Annual Women Playwrights Series launches with 'Fata Morgana'
HACKETTSTOWN — The 22nd annual Women Playwrights Series at the Centenary Stage Company will launch on April 16 with “Fata Morgana”, by Mary Humphrey Baldridge, presented at 7:30 p.m. in the Lackland Center.
When feisty 60-something New Yorker Gwen foils an armed robbery at a neighborhood deli, her chance encounter with a celebrity unearths an old mystery in her life and that of her grown daughter.
“Fata Morgana” is a play about mothers and daughters, lost husbands and fathers, and the line where reality and unreality meet, with surprising revelations. The presentation will be directed by Harold Baldridge, Executive Director Emeritus of the famed Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.
Admission to the “Fata Morgana” is by donation and reservations are requested. For reservations and information contact the Centenary Stage Company Box Office at 908-979-0900, or visit www.centenarystageco.org.
Women Playwrights Series
Now in its 22nd year, the Centenary Stage Company Women Playwrights Series (WPS) presents three to four new plays each year in rehearsed staged readings throughout the month of April.
Led by Program Director Catherine Rust, the WPS is dedicated to providing a working forum for the unique and under served voice of women writing for the theater today. The series offers emerging playwrights a chance to work with professional directors and actors in a short rehearsal period, followed by a staged reading of the work in front of a live audience, with audience feedback and discussion. Each presentation features refreshments for all, and lively “talk-backs” with the playwright and cast following the performance.
The series features the finalists in the Susan Glaspell contest, which offers the winner further development support worth $35,000 in a full production on the CSC professional Equity main-stage season, as well as a cash payment to the author.
Coming up
Also featured in this year’s WPS will be “In the Car with Blossom and Len” by Joni Fritz, on Wed, April 23 at 7:30 p.m., “How Water Behaves” by Sherry Kramer on Sunday, April 27 at 2 p.m., and “Cygnus” by Susan Soon Ye Stanton, on Wednesday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m.
A free writing workshop will be offered on Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. led by John Pietrowski, of the Playwrights Theatre of NJ. Advance reservations are required, and can be made through the CSC Box office.