Six Plays Debut in 'Groundwork' Free Readings Jan 26 & 27

Babel Theatre Project presents readings by six of New York's finest up-and-coming playwrights in their festival of readings, GROUNDWORK. The readings will take place at Upstairs at the 45th Street Theatre, Saturday, January 26 and Sunday, January 27 beginning at 1PM.

The featured playwrights include: Bekah Brunstetter, Julia Brownell, Thomas Higgins, Corey Hinkle, Norman Lasca, and Emily Young

GROUNDWORK will include the following plays:

Le Fou by Bekah Brunstetter
Paris, 1899: In the first department store ever, during the birth of La Belle Epoch women sit in a parlor getting drunk, and writing letters to their illicit lovers. Inspired by the true story of legendary painter and playboy John Singer Sargent, and his infamous painting, Madame X, Le Fou examines celebrity, society, and why women love as obsessively as they do. Love is lost, discovered, misinterpreted, given, and taken as the women get drunker, as letters get lost, and as the scandal between Sargent, and the deliciously infamous celebrity Mme. Gartreau - unfolds before their very eyes.

Smart Cookie by Julia Brownell
Cookie Walsh has everything—a handsome and successful husband, the perfect prep school son and a Park Avenue triplex.  As she moves from lady lunches to benefit cocktail receptions, she maneuvers any situation with her money and privilege - until her son comes home with the exchange student he got pregnant.  Smart Cookie examines what happens when a woman who is used to being in control must confront a situation utterly out of her control.

The Home Maker by Thomas Higgins
Roger, a general contractor, has built himself a marvelous life: proud father; loving husband; he has everything he ever wanted twice-over. When it's revealed, however, on Roger's fiftieth birthday, that he has also been a proud bigamist for the past seven years, it seems the homes he has made for his families are about to literally come crashing down.

Sadgirrl113 by Corey Hinkle
There are some sad, lonely losers out there trolling the internet.  At WTEN Albany, it's their job to tell the public all about them.  And in Philadelphia, one retiree has devoted his life to catching and punishing these internet sickos.  But what is the real purpose of finding the predators amongst us – to distinguish us from them or them from us?  Sadgirrl113 follows the loves of those united by the quest to prove that normal people are never lonely, perverted or in desperate need of love.

A Great Place to be From by Norman Lasca
A hospital orderly is forced to take action when his beloved dog is threatened; an unemployed man is jolted out of his sloth; a woman stops at nothing to replace the child she cannot have with her husband; and a disgruntled grocery clerk finds new meaning in the American Revolution. Set in an intense heat wave in the northern Midwest, A Great Place To Be From tells the stories of what brings these men and women to their breaking points.

Melena Brown by Emily Young
Melena sees everything complicated; Jack likes things simple.  Jack sees in black and white; Melena sees in blown-out soviet technicolor.  Will they ever work it out?  Now there are all these people in their bedroom, and each seems to be speaking a different language.  When you're Melena Brown, if you can't get out into the world, you have to bring the world to you.

Saturday, January 26, 2008
1:00 PM – The Home Maker by Thomas Higgins
4:00 PM – Sadgirrl113 by Corey Hinkle
6:00 PM – Melena Brown by Emily Young

Sunday, January 27, 2008
1:00 PM – Le Fou by Bekah Brunstetter
4:00 PM – Smart Cookie by Julia Brownell
6:00 PM – A Great Place to Be From by Norman Lasca

Upstairs at 45th Street Theatre is located at 354 West 45th Street. Admission is Free and Open to the public.  For more info visit www.babeltheatreproject.org