(WEST STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) – “Really” by Jackie Sibblies Drury will be read at No. Six Depot Roastery and Café on Sunday, May 7, at 3:30pm, as part of the WAM Theatre 2017 Fresh Takes Play Reading Series. Time Out New York called the play “an unnerving study of art as pollution, distraction from a world fast evolving beyond aesthetics.”

The cast includes Danielle Davenport (Playwrights Horizons’ Men on Boats), Ariel Bock (Shakespeare & Company’s Ugly Lies the Bone) and David Bertoldi (Shakespeare & Company’s 2017 Northeast Regional Tour). Alice Reagan – director of Shakespeare & Company’s acclaimed 2016 production of “Or,” – will direct.

“Really” explores the relationships of a young woman taking pictures of her former boyfriend’s mom. Both women clutch their memories of him, as they search to redefine themselves in his wake. “Really” premiered with the New York City Players in 2016 and explores what we find in life, what we leave behind in death, and where both intersect.

“I brought ‘Really’ to Molly Clancy and we were both very intrigued by it,” director Alice Reagan explained. “Jackie Sibblies Drury is one of the most exciting playwrights working today. The way she deals with racial issues is bracing. She doesn’t try to make her characters ‘good’ people, instead she deals with who they are, and as a result her characters are complicated, in process individuals.”

There are only 30 tickets available per reading. Tickets are $20, which includes a post-show conversation and the opportunity to meet the cast and director. Refreshments will be available for purchase at the Café. The 2017 Fresh Takes Series is generously supported by No. Six Depot and the Dramatists Guild Fund.

The Fresh Takes Series continues on Sunday, June 4, with “The Droll” by Meg Miroshnik, to be directed by WAM Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven, at No Six Depot. The details of the final reading of 2017 are still being firmed up, but it will take place this summer and will be hosted in Williamstown by the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

 

 

Fresh Takes Play Reading Series

Curated by WAM Theatre’s Artistic Associate Molly Clancy and hosted by No. Six Depot Roastery and Café on 6 Depot Street in West Stockbridge, MA, on select Sundays at 3:30 pm.

There are only 30 tickets available per reading. Tickets are $20, which includes a post-show conversation and the opportunity to meet the cast and director. Refreshments will be available for purchase at the Café.

Please note all sales are final. No refunds available. Patrons may exchange tickets up to 48 hours before curtain – not including special event one-night performances. No refunds or exchanges for already discounted tickets.

 

ABOUT THE CAST

DAVID BERTOLDI (Boyfriend) WAM Theatre: Debut. Elsewhere: Shakespeare & Company: Romeo/ Balthazar & Oberon/ Theseus (Romeo & Juliet/ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2017 Northeast Regional Tour), Rick/ Jean-Luc (Marcus is Walking, staged reading), Sergeant Malcolm (Curse of the Starving Class, staged reading); Screaming Majority NYC: Governor Prudblood (Waste, Fraud and Abuse); Clark University: Emcee (Cabaret), Tartuffe (Tartuffe), Melchior Gabor (Spring Awakening); Town Players of Pittsfield: Seymour Krelborn (Little Shop of Horrors). Training: Shakespeare & Company; Clark University Visual & Performing Arts.

ARIEL BOCK* (Mother) WAM Theatre: Fresh Takes Reading Measure for Measure. Elsewhere: A longtime member of Shakespeare & Company where she is currently Producing Associate, Ariel has served as Artistic Associate, Interim Artistic Director and Manager of Institutional Giving. Acting credits at Shakespeare & Company include Mom in Ugly Lies the Bone, Mistress Quickly in Henry IV pts 1&2, Goneril in King Lear, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Elizabeth in Richard III, Audrey in As You Like it, Hippolyta in Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Mistress Quickly in Merry Wives of Windsor, Paulina in The Winters Tale, Ruth in Private Eyes, the woman in Laughing Wild, Arlene in Off the Map along with many others. At Mixed Company: Ramona in Zara Spook and Other Lures and Eileen in The Cripple of Inishmaan. Ariel has also worked extensively with the Ensemble for the Romantic Century in NYC, playing Nadezhda VonMeck in None But the Lonely Heart, Fanny Mendelsohn, Emily Dickinson, Sonia Tolstoy and Anna Akhmatova. A Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, she has taught voice for actors at Dartmouth, Smith, MIT, and at many Shakespeare & Company workshops.

DANIELLE DAVENPORT (Girlfriend) WAM Theatre: Debut. New York credits: Men on Boats (Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb), An Octoroon (Theatre for a New Audience) Neighbors, All’s Well That Ends Well (Public Theater), Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR), Be the Death of Me (The Civilians). Workshops and readings with Playwrights Horizons, New York Theater Workshop, The Lark, MCC, Playwrights’ Realm, Hartford Stage and others. Television: The Breaks (VH1), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix), Master of None (Netflix), Boardwalk Empire (HBO). A proud alumna of Barnard College, Columbia University.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT: JACKIE SIBBLIES DRURY

WAM Theatre: Debut. Elsewhere: Is a Brooklyn based playwright. Plays include We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915, Really, and Social Creatures. Jackie’s plays have been presented by New York City Players and Abrons Arts Center, Soho Rep, Victory Gardens, Trinity Rep, Matrix Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Undermain Theatre, InterAct Theatre, Actors Theater of Louisville, Available Light, Company One, and The Bush Theatre in London, among others. Her work has been developed at Sundance, The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, A.C.T., The Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, New York Theatre Workshop, PRELUDE.11&14, The Civilians, The Bushwick Starr, The LARK, The Magic Theatre, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival and The MacDowell Colony. Jackie was a dramaturg for Futurity by Cesar Alvarez and The Lisps, Zero Cost House by Pig Iron Theatre Company & Toshiki Okada and The Garden by Nichole Canuso Dance Company. Awards: She received a 2015 Windham-Campbell Literary Prize in Drama, a 2012-2013 Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists, and was the inaugural recipient of the 2012-2014 Jerome Fellowship at The LARK. Jackie is a NYTW Usual Suspect and a 2015 United States Artists Gracie Fellow.

 

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: ALICE REAGAN

WAM Theatre: Debut. Elsewhere:Or, by Liz Duffy Adams at Shakespeare & Co., Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue at Profile Theatre, Jackie by Elfriede Jelinek at Boom Arts, both in Portland, Oregon. In New York, Alice has directed at Classic Stage Company, La Mama, The Chocolate Factory, and Incubator Arts Project. Training: MFA: Columbia  Awards: Princess Grace Award, Princess Grace Special Project Grant, Foundation of Contemporary Arts Grant (2), Drama League Directing Fellow. Online: alicereagan.com  Et cetera: Alice is Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Directing at Barnard College/Columbia University. Upcoming: Pattern Seeking Animals, a new play by Gabrielle Reisman.

 

ABOUT WAM THEATRE

Based in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, WAM Theatre is Where Arts and Activism Meet. The company was co-founded in 2010 by Canadian director, actor, educator, and producer Kristen van Ginhoven. WAM’s vision is to create opportunity for women and girls through the mission of theatre as philanthropy.

Inspired by the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, WAM donates a portion of the proceeds from its theatrical events to organizations that benefit women and girls.

Since 2010, WAM Theatre has donated more than $32,500 to twelve nonprofit organizations and provided paid work to more than 200 theatre artists. In addition to the main stage productions and special events, WAM Theatre’s activities include a comprehensive educational outreach program and the Fresh Takes Play Reading Series.