READING SERIES
FEBRUARY - MARCH, 2023
Each season, P45 Theatre invites audiences to a series of play readings featuring the work of daring playwrights produced across the country and around the world. These plays allow us to include multiple voices in important, ongoing conversations around race, religion, gender, ability and more. Every reading concludes with a discussion featuring artists and community members.
Storytelling is one of the greatest mechanisms we have for engaging communities! Each of these readings will be followed by a discussion with one of our community partners, helping frame an ongoing conversation around some of the topics these plays present -- climate change, LGBTQIA+ and immigrant rights, justice, death, spirituality, and more.
This year, performances take place at the newly constructed Alluvion Theatre at Commongrounds. Tickets are available with a suggested donation of $20. We encourage getting tickets ahead of time, and if any seats remain, they will be sold at the door.
THE INHERITANCE PART 2 (SELECTIONS)
Thursday, February 9 at 6 pm - The Alluvion
By Matthew Lopez
Directed by Micah Mabey
Featuring Hunter Bell, Jan Dalton, Jeremy Evans, Ramon Gaitan, Matthew Glenn, Mychelle Hopkins, Ben May, Nick Viox, Zach Watson, Charlie Wilson
Decades after the height of the AIDS epidemic, The Inheritance tells the story of three generations of gay men in New York City attempting to forge a future for themselves amid a turbulent and changing America. Eric Glass is a political activist engaged to his writer boyfriend, Toby Darling. When two strangers enter their lives—an older man and a younger one—their futures suddenly become uncertain as they begin to chart divergent paths. Inspired by E.M. Forster’s masterpiece Howards End, The Inheritance is an epic examination of survival, healing, class divide, and what it means to call a place home. Winner of the 2020 Tony Award for Best Play, 2020 Drama Desk Award for Best Play, and 2019 Olivier Award for Best Play. Part one of The Inheritance was presented in February 2022.
THE CHILDREN
Thursday, February 23 at 6 pm - The Alluvion
By Lucy Kirkwood
Directed by Linda Osborn
Featuring Ronessa Butler, Debbie Hershey, Maria McKane, Phil Murphy
Two retired nuclear scientists reside in an isolated cottage by the sea as the world around them crumbles. Together they are going to live forever on yogurt and yoga, until an old friend arrives with a frightening request. “[THE CHILDREN] is…a genuinely disturbing play: one not simply about nuclear power but about the heavy price we may pay in the future for the profligacy of the present.” —Guardian (UK).
MARIE ANTOINETTE
Thursday, March 9 at 6 pm - The Alluvion
By David Adjimi
Directed by Guy Molnar
Featuring Noah Durham Fried, JR Fishburn, Brian Jackson, Meaghan Kenny, Mary Scott O’Connor, HT Snowday, Lauren Snowday, Connor Sweeney, Derek Wooton, Aaron Wright
A theatrical and stylistic retelling of the life and final days of Marie Antoinette. In David Adjmi’s contemporary take on the young queen of France, Marie is a confection created by a society that values extravagance and artifice. But France’s love affair with the royals sours as revolution brews, and for Marie, the political suddenly becomes very personal. From the light and breezy banter at the palace to the surging chants of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!” in the streets, Marie Antoinette holds a mirror up to our contemporary society that might just be entertaining itself to death.
SMOKEFALL
Wednesday, March 22 at 6 pm - Glen Arbor Arts Center
Thursday, March 23 at 6 pm - The Alluvion
By Noah Haidle
Directed by Sarah Bielman
Featuring Kat Bodie, Tom Emmott, Dane Moeggennberg, Brett Nichols, Miishen Willis
Magical realism collides with manic vaudeville in a family drama unlike any you’ve ever seen. Whipping from astonishing tenderness to profound humor and back again, SMOKEFALL explores the lives of a family in a lyrical treatise on the fragility of life and the power of love. “SMOKEFALL is a glorious play…with a unique blend of sophistication and open-heartedness. It is a work that leaves you thinking about every human connection you have, whether on an intimate scale (with your family), or the cosmic one (the whole grand cycle of life and death). Haidle’s genius is that along with the pain and wistfulness come great bursts of true comic brilliance, so you leave the theater in a strange state of tearful exuberance.”