Milford, NH's American Stage Festival presents a reading of Eduardo Machado's The Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa, Aug. 16 at 2 PM.

Part of the festival's Early Stages staged reading series, The Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa will be followed by a discussion with the directors and actors. The reading is free of charge.

Modern Ladies is set in a small Cuban town in 1928, before the Batista regime takeover. Traditional values run every family, including the Marquez home where the father spends his nights drinking and with mistresses. The oldest daughter has dreams of cutting her hair and marrying a taxi driver, who convinces the family to run a bus line to Havana, ultimately threatening the family's peaceful lifestyle with success and revolution.

Modern Ladies is the first in Machado's Floating Island cycle, which follows the Marquez family to present day Los Angeles through Fabiola, Broken Eggs and In the Eye of the Hurricane. ASF is considering a full production of Modern Ladies for next year.

Michael dell'Orto directs Young Company actors Elena Araoz, Kimberly Forbes, Paul Fraley, Amy Gaimster, Amy Halpin, Dan Merriman and Matthew Porter. The final staged reading in the series will be Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Aug. 30 at 2 PM.

For more information, call (603) 673-7515.

--By Laura MacDonald