowns is a coming of age story about a 17-year-old girl. Yolanda is on a self destructive path running the mean Englewood streets of Chicago. Yolanda’s mother sends her down south to live with her Grandma Shaw after Yolanda’s brother is shot and killed. Grandma Shaw introduces Yolanda to her circle of “Hat Queens”(each woman owns at least one hundred hats). At first, Yolanda thinks these women have nothing in common as this community joins together to save Yolanda’s life. Each hat holds a story of a wedding, funeral, baptism as the women share their stories of how they moved through life’s struggles. Yolanda realizes she’s not alone in her feelings. The hats aren’t just a fashion statement - they are testimonies of sisterhood - they are hard earned Crowns.
La
dy
Winde
rmere’s Fan
by Oscar Wilde
Directed by Dawn DeVries
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first performed on Saturday, 20 February 1892, at the St James's Theatre in London.
The story concerns Lady Windermere, who suspects that her husband is having an affair with another woman. She confronts him with it but although he denies it, he invites the other woman, Mrs Erlynne, to his wife's birthday ball. Angered by her husband's supposed unfaithfulness, Lady Windermere decides to leave her husband for another lover. After discovering what has transpired, Mrs Erlynne follows Lady Windermere and attempts to persuade her to return to her husband and in the course of this, Mrs Erlynne is discovered in a compromising position. It is then revealed Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere's mother, who abandoned her family twenty years before the time the play is set. Mrs Erlynne sacrifices herself and her reputation to save her daughter's marriage.
Fifth of July
by Lanford Wilson
Directed by Regina Gadotti
Kenneth Talley Jr. is a gay paraplegic Vietnam veteran living in his childhood home with his boyfriend, botanist Jed Jenkins. At the beginning of the play, he is due to return to his former high school to teach English, but has decided not to. Visiting Ken and Jed are Ken's sister, June Talley, and her daughter, Shirley, as well as Ken and June's longtime friends, John Landis and his wife Gwen, inheritor of a large industrial copper conglomerate. John is ostensibly visiting to purchase the Talley house for Gwen to convert to a recording studio, so that she can have a career as a country singer. Unbeknownst to anyone but June, John and Ken, Shirley is actually John's daughter, and the visit is also his attempt to gain joint custody of Shirley. Ken, meanwhile, believes that the singing career is a way of distracting Gwen so that John can take over her business. Other visitors include Weston Hurley, Gwen's guitarist, and Ken's aunt, Sally Talley, who still has her husband Matt's ashes in a candy box a year after his death. The play culminates with a "bidding war" between Sally and John for the house, after it is revealed that Ken planned on selling it to Landis. Sally ultimately outbids Landis and says she will give the house to Jed so he can finish his garden.