Six Points Theater Inaugurates New-Play Reading Festival

Six Points Theater inaugurates its New-Play Reading Festival with three new plays as filmed onstage readings, March 2 - 20, 2022. All performances will be shown by pay-per-view online.

This is the first new play reading festival Six Points Theater has produced. The Festival Director is actor/director Robert Dorfman.

The plays are hand-picked and not yet seen by the public:

The Book of Vashti

by Barbara Field

directed by Jeremy Cohen

The queen has refused the king! A young upstart arrives in the palace to take her place. Barbara Field's Book of Vashti re-tells the Old Testament's Book of Esther through the lens of the banished Queen. The legendary playwright turns the popular biblical story on its head in this dazzling and hysterical new play. Barbara Field (1933-2021) was a Minneapolis based playwright whose work has been seen at regional theaters across the United States and Canada, as well as in Europe. A co-founder and core member of The Playwrights' Center, Field served as literary manager at the Guthrie Theater for eight years. During that time, she wrote a number of adaptations for the Guthrie, two of which toured nationally. She was twice a playwright-in-residence at the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights' Conference, and held Shubert, Bush, McKnight and Minnesota State Arts Board fellowships. In 1982, she wrote an adaptation of Great Expectations for the Seattle Children's Theatre, which was produced at the old PONCHO Theatre in the Woodland Park Zoo. Her version of the Dickens play won the L.A. Drama Critics award in 1996. She was co-winner of the Humana Festival's Great American Play contest, at Actors Theatre of Louisville (for Neutral Countries), and was awarded a DramaLogue award for Boundary Waters (South Coast Repertory Theatre). A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the University of Minnesota (MA), she served as a panel member and site reporter for the NEA. Her last play at the Guthrie was Playing with Fire. The Book of Vashti is Barbara's final play.

Book of Hours

by Jessica Fechtor

director TBA

In best-selling author Jessica Fechtor's new play Book of Hours, two very different couples reveal themselves to one another in this multi-layered meditation on loss, grief, love and living. Taking place in a mountain cabin retreat, this warm devotional pays homage to the resilience of the human spirit. Jessica Fechtor is a writer based in San Francisco. Her play Book of Hours was developed by The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, the Great Plains Theatre Commons, and was a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. She is also the author of the bestselling memoir, Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals that Brought Me Home (Penguin Random House). Jessica was a 2021 LABA fellow, and is currently a member of the PlayGround SF writer's pool. Her essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Tablet.

Groupthink

by Mathew Goldstein

directed by Robert Dorfman

Young and idealistic, Kevin works for Top-Down Strategies, a PR firm he hopes will launch his career. When the company takes on the world's most controversial clients, Kevin is faced with the dilemma of "doing the right thing." Groupthink, Mathew Goldstein's provocative, fast-paced satire on business, politics and the state of being human, is funny, biting and asks all the "right" questions. Mathew Goldstein, a native Minnesotan, is excited to make his theatrical debut with Groupthink. He currently works as a speechwriter in Washington, DC. He has previously been a writer for a health care advocacy group, a public relations firm, the Hillary for America campaign, and served as an intern in the Obama White House speechwriting office. He holds a BA from the University of Southern California.

Festival Director Robert Dorfman said, we are "fortunate to live in a community where theater arts are supported by a devoted and enlightened public." He continued, "For Six Points Theater's first ever new play festival, we have chosen to feature plays that, while acknowledging our great tapestry of differences, might help us reflect on our commonalities and can hopefully help us navigate through these sometimes difficult, sometimes miraculous times."

"Six Points Theater's New-Play Reading Festival was initiated to allow audiences to experience cutting edge work and to broaden the landscape of Jewish theater," said Barbara Brooks, Six Points Theater's Producing Artistic Director. "As a national leader in presenting onstage stories that look at life through a Jewish lens, we are committed to nurturing new plays to the stage, all of which are ready for production, Brooks continued. "And I'm thrilled that Robert Dorfman agreed to take the helm for our new initiative."

The ticket price for all three shows is $30.

Individual tickets are $12.

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