On Her Shoulders to Stage A BOLD STROKE FOR A WIFE Reading, 12/16

On Her Shoulders is pleased to present a staged reading of A Bold Stroke for a Wife by Susanna Centlivre, directed by Rebecca Patterson and edited by Tasha Gordon Solomon, on December 16, 2013. The Play in Context, a special component contextualizing the script in its historical time and place, will be delivered at the top of the evening. Doors open at 6:30pm for a 6:45pm curtain; tickets are free to the public. The performance is at the New School, Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street. R.S.V.P to OnHerShouldersReservations@gmail.com.

This is the eighth offering in On Her Shoulders' inaugural season, which has been curated by Susan Jonas and produced by Melody Brooks, Andrea Lepcio and Lillian Rodriguez. 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

In A Bold Stroke For A Wife, Centlivre makes fun of all the stereotypes of her time, fearlessly sending up the marriage mart, fashion, commerce, academia and even religion. The play concerns Colonel Fainwell who wants to marry Anne Lovely, but he must convince her four guardians that he will make an ideal husband. Unfortunately each guardian has a different concept of the ideal husband (based on his own self-estimation); so of course they can't possibly see eye to eye on a man for Anne. Fainwell takes the "bold stroke" of appearing in elaborate disguises in order to procure an official "permission slip" from each guardian and so achieve his quest. A Bold Stroke for a Wife was first performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, on February 3. 1718, where it ran six nights, which was considered a substantial success. According to the Literary Encyclopedia, Centlivre (c. 1667 - December 1, 1723) was "the most successful female playwright of the 18th Century". and noted as the Second Woman of the English Stage, after Aphra Behn.

REBECCA PATTERSON (Director) NYC: As You Like It, The Wonder, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Edward II, School For Scandal, Much Ado About Nothing, The Lucky Chance, Antony & Cleopatra, The Feign'd Courtesans, The Duchess of Malfi, The Rover, Macbeth (The Queen's Company) Wapato, Greeks & Centaurs (Women's Project), The Imaginary Invalid (Resonance Ensemble), The Gabriels (SPF) Regional: One Flea Spare, Angels in America, Vinegar Tom, Too Tall Blondes in Love, Marisol, The Dance and The Railroad and The Lisbon Traviata. Rebecca is Artistic Director of The Queen's Company, known for its innovative productions of classical plays featuring all-female casts.

TASHA GORDON SOLOMON's (Dramaturg) plays have been developed and produced at Ars Nova, Dixon Place, The Flea, The Public Theater, and the 52nd Street Project, among others. She is a member of the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group, a recipient of the Dramatist Guild Fellowship, and an alumna of the Ars Nova Playgroup. Directing credits include Ensemble Studio Theater, the New York Fringe Festival, The Brick, Columbia University Graduate Playwriting Department and the Young Playwrights Festival at the O'Neill. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU, where she was the recipient of a Goldberg Fellowship in Playwriting and a Tisch Fellowship.

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