Initial Casting Set For Good Apples Collective's Rootstock Reading Series

Good Apples Collective has announced the initial casting for its inaugural Rootstock Reading Series, to be held at A.R.T./New York's Spaces @ 520 (520 8th Avenue Suite 319, New York, NY 10018) October 6.

Good Apples Collective is launching the Rootstock Reading Series as part of its mission to create opportunities for emerging theatermakers of marginalized genders to collaborate professionally in New York City. A rootstock is "a stem to which part of another plant is joined so that both parts can grow together" (Cambridge Dictionary). Through its reading series, Good Apples will use the collective's structures and resources to support the growth of other emerging artists by supporting three director-playwright pairs' developmental work on three new plays.

"The Rootstock Reading Series arose out of our desire to create a platform through which other emerging artists would have the freedom to choose their own collaborators and focus solely on their craft," shared Good Apples co-founders Nina Goodheart and Sophie McIntosh. "As emerging artists, we are so often required to serve as our own producers and marketing teams in order to get our work out into the world. We're excited to free our three teams from the responsibility of handling logistics and give them space and time to create on their own terms."

The three selected plays and their respective creative teams are Among the Coats (written by Noma Mirny and directed by Kenny Castro), I Am Malala Book Club Meeting on Sunday, November 12 2023 (written by Mehrnaz Tiv and directed by Sabina Sethi Unni), and The Morbs (written by Jen Diamond and directed by Britt Berke).

Isa DeLeón Garcia, Paige Bakke, and Jeff Talbott are joining the cast of Among the Coats, while Saskia Naidoo, Alex Scelso, Utkarsh Rajawat, and Sriram Iyer will make up the cast of I Am Malala Book Club Meeting on Sunday, November 12 2023. The cast of The Morbs will feature Mary Bacon and Izabel Mar, with additional performers to be announced.

Readings will take place throughout the day on Sunday, October 6th, with Among the Coats receiving its reading at 12 p.m.; I Am Malala Book Club Meeting on Sunday, November 12 2023 receiving its reading at 4 p.m.; and The Morbs receiving its reading at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are free and can be reserved at goodapplescollective.com/rootstock-reading-series. Each reading will run approximately 90 minutes with no intermission. There will be two-hour breaks between each of the day's readings.

Additional finalists for the Rootstock Reading Series included Bedfellows (with playwright Zoe Senese-Grossberg and director Maeve Hogan), Por Lo Que Soy (with playwright Jordanna Hernandez and director Gregory Keng Strasser), The Blackpilled Synthesis (with playwright Alex Beige and director BT Hayes), Mira and Dill (with playwright Ally Merkel and director Abigail Holland), and You Should Be So Lucky (with playwright Alyssa Haddad-Chin and director Michelle Chan).