Found Stages Hosts Reading of Lee Nowell Play at Dunwoody Nature Center
By: Julie Musbach Jul. 16, 2019
Found Stages and Dunwoody Nature Center are joining to present the forth play in the second annual "Wine & Reading Series," Lee Nowell's And Cauldron Bubble on Sunday, August 11th.
This event, which is part of a series of readings at 2pm on the 2nd Sunday of each month from May through October, will include a meet-and-greet with the featured playwright and receptions with wine and appetizers. The new plays are read by Atlanta's most talented professional actors.
Note: Danielle Deadwyler was originally listed as the playwright for Aug. 11th. Her play will be read on Oct. 13th.
King James is in a quandary. He sits on the throne of England, but he doesn't technically have the right to rule. Coupled with that is his constant feeling that witches are out to get him. In order to keep the throne, he needs to invent a lie that justifies his right to rule. King James commissions Shakespeare to write a propaganda play that will rewrite his own ancestry. Meanwhile, witches abound in Scotland, England, Ireland, and the newly formed American colonies, and King James can't kill them quickly enough to feel safe. Based entirely on historical fact, this is the reason Shakespeare wrote Macbeth.
"When I started researching King James and Macbeth, I realized that our modern notions of King James and Macbeth are actually reversed. We think King James was godly, and Macbeth was murderous. But as it turns out, it's the opposite. King James is responsible for the witchcraft trials in England and Scotland and even in America.
One of the characters in And Cauldron Bubble is Agnes Sampson, a person King James had killed for witchcraft. I like the idea that Agnes is getting her chance in this play to come back and battle the king who had her killed."
Lee Nowell's plays have been workshopped, produced, and commissioned by Actor's Express (Albatross, Paper House, Obsession), Theatre in the Square (Urban Fairytale), Metropolitan Theatre Alliance (Preacher from the Black Lagoon), Ex Somnium (How to Survive Being Human), Horizon Theatre (Blue Angels Weekend), Play West (The Commission, Blue Angels Weekend), Synchronicity Theatre (Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The Troy Davis Project), 7Stages (The Commission), and Georgia Public Broadcasting (Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The Troy Davis Project.) How to Survive Being Human was published by Ex Somnium in 2014.
"It satisfies something in me as a playwright- that there was this great injustice done in real life, but I can go back and rewrite it so that the underdog gets her chance to win.
If I write a better ending for someone, maybe that will create even the slightest possibility that that person's life will get better, because someone dreamed a way in which that could happen for them. That's my goal as a writer: to make things better."
Play readings often take place at theaters during the development of a new play, but the public is rarely a part of the process. Found Stages is thrilled to take readings outside the theater and bring them to the community. These concert style readings have a similar effect as an audiobook, as they feature the actors' voices and the playwrights' words without costumes or props. Similar to a "table read" in film and television, readings are an exciting way to discover new plays before they are in theaters.
"I recently had a conversation with people at Bay Area Playwrights, and we were saying, "Hey, where are the theatres that put the playwrights in complete control of their own work? Like The Provincetown Players, where Susan Glaspell and Eugene O'Neill wrote whatever they wanted and then produced it, with the playwright retaining complete control over the script?" I'm really happy that Found Stages is doing exactly that with these readings, and I'm glad to be a part of them."
Found Stages is a professional, nonprofit theater that seeks to build a sense of community by taking plays out of the theater and into real world spaces where people live and work. In 2016, Found Stages received the prestigious and highly competitive Alliance Theatre Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab, and in 2018, the company presented the hit, sold-out Frankenstein's Ball on New Year's Eve at the Highland Inn Ballroom. Learn more at foundstages.org.
For tickets visit: https://wine-and-reading-series.eventbrite.com
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