Playwright Sinan Unel had a big OOB hit in 1998 with the Lark Theatre Company's production of Pera Palas. He now returns to the group for a Studio Retreat reading of his newest play, Tolstoy's Den.

This examination of a surrogate family on Cape Cod looks at death through the various eyes of the diverse family's members.

Born in Turkey, dramatist Unel now lives in the U.S. Previous plays include A Mad Person's Chronicle of a Miserable Marriage and Thalassa My Heart. Pera Palas was set in Istanbul's legendary Pera Palas Hotel, which inspired both Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and the bar in Casablanca, and traced 70 years and three generations in a Turkish family's history.

Lark Theatre resident director Steven Williford, who helmed Pera Palas, directs. His credits include Halfway Home, Laudry and Lies and the recent Lark reading of Hilly Hicks Jr.’s A Hole in the Dark.

Tickets are available by calling (212) 246-2676. The Lark Theatre is located at and on the web at http://www.larktheatre.org. — By Christine Ehren