Williamstown Actors Declare Their "Independence" in July 4 Reading

By Robert Simonson
July 3, 2005

As it has for the past 18 years, the town of Williamstown, Massachusetts, will host a reading of The Declaration of Independence on July 4.

Williamstown is, of course, the home of a noted theatre festival, and this year members of the company will get in on the act. Ellen McLaughlin, and actress and playwright who will be in the Williamstown Theatre Festival's production of Top Girls this summer, will read The Declaration of Independence, as well as the Preamble to The Constitution. New WTF artistic director Roger Rees, meanwhile, will take on the role of the villain: he will read the British response to the Declaration.

The event will take place at 11:30 AM on the second floor of the Chaplin Library, located in Stetson Hall on the Williams College campus behind Sawyer Library. Admission is free.