The series is meant to support new plays and emerging playwrights. The Sugar Wife will be read 3 PM June 27 at Irish Rep's home on West 22nd Street.
Admission is free. To RSVP, call (212) 727-2737.
According to Irish Rep, The Sugar Wife "is set in Dublin in the 1850s and tells the story of a wealthy, Irish Quaker woman, Hannah, who is conflicted between her work with the poor and her duty to her ambitious husband who runs a string of successful teahouses. Hannah's idealistic views on morality, piety and loyalty are challenged when she befriends a charismatic, freed American slave, Sarah, and her compassionate — and passionate — English friend, Alfred."
The reading cast includes Arija Bareikis (Orange Flower Water, Intimate Apparel), Orlagh Cassidy (The Field, Bright Ideas), Portia (McReele, Our Lady of 121st Street), Matthew Rauch (The Revenger's Tragedy, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer) and Paul Sparks (Landscape of the Body, Blackbird).
The Sugar Wife was first commissioned by Rough Magic Theatre Company and nominated for Best New Play in the Irish Times Theatre Awards for 2005. It also co-won the Susan Smith Blackburn Award 2005-06. Elizabeth Kuti was born in the U.K. in 1969, and then lived in Dublin from 1993 to 2004, where she studied at Trinity College and then worked as an actress with a number of Irish theatres and companies (including Corn Exchange, Loose Canon, Rough Magic, the Peacock, the Abbey and the Lyric Theatre in Belfast). Her plays have been produced in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
She was awarded second prize in the Susan Smith Blackburn Awards for the year 2000 and the BBC Radio Drama prize in the Stewart Parker Awards 2000.
Kara Manning, Irish Rep literary manager, hopes that the 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."
All readings are at 3 PM and are located at The Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 W. 22nd Street.
For more information visit www.irishrep.org.
