On Her Shoulders to Present TASTE OF HONEY Staged Reading, 9/16

On Her Shoulders is pleased to present a staged reading of Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney on Sept. 16, directed by Ludovica Villar-Hauser. The Play in Context, a special component contextualizing the script in its time and place, is presented by Elizabeth Whitney in pre- and post-performance discussions.. Doors open at 6:30pm for a 6:45pm curtain; tickets are free to the public. The performance is at the New School for Drama, Wollman Hall, 66 West 12th Street. R.S.V.P to OnHerShouldersReservations@gmail.com

This is the fifth offering in On Her Shoulders' inaugural season, which has been curated by Susan Jonas. This first year consists of one reading per month through March of 2014. For a complete season calendar, visit http://onhershoulders.weebly.com/index.html

Shelagh Delaney (Playwright) was one of the most innovative playwrights of the Twentieth Century. Her most celebrated play, A Taste of Honey, featured realistic characters who were working class, gay, black, northern & feminist in1950s Britain, whose mainstream remained publicly repressed, hideously white and middle class. What is all the more remarkable is that she wrote this play when she was just 18. The play was picked up by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in London's Stratford and was first performed on May 27, 1958. It went on to a West End run and was produced with Joan Plowright and Angela Lansbury on Broadway. Delaney co-wrote the 1961 screenplay of the same name with Tony Richardson, which won the BAFTA that year. She continued writing until her death in 2011, with numerous recordings for BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Play slots and the acclaimed 1985 film, Dance With a Stranger. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature that same year.

Ludovica Villar-Hauser (Director): Highlights include: Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night in London's West End; 3 productions at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival; the premiere of Gregory Murphy's The Countess, which ran Off-Broadway for 634 performances and in the West End; Rona Munro's Bold Girls at the 29th St. Rep.; the premiere of Duet by Otho Eskin, a new play about Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse; the North American premiere of Leaves of Glass by Philip Ridley and as part of Origin's First Irish Festival, Derek Murphy's A Short Wake; As It Is In Heaven by Arlene Hutton, produced by 3 Graces Theater Co at The Cherry Lane Theatre. For The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Enchanted April by Matthew Barber, from the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim (2010 Company) and The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein (2012 Company).

Elizabeth Whitney (Dramaturg) is an interdisciplinary artist/scholar who has toured extensively with solo and collaborative performance work. She holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies and Communication, and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech, Communications, & Theatre Arts at Borough of Manhattan Community College in the City University of New York. She is currently developing a performative lecture on queer madness and failure in the life of abolitionist, lyceum speaker, and playwright Anna Elizabeth Dickinson. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild. www.elizabethjwhitney.com.

On Her Shoulders was founded in 2012 to present staged readings of plays by women from across the spectrum of time and place, with contemporary dramaturgs contextualizing--and in some cases adapting--them for modern audiences. The program seeks to make it impossible to deny or ignore the great tradition and value of women's contribution to the theatrical canon. On Her Shoulders intends to motivate producers and directors to champion and produce these plays in New York and regionally, and to incite audiences to demand to see them.

The Play in Context, the dramaturgical and scholarly presentation component to the program, is sponsored in part by the League of Professional Theatre Women, a not-for-profit organization promoting visibility and increasing opportunities for women in theatre since 1982. www.theatrewomen.org.