Admission is free and the event is open to the public, but an RSVP is required at (212) 727-2737.
The cast for the reading of The Good Father includes Matthew Rauch (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Revenger's Tragedy) and Samantha Soule (The Voysey Inheritance, Valhalla).
In the play, "it is New Year's Eve and most of the party guests are in the kitchen admiring photos of each other's babies. But two lonely strangers find themselves cut off from the others. Jane was invited because she knows the people in the kitchen. Tim was invited because he painted the kitchen. Their lives would have been very different if Jane hadn't come up to Tim and asked, 'What are you doing for sex tonight?'"
Playwright O'Reilly was born in London and brought up in Listowel. His one-act play, It Just Came Out, was staged by Druid as part of its Debut series (2001) and later by Spotlight (2001) and Tyger (2003). The Good Father, his first full-length stage production, was directed by Garry Hynes and staged by Druid for the 25th Galway Arts Festival (2002). In 2003 Druid toured it to Dublin, Portlaoise, Ennis and back to Galway again. The Good Father was joint winner of the 2002 Stewart Parker Trust New Playwright Bursary. He wrote the short play, Problem Solvers Anonymous, for Galway Youth Theatre in 2003 as part of a 24-hour theatre experiment during Cuirt. Tyger Theatre Company staged it and another short play of his, It Won't Be Great When I'm Not Here, at the 2004 Dublin Fringe Theatre Festival and toured both in 2005. He lives in Galway.
Kara Manning, IRT's literary manager, hopes that the Irish Rep reading series will "give playwrights, both emerging and more established, the invaluable opportunity to develop their new work in a supportive, safe environment and will also introduce some Irish playwrights, especially those who might not yet have the New York recognition they merit, to an American audience." The Irish Repertory Theatre is at 132 W. 22nd Street.
For more information visit www.irishrep.org.
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As part of its mission statement, The Irish Repertory Theatre "encourages the development of new works focusing on the Irish and Irish American experience, as well as a range of other cultures."
