Hoch, Crawford, et al. Set for DIRTY PICTURES Reading, 4/21

DIRTY PICTURES, the new comedy by D.W. Gregory (Radium Girls; Resident Playwright at New Jersey Rep) will be presented in a industry reading on Thursday, April 21st at 3pm at Ripley Grier Studios.

The Industry Reading will feature the talents of Broadway performers Chris Hoch (Currently starring in La Cage Aux Folles), Ben Crawford (Shrek, Les Miserables), Sara Surrey (Guiding Light) and Kate Morgan Chadwick (Grease) and is directed by Holly-Anne Ruggiero (Jersey Boys). Paul Brewster (La Barberia) serves as the Production Stage Manager.

DIRTY PICTURES is a screwball comedy about four people in a Colorado roadhouse in the depths of the Reagan recession, whose lives are transformed by the discovery of 21 nudie snapshots. DIRTY PICTURES explores the idea that most ordinary things may not seem special at first, but you never know what you will discover when something, or someone, is stripped down.

The reading is funded in part through a grant from the Montgomery County, Md., Arts Council.

D.W. Gregory is the author of more than a dozen plays covering a wide range of styles, from historical drama to screwball comedy. The New York Times called her "a playwright with a talent to enlighten and provoke" for her most produced play, RADIUM GIRLS (Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey), about dial painters poisoned on the job in the 1920s. A resident playwright at New Jersey Rep, she received a Pulitzer nomination for the Rep's production of THE GOOD DAUGHTER, the story of a Missouri farm family struggling to adapt to rapid social change after World War I. Her work has been developed through the support of the National New Play Network, the Maryland Arts Council, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and has been presented at the New Harmony Project, Shenan Arts, The Playwrights' Center, Theatre of the First Amendment, NYU's Hot Ink Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Lark, Florida Stage, GeVa Theatre, the Women's Project, and the Young Vic, among others. A member of the Dramatists Guild and a recent inductee into the League of Professional Theatre Women, Ms. Gregory makes her home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Ripley Grier Studios are located at 520 Eighth Avenue, between 36th and 37th Street, Studio 16Q. This is an industry reading, reservations are required in advance. For a reservation please contact DirtyPictures2011@gmail.com. For more information about the reading and the playwright please go to www.dwgregory.com.