Actor and director Joe Morton (Broadway’s Art; filmdom’s “The Brother From Another Planet”) will helm a reading of a new play by Ray Aranha, The Half House of Bondage, March 27 at Off-Off-Broadway’s Blue Heron Arts Center. A cast of 16 will take part in the reading, including Larry Marshall (Play On!), Teagle F. Bougere (the Patrick Stewart Tempest) and Suzzanne Douglas. The play is set in the post-Civil War south.

Other upcoming Blue Heron readings are:

• Fanny and Walt, a look at Walt Whitman and journalist Fanny Fern, penned by Jewel Seehaus-Fisher and directed by Julia Murphy (April 11).
• Toast and Jam by Y [sic] York, directed by Leslie (Hoban) Blake (April 17)
• The Brigadeer, by Phillip Courtney and directed by Susann Brinkley. Schedule permitting, Brian Murray is tentatively slated for the cast.

Readings are and refreshments are served. The Blue Heron is located at 123 East 24th Street.

According to director Blake, the Blue Heron center was created, by Ardelle Striker and Gary Bernstein, out of an old health club in spring 1999. Located in Gramercy Park, the theatre is used by such established Off and Off-Off-Broadway companies as Naked Angels, Willow Cabin and Theatre by the Blind. -- By David Lefkowitz