Turner Directs 'Crimes' Williamstown Reading; Butler Stars

The Williamstown Theatre Festival's Fridays @ 3 Play Reading series will present its final reading of the season with Beth Henley's play, Crimes of the Heart, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1981.  The reading will be held Friday, August 18 at 3:00. 

Kerry Butler, who will soon be seen at Williamstown in the musical The Opposite of Sex, will headline the reading.  Tony Award- and Oscar-nominee Kathleen Turner directs.

The Fridays @ 3 readings are usually presented on the Nikos Stage.  Due to demand, the reading has been moved to the larger Main Stage, where more can be accommodated.   The additional tickets are now on sale. 

Starring in the reading are: Kerry Butler (Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray), Jeanine Serralles (Lucy and the Conquest at Williamstown, Hold Please), Patch Darragh (Sugar Syndrome at Williamstown) and Liz Wisan (Anything Goes at Williamstown).  Other cast members will be announced. 

The reading is directed by Kathleen Turner, twice nominated for a Best Actress Tony Award and nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.  Turner most recently appeared on Broadway in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 

"In Hazlehurst, Mississippi, the three Magrath sisters have gathered to await news of the family patriarch, their grandfather, who is living out his last hours in the local hospital. Lenny, the oldest sister, is unmarried at thirty and facing diminishing marital prospects; Meg, the middle sister, who quickly outgrew Hazlehurst, is back after a failed singing career on the West Coast; while Babe, the youngest, is out on bail after having shot her husband in the stomach. Their troubles, grave and yet, somehow, hilarious, are highlighted by their priggish cousin, Chick and by the awkward young lawyer who tries to keep Babe out of jail while trying not to fall in love with her. In the end the play is the story of how its young characters escape the past to seize the future—but the telling is so true, touching and consistently funny that it will linger in the mind long after the curtain has descended," state notes on the show.

Tickets for the August 18 reading are $3 and available at www.wtfestival.org, 413.597.3400 and at the Festival Box Office. 

Williamstown Theatre Festival events are held at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts .