By Andrew Gans
03 Nov 2006

The York Theatre Company's Developmental Reading Series will continue in December with free readings of Mongrel and A Room with a View.

Mongrel — penned by Cornelia Cody — will be presented Dec. 8 at 3 PM. Cody's musical focuses on the life of Dorothy Parker, the witty writer born in 1893 who became part of the famed Algonquin Round Table. "Always very ambivalent about her Jewish background," states productions notes, "[Parker] and her works could be both extremely funny and piercingly nasty, as revealed in this revised and updated show."

A Room with a View, which is adapted from E.M. Forster's novel, will be offered Dec. 14 at 3 PM. Featuring a score by Robert Firpo-Cappiello, the musical is described thusly: "Lucy Honeychurch's chance encounter with the troubled George Emerson and his philosopher father at a Florence pensione turns her well-ordered Edwardian world upside down. Will Lucy follow in the footsteps of her buttoned-down chaperone, Charlotte, who declares the Emersons 'unsuitable,' or listen to her own heart and embrace the young man who offers her a physical and spiritual 'room with a view'?"

The York Theatre Company is located at Saint Peter's Theatre in Citigroup Center at 619 Lexington Avenue. Call (212) 935-5824, ext. 24 for reservations. Visit www.yorktheatre.org for more information.