WAM Theatre's Fresh Takes Reading Series to Continue with THE DROLL

The WAM Theatre 2017 Fresh Takes Play reading series continues with The Droll by Meg Miroshnik at 3:30 pm on Sunday, June 4 at No. Six Depot Roastery and Café in West Stockbridge. WAM Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven will direct, and acclaimed local professional actor and theatre educator Jennie M. Jadow is co-producing and will be reading one of the roles.

The Droll is a new play about the end of theatre. Through the lens of 17th Century Puritan England, the play explores artists living lives of creativity when doing so was a crime. The protagonist, young Nim Dullyn, seeks to join an underground theatrical troupe being pursued by the controlling and unjust government Roundheads - who deem theater an abomination - as they risk everything to perform one last Hamlet against all odds. The Droll is a love letter to actors and an exploration of art and politics. Through this reading, WAM asks our audience: What would you risk for your passions, your art?

The cast includes David Adkins (Berkshire Theatre Group/WAM's The Bakelite Masterpiece) as James Killingsworth; Gregory Boover (Shakespeare & Company's 4000 Miles) as Nim Dullyn; Thomas Brazzle (Shakespeare & Company's Merchant of Venice) as Thomas Dread Rosey; Rory Hammond (WAM's Silence) as Doll Cutpurse; Jennie M. Jadow (WAM's Photograph 51) as Margaret Killingsworth; Maizy Scarpa (Hubbard Hall's King Lear) as Roundhead; and Christopher Tucci (Kickwheel's Passage) as Williem Rifel.

"The Droll is a play that has captured my attention and imagination for quite some time," said Jadow, explaining why she wanted to co-produce this reading. "Meg Miroshnik's work holds much that is fascinating to me; and this idea of awakening a child to the power of theatre, so that a future generation can carry forth an awareness of culture and art, even in the darkest of times, and, potentially, at great personal cost, highlights for me the active role of the artist in our society."

There are only 30 tickets available for this reading reading. Tickets are $20, which includes a post-show conversation and the opportunity to meet the cast and director. Refreshments will be available for purchase at the Café. The 2017 Fresh Takes Series is generously supported by No. Six Depot and the Dramatists Guild Fund.

The 2017 Fresh Takes Series concludes on Friday, August 1 at 5 pm with a special free reading of Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond and directed by Kristen van Ginhoven, hosted by the Williamstown Theatre Festival at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA.

IF YOU GO:

June 4, 2017

The Droll
by Meg Miroshnik
directed by Kristen van Ginhoven

with

David Adkins as James Killingsworth
Greg Boover as Nim Dullyn
Thomas Brazzle as Thomas Dread Rosey
Rory Hammond as Doll Cutpurse
Jennie M. Jadow as Margaret Killingsworth
Maizy Scarpa as Roundhead
Christopher Tucci as Williem Rifel

Part of the Fresh Takes Play Reading Series

For more about The Droll, visit www.wamtheatre.com/the-droll.

Curated by WAM Theatre's Artistic Associate Molly Clancy and usually hosted by No. Six Depot Roastery and Café on 6 Depot Street in West Stockbridge, MA, on select Sundays at 3:30 pm.

There are only 30 tickets available per reading at No. Six Depot. Tickets are $20, which includes a post-show conversation and the opportunity to meet the cast and director. Refreshments will be available for purchase at the Café.

Please note all sales are final. No refunds available. Patrons may exchange tickets up to 48 hours before curtain- not including special event one-night performances. No refunds or exchanges for already discounted tickets.

For tickets and more information visit www.wamtheatre.com/fresh-takes-2017.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

David Adkins (James Killingsworth): WAM Theatre: The Bakelite Masterpiece, 24 Hour Theatre Project (2016). Elsewhere: David is an actor, writer, director, and made his Broadway debut at The National Actor's Theatre. He has worked off-Broadway - Manhattan Theater Club, Primary Stages, Women's Project, Aquila, Pearl - has worked extensively in resident theaters across the country, and has performed in over 20 productions at the Berkshire Theatre Group where he is an Artistic Associate. His focus now is television where he has recently guest starred on Blacklist, Homeland, Good Wife, Elementary, The Americans, and others.

Greg Boover (Nim Dullyn): WAM Theatre: Fresh Takes Reading: Silence. Elsewhere: Greg has worked as an actor, musician and educational artist at Shakespeare & Company since 2012, most recently directing in the Fall Festival of Shakespeare and performing on the northeast tours of Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth & Twelfth Night. He has also worked regionally with Theater at Monmouth, Hampshire Shakespeare Company, Berkshire Playwrights Lab and in NYC at Looking Glass Theatre. Training: University of MA Amherst (BA, theater), University of Kent, Canterbury. Shakespeare & Co. 2017 January Intensive. Et cetera: Catch Greg in 4000 Miles at Shakespeare & Company this season! Artwork on Instagram @booverdoodles

Thomas Brazzle (Thomas Dread Rosey): WAM Theatre: Fresh Takes Reading: Grand Concourse. Elsewhere: Thomas has worked regionally for The Guthrie Theater, The Alley Theatre, TheatreSquared, Portland Stage, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, and Shakespeare and Company. Most recently he was seen as Edmund in King Lear at The Guthrie . He has also worked in New York with Old Hat Theatre Co., Voyage Theatre Company, The Brewing Dept., and The Hudson Warehouse. Film: A Night in the City, Absent Training: Stephen F. Austin State University (BFA) and University of Connecticut (MFA). Online: www.thomasbrazzle.com Et cetera: Thomas is excited to return to WAM!

Rory Hammond (Doll Cutpurse): WAM Theatre: Fresh Takes 2015: Silence. NYC Theatre: Pericles (Soho Rep), Measure for Measure (Circle in the Square), Bachelorette by Lesley Headland (Circle in the Square), John Patrick Shanley's Where's My Money (Cherry Lane Theatre), and The Scarlet Letter starring Marisa Tomei. Berkshire Theatre: Shakespeare & Company: Taming of the Shrew, King John, Richard III, Merry Wives ofWindsor, Off the Map, Much Ado About Nothing, Merchant of Venice, and Dibble Dance. The Wharton Salon at the Mount: Autres Temp, Xingu, and Summer. TV Credits: Dr. Pepper commercials circa 1998. Training: At Shakespeare & Company her entire life starting with Young Company and ending with a summer in the Summer Performing Institute (SPI). Graduate of Circle in the Square Theatre School, New York City. Et Cetera: Rory is a founding member of Animus Theatre Company in New York City. Visit the Animus website at www.animustheatre.org

Jennie M. Jadow (Margaret Killingsworth, Co-Producer of The Droll Fresh Takes:Play Reading Series) WAM Theatre: Fresh Takes: Play Reading Series of Photograph 51; Everywoman, A Staged Reading. Regional: It's A Wonderful Life - The Radio Play, King Henry V, Servant of Two Masters, Les Faux Pas, Learned Ladies, As you Like It, The Amorous Quarrel, Les Liaisons Dangereuse, Scapin, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare & Company, MA); Funny Girl, Cyrano De Bergerac (Barrington Stage Company, MA); Camelot, Wilder, Wilder (Berkshire Theatre Group); Historias (Jacob's Pillow); Babes in Toyland (Heights Players); Pirates of Penzance (Gallery Players); Diamonds and Jewels Cabaret (92nd St Y). Education: BFA, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; MA Antioch University. Et. Cetera: Jennie works as part of Shakespeare and Company's nationally recognized education team in Lenox, MA.

Maizy Scarpa (Roundhead): WAM Theatre: Fresh Takes: Grand Concourse (Emma);The Tall Girls (Almeda); 24 Hour Theatre Project: Cirque Du Dismay (playwright) Elsewhere: La MaMa (Political Snorts); Barrington Stage (To Kill a Mockingbird); Pittsfield Shakespeare in the Park (TheTempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream), Hubbard Hall (Wayward Home, Ondine, King Lear, Of Mice and Men), Playwright: WAYWARD HOME: A Musical Folktale (Opera House Arts, Hubbard Hall); Cirque Du Dismay (WAM, Berkshire Playwrights Lab); Pandora Shakes Things Up (Berkshire Playwrights Lab) Adults (Women's Shorts); Strange New Planet (NYU/Tisch); A Play Where Nothing Happens (Shakespeare&Co.Fringe); Training: NYU/Tisch, Shakespeare & Company. Online: waywardhome.weebly.com & maizyscarpa.com

Christopher Tucci (Williem Rifel): WAM Theatre: Debut. Elsewhere: A recent transplant to the Berkshires, Chris was just in BPL's Radius Festival and Kickwheel's Passage. Other work includes The Whipping Man with NPT, Gallery Players and at the Columbia Arts Festival in Maryland, All My Sons at The Warner Theatre and Random Acts of Shakespeare at The Geffen Playhouse and Theatricum Botanicum. Film/TV: The Rick (Cannes Film Festival), Contemplating Annie (LA International Film Festival). Training: MFA, U.C.L.A.

Playwright Meg Miroshnik - WAM Theatre: Fresh Takes Reading Series 2015: The Tall Girls. Plays: The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls; The Droll {A Stage-Play about the END of Theatre}; The Tall Girls; Old Actress; and an adaptation of the libretto for Shostakovich's Moscow, Cheryomushki. Venues: La Jolla Playhouse, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Center Theatre Group, South Coast Rep, the McCarter Theatre Center, Yale Rep, ALLIANCE THEATRE, Yale Rep, the Kennedy Center, Lark New Play Development Center, Chicago Opera Theater, the Moscow Playwright and Director Center, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Circle X, The Wilma Theater, Perishable Theatre, WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory, and One Coast Collaboration. Awards: She is the recipient of a 2012 Whiting Award. Her play The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls was a finalist for the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn prize and winner of the 2011-2012 Alliance/Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award. Training: MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama where she studied with Paula Vogel. Et Cetera: Meg hails from Minneapolis and currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is a member of the Playwrights Union and The Kilroys.

Director KRISTEN van GINHOVEN - WAM Theatre: The Bakelite Masterpiece, In Darfur (New England Premiere), Emilie (New England Premiere), The Old Mezzo (World Premiere), The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls and Melancholy Play Elsewhere: Waxworks (Williams College), The Whale (Adirondack Theatre Festival), 10 Minute Play Festival (Barrington Stage Company), Petticoats of Steel (Capital Repertory Theatre), Footloose (Cohoes Music Hall), Children's Hour (Siena College), Vendetta Chrome (Emerson College). Selected assistant directing: The Physicists, 42nd Street (Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada), Two Men of Florence (Huntington Theatre) Sleuth, Absurd Person Singular (Barrington Stage Company). Training: Dalhousie University (BA), Queen's University (BEd), Emerson College (MA). Et cetera: Kristen is an associate member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and a theatre artist for the International Schools Theatre Association. She was a member of the 2013 Lincoln Center Director's Lab and is a member of the Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction at the Stratford Festival of Canada. Kristen is the co-founder and Artistic Director of WAM Theatre.

Based in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, WAM Theatre is Where Arts and Activism Meet. The company was co-founded in 2010 by Canadian director, actor, educator, and producer Kristen van Ginhoven. WAM's vision is to create opportunity for women and girls through the mission of theatre as philanthropy.

Inspired by the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, WAM donates a portion of the proceeds from its theatrical events to organizations that benefit women and girls.

Since 2010, WAM Theatre has donated more than $32,500 to twelve nonprofit organizations and provided paid work to more than 200 theatre artists. In addition to the main stage productions and special events, WAM Theatre's activities include a comprehensive educational outreach program and the Fresh Takes Play Reading Series. For more information, visit www.WAMTheatre.com.

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