16 POSSIBLE GLIMPSES set for Irish Rep Reading Series, 3/30

The Irish Repertory Theatre continues its sixth season of the Irish Rep Reading Series, with a free reading of Marina Carr's 16 POSSIBLE GLIMPSES on Friday, March 30 at 3 p.m. at the Irish Repertory Theatre in Manhattan.

The cast of 16 POSSIBLE GLIMPSES includes Bianca Amato (The Broken Heart, Arcadia); Rachel Botchan (The Philanderer, The Bald Soprano); Alex Draper (A Map of Virtue, Terrorism); Roberta Maxwell  (The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters); Brian McManamon (It or Her, "Gossip Girl"); Drew McVety (Billy Elliot, Sunday in the Park with George); Rocco Sisto (Seminar, Measure for Measure); David Sitler (Beyond The Horizon, Frost/Nixon); and Mickey Sumner (Tomorrow Morning, "The
Borgias").

16 POSSIBLE GLIMPSES flashes through the life of Chekhov, the master storyteller, master playwright, doctor, lover, brother, son. A kaleidoscope of dialogues and images –– tea and vodka, petal-filled gardens, oceans of champagne, a black monk traveling through time –– reveal a life in which eternity is the only thing worth talking about: a poetic imagining of the life of a brilliant man.

Born in 1964, playwright Marina Carr was brought up in Co. Offaly. She graduated from University College, Dublin in 1987. Plays for the Abbey Theatre, Dublin include 16 POSSIBLE GLIMPSES, Marble, Ullaloo, The Mai, Portia Coughlan, By the Bog of Cats, Ariel, and Meat and Salt. Other plays include Phaedra Backwards (McCarter), On Raftery's Hill (Druid/Royal Court), Low in the Dark (Project Arts Centre), Woman and Scarecrow (Royal Court), The Cordelia Dream (RSC) and The Giant Blue Hand (The Ark). Marina has been awarded The Puterbaugh Fellowship for 2012 by The University of Oklahoma as part of the Puterbaugh Festival of International Literature and Culture, this year devoted to her work. Other awards include The Macaulay Fellowship, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the E.M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has also held the Heimbold Chair of Irish Studies at Villanova. She was the 1932 fellow at Princeton for 2008. She is an honorary professor at Trinity College Dublin and has just been awarded an honorary doctorate from her alma mater. A member of Aosdána, Marina lives in Kerry with her husband and four children.

Literary Manager Kara Manning 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." The Irish Repertory Theatre's 2007 production of Stuart Carolan's Defender of the Faith and 2010 world premiere of Kelly Younger's Banished Children of Eve were alumni of the Reading Series.

As part of its mission, The Irish Repertory Theatre "encourages the development of works focusing on the Irish and Irish-American experience, as well as a range of other cultures."

Currently on the Irish Repertory Theatre's main stage is Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon, directed by Ciarán O'Reilly, with performances through April 15. In its Studio Theatre, with performances through April 1, is Paul Durcan's Give Me Your Hand, co-starring Dermot Crowley and Dearbhla Molloy, directed by Richard Twyman.

The Reading Series is underwritten in part by Alexis Doyle and the members of The Irish Repertory Theatre's Patron's Circle.

The reading of Marina Carr's 16 POSSIBLE GLIMPSES on Friday, March 30
at 3 p.m. is FREE and open to the public at The Irish Repertory
Theatre (132 West 22nd Street). Seating is limited. RSVP by calling
The Irish Repertory Theatre Box Office at 212-727-2737. For more
information visit www.irishrep.org.