Alfred Molina and Jo Beth Williams Celebrate SKYLIGHT THEATRE COMPANY in Los Angeles with Staged Reading of Keith Bunin's VERA LAUGHED

It's 1942 and the famous author Ivan Bunin, who escaped the Russian Revolution 20 years earlier, has created a new life for himself in the French countryside with his wife and his mistress. He still dreams of returning home, but he's not a young man anymore, and the world is at war again. Based on a true story.

Cocktails at 7pm with "Vera Laughed" staged reading to follow at 8pm at 1816 1/2 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027.

Proceeds from the reading will benefit Skylight Theatre's successful Artistic Development Program, INKubator, which nurtures developing artists from across greater Los Angeles and at-risk teens in local high schools and detention centers. Since 2011 we have hosted festivals of new plays, taught writing, offered 97 public readings in our Play Reading Series and expanded over 1500 teens' creative experiences through workshops and performances. We're proud of the fact that in just five years, 22 of those readings were developed into fully produced plays performed here at Skylight, nationally and internationally," says Gary Grossman, Skylight Theatre Company Producing Artistic Director

Writer Keith Bunin is the author of the plays The Busy World is Hushed, The Credeaux Canvas, and The World Over, all of which premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. His other plays include The Unbuilt City (NY Stage and Film), Sam Bendrix at the Bon Soir (La Jolla Playhouse/City Theatre) and The Principality of Sorrows (Pure Orange Productions). His original screenplay Ezekiel Moss will be produced by Likely Story Productions, and he wrote the screenplay for the film Horns, starring Daniel Radcliffe and based on the novel by Joe Hill. He was a writer for the HBO series In Treatment.

Director Robert Bailey helmed Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet for the Pacific Resident Theatre Co-Op in May; it will reopen on the PRT main stage this fall. Other L.A. productions include The Turn of the Screw, The Dock Brief, Lobby Hero, and Borderline. In New York he has been associated with Circle Repertory, Ensemble Studio Theatre, American Place Theatre, the Williamstown Theatre Festival and The Actors Studio, winning praise for his productions of contemporary plays in the New York Times, New York Magazine and the Village Voice. His short dramatic film Last Call was an official selection at film festivals from Avignon, France to Sedona, Arizona.

The award winning cast includes Jo Beth Williams, Alfred Molina, Leo Marks, Joanna Strapp, Melanie Lora, Tyler Miclean and Matthew Elkins will star in the staged reading of Keith Bunin's "Vera Laughed" for one night only, August 29th at 8pm, at the Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles.

Skylight Theatre Company discovers, develops and produces new, exhilarating works that expand mainstream theatre while nurturing and educating the people who create them. INKubator is Skylight's play and artist development program. Recognizing how difficult it is to get a play on its feet and produced, Skylight launched the multifaceted INKubator program in 2011 beginning with the Play Reading Series and a resident writers program, PlayLab. Their track record is impressive.

A recipient of the prestigious Steinberg National Theatre Critics Citation (Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea - Nathan Alan Davis), Skylight's resident PlayLab writers have been recognized with productions nationwide, a national 2014 USA Ford Fellowship in Theater and Performance (Sigrid Gilmer), and locally as a winner in the 2015 Humanitas/CTG Playwriting Prize (Louisa Hill). Skylight won 4 Ovation Awards in 2014 for The Wrong Man and Pray To Ball (the most of any intimate theatre in LA). LA Weekly included the Skylight's productions of Years To The Day, Open House and Sexsting on their Top Ten list of plays for 2013. Skylight's first year as a company dedicated to developing new plays was 2011; their production of Hermetically Sealed made the LA Times annual list of Top Ten Plays, and Mad Women moved from Los Angeles to La MaMa in New York. Since then, plays developed by Skylight have been performed in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Oregon, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and internationally in Scotland and France. For more information, script submission policy and production history go to http://skylighttheatrecompany.com

VERA LAUGHED by Keith Bunin kicks off at 7pm on August 29th with a pre-show cocktail. The staged reading begins immediately following at 8pm. Skylight Theatre is located at 1816 1/2 N. Vermont Ave, LA, 90027.

Tickets are $50 and proceeds will benefit the continued development of new plays and artists of all ages by the Skylight Theatre Company. Reservations: 213-761-7061 or online at http://skylighttix.com

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