Play Along Again: The Arena Restaged Play Reading Club New Reading List

By Amrita Mangus, Allen Lee Hughes Dramaturgy Fellow

The suggestions are in! Check out our reading list for the next session of the Arena Restaged Play Reading Club, starting in February and ending in July. Read along with us and blog your thoughts.

1) NEA Finalists: Damn, that's diversity! -- Is this today's American Theater
    Thursday, February 19th

•  Marcus or The Secret of Sweet by Tarell Alvin McCraney
• Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo by Rajiv Joseph
• The Hard Weather Boating Party by Naomi Wallace
• Concerning Western Devices from the Distant West by Naomi Iizuka

 2) Comedies: 2,435 years old and still can’t get no respect!
     Thursday, March 12^th

• You Can’t Take It With You by Kaufmann and Hart
• Chapter Two by Neil Simon
• The Drowsy Chaperone by Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison, Bob Martin, and Don Mckellar.

3)  Latino Playwrights, Do we have to self-identify all the time?! 
      Thursday, April 16^th

• In The Heights by Quiara Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda

• Lydia by Octavio Solis

• Night Train to Bolina by Nilo Cruz

 4) Female playwrights: Gender! Gender! What about it? 
     Thursday, May 14^th

• Chains of Dew by Susan Glaspell
• Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman
• Crooked by Catherine Trieschmann
• Fever Dream by Sheila Callaghan

 5) Tony Award Nominees: Oscar's little theater brother!
     Thursday, June 4^th

• Have the group select 3-4 Tony award nominees to read for play club after the nominees are declared. The 2009 Tony Awards will occur on Sunday, June 7^th.

 6) "Hello American Theater...The typed play script is not everything!"
      Thursday, July 16^th

• Paris Commune by the Civilians

• The Rude Mechanicals (specific piece TBA)

• Arabian Nights by Mary Zimmerman
• Theatre de la Jeune Lune (specific piece TBA)