Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) opens its 2019-20 season with The Book Club Play, a comedy by Karen Zacarías. Running from September 26 to October 13, this Boston premiere is directed by Shana Gozansky.
The Book Club Play centers on a devoted group of book lovers whose group dynamics take a hilarious turn when they accept a provocative new member and become the subject of a documentary filmmaker.
"It's a privilege to bring Karen's work back to our stages with this delightful comedy about the love of literature," BPT Artistic Director Kate Snodgrass says. "And with this Boston premiere, our subscribers will meet her singular point of view all over again. Karen's plays are being performed all over the nation, so we're just one of many companies who love her combining deadly serious issues with hilarious outcomes."
Zacarías's plays include Native Gardens, Legacy of Light and Just Like Us. BPT produced her plays The Barechested Man (1995) and The Sins of Sor Juana (1998), and her work has also been produced at The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Arena Stage, The Goodman Theater, Round House Theater, Alliance Theater, South Coast Rep, Geva Theater and Walnut Street Theater, among others. Zacarías has appeared on American Theatre magazine's annual list of most-produced playwrights, most recently in 2018. Earlier this year she was the recipient of the League of Professional Theatre Women's Lee Reynolds Award, which is given to a woman in theatre who has helped illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural or political change.
Director Gozansky helmed BPT's 2017 production of Molly Smith Metzler's Elemeno Pea. She has also worked with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and area theatres including Gloucester Stage Company, Central Square Theater and Trinity Repertory Company.
A post-show conversation with members of The Book Club Play's creative team will follow the Sept. 28 performance.
The plays in BPT's season were written by alumni of Boston University's Playwriting Program; the season continues in November with the smuggler by Ronan Noone and concludes with MJ Halberstadt's Deal Me Out in February.
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