Kathleen Chalfant, Carmelita Tropicana, Michael Cerveris, David Greenspan, Erin Markey, and MaYaa Boateng will be among the actors performing in The Public Theater's marathon of staged readings of works by playwright Maria Irene Fornes August 27.

The free event is in celebration of the release of the new documentary film on Fornes' life, The Rest I Make Up, which will be screened at MoMa August 23–29.

The Public's Fornes marathon will run from noon to midnight, performed by a rotating cast of actors. The event is spearheaded by director JoAnne Akalaitis, and will showcase Fornes’ little-known and rarely produced works alongside more recognized favorites.

The readings are free and open to all, but reservations, available beginning August 1, are required. Click here to make a reservation.

Fornes is the winner of nine Obie Awards and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her play What of the Night? The Cuban-American playwright has written over 40 plays and is considered one of the pioneers of the Off-Off Broadway experimental theatre movement.

“Fornes creates worlds within worlds and hurls us headlong into them: rural poverty, sexual obsession, the brutality within the banal, surreal musical fantasies, nuclear-environmental disasters, zany potentially dangerous period feminists, violence and humor and humiliation and the continual presence of women, usually young, looking for something better, articulating their thoughts in Irene’s beautiful, terse, emotional language which is both highly stylized and surprisingly natura," says Akalaitis. “This Marathon reading of her work hopes to offer a glimpse into the range of her rich theatrical landscapes and into the heart of an artist who continues to astonish."

Watch the trailer for The Rest I Make Up below.