Plays by Lisa Kron, Colman Domingo, Itamar Moses Part of Public's Free Play Readings Series | Playbill

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News Plays by Lisa Kron, Colman Domingo, Itamar Moses Part of Public's Free Play Readings Series Plays by Tony Award nominees Lisa Kron and Colman Domingo will be presented as part of the Public Theater's play reading series, New Work Now! this September.

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Colman Domingo

The free readings will take place Sept. 7-18 in the Martinson Theater. In addition to Kron (Well, In the Wake) and Domingo (Scottsboro Boys, A Boy and His Soul), the series will feature works by Christina Anderson, Danai Gurira, Dawn Jamieson, Itamar Moses, Tanya Saracho, S.M. Shephard-Massat, Julian Sheppard and Alena Smith.

Directors lined up include Leigh Silverman, Emily Mann, Robert O’Hara and Delroy Lindo.

The Public will also stage a reading of Daniel Berrigan's 1970 play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, which will reunite original director Gordon Davidson with the piece. The play is presented as part of the Public's New Work Then, which looks at iconic works from the Public's history.

Here's a look at the plays:

Zero (Sept. 7 at 7 PM)
By Julian Sheppard
Directed by Leigh Silverman
"A lifelong New Yorker who’s lost his way. A desperate club owner. A Brazilian kept woman. An Israeli real estate broker. Two West Virginia teenagers. Beginning at Ground Zero with a tourist and a kind of tour guide, Zero explores how we live with a hole in the center of our world through a panoramic perspective on post-9/11 New York City. A play about the different routes we take to survival, what happens when disparate lives collide, and the desire for redemption." The Ver**zon Play (Sept. 8 at 7 PM)
By Lisa Kron
Directed by Anne Kauffman
"When Jenni called customer service all she wanted was to fix a minor problem with her cell phone bill. Instead she was sucked into a vortex of unimaginable horror. Now she wants revenge - or to get her cell phone service turned back on. This new play by Lisa Kron is part thriller, part screwball comedy, part based on actual events that have undoubtedly happened to YOU."

The Bad Guys (Sept. 9 at 7 PM)
By Alena Smith
Directed by Kip Fagan
"It’s Indian summer and the boys are back home. Noah’s fired up the grill. Fink bought a steak. And Jesse, as always, has weed. They’re all set for a perfectly 'bromantic' afternoon. But politics, ambition, money – and murder – have a way of killing the buzz. By the end of the day, even the strongest bonds will be shaken in this collision of angry young men."

Hollow Roots (Sept. 10 at 7 PM)
By Christina Anderson
Directed by Eric Ting
"They say we live in post-racial times but who leads a post-racial life? In this thought-provoking play for one actor, a young Black American woman sets out on a quest to find one person leading a life unrestricted by race or gender."

The Convert (Sept. 12 at 7 PM)
By Danai Gurira
Directed by Emily Mann
"Set amid the scramble for sovereignty in southern Africa (now Zimbabwe) in 1895, The Convert tells the tale of a young girl who escapes a forced marriage with the help of a stalwart black African catechist. Indebted to this new Christian god, she shuns her culture to become his protégé, but when an anti-colonial uprising erupts she must decide where her heart truly belongs."

Mala Hierba (Sept. 14 at 7 PM)
By Tanya Saracho
Directed by Jerry Ruiz
"Set in the South Texas of her youth and written in the Windy City, where Chicago Magazine called her Best New Playwright of 2010, Tanya Saracho’s Mala Hierba focuses on the trophy wife of a border magnate who wavers between her wifely duty and the love of her life as she navigates the dangerous waters between desire and obligation."

Yellowjackets (Sept. 15 at 7 PM)
By Itamar Moses
"Politics. Race. Class. Welcome to Berkeley High School, 1994: the most diverse public high school in America…and as divided as America itself. But when an on-campus brawl sets in motion a chain of events that effects newspaper nerds and gang members alike, loyalties will be tested, identities questioned, and a community that prides itself on always being ahead of the political curve will be forced to face how far it still has to go. And then there's P.E."

Starvings (Sept. 16 at 7 PM)
By S.M. Shephard-Massat
Directed by Delroy Lindo
"World War II is over, and Bettie and Meeker have moved from rural Florida to urban Atlanta to join a small but up-and-coming black community. But as pressure mounts at Meeker’s workplace and Bettie’s expectations become bigger than both of them, the better life they dreamed of seems less than certain to be on the horizon."

Wild With Happy (Sept. 17 at 7 PM)
By Colman Domingo
Directed by Robert O’Hara
"Colman Domingo explores the surreal, bizarre and outrageous comedy that can stem from loss via the story of Gil: a young man who plans to scatter his mother’s ashes in the place where she was most happy, Disney World."

Mangled Beams (Sept. 18 at 7 PM)
By Dawn Jamieson
Directed by James Fall Shubinski
"Iroquois ironworkers built New York's skyscrapers and on 9/11 many returned to the World Trade Center to remove the mangled beams raised up by those who came before them. In this new play by Dawn Jamieson, these Native men seek rescue and redemption as they try to untangle the beams and their own lives, as well."

The New Works Then presentation of Daniel Berrigan's The Trail of the Catonsville Nine will take place Sept. 13 at 7 PM.

"On May 17, 1968, Father Daniel Berrigan, his brother Father Philip Berrigan and seven other Catholic peace activists seized 378 draft documents from Local Board No. 33 in Catonsville, Maryland and publicly burned them to protest the napalming of innocent people during the Vietnam War."

Public Theater members can now reserve seats. Non-members can make reservations beginning Aug. 22. Phone (212) 967-7555.

Visit PublicTheater. The Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette Street in Manhattan.

 
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