Vivid Stage Announces New Play Reading Collaborations in June

Vivid Stage, formerly Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre, in residence at Oakes Center at 120 Morris Avenue in Summit, will present new play readings on June 1 and 7 in collaboration with other New Jersey arts organizations.

On June 1, Vivid and NJ Play Lab will present a reading of Eric Craft's And Every Creeping Thing at the Oakes Center at 7:30 pm. In this office comedy of biblical proportions, corporate politics clash with spiritual and artistic fulfillment in a story from before time itself. In the beginning, the angels are hard at work designing and managing logistics for Creation, but in the Department of Beasts, an unbalanced food chain threatens to destroy the world before it even starts. One little angel's passion project may just hold the key to saving Creation, and the creatures that may just be the world's secret hope. Bugs.

Eric Craft is a playwright, director, actor, educator, and floral designer proudly based in New Jersey. He has written two full-length plays and a full-length musical, The Blank Page, for which he wrote the book and lyrics and self-produced out of college. His play And Every Creeping Thing was produced virtually by the Hold Space Theatre Collective and was a finalist at The Shawnee Playhouse new works festival. He has multiple one-act plays and monologues which he developed and directed while teaching at The Allegra School of Music and Arts in Hillsborough, New Jersey, including his plays Finding the Root and The Struggle Bus. Other one-acts include The Edge of Infinity, which received a staged reading with the Chaotic Good Collective, and Whoa There, Grandma, which was a featured finalist of The Summit Playhouse's Summer 2020 bake-off. He holds a B.A. in Theatre Studies from Montclair State University.

The New Jersey Play Lab (NJPL) is a home for NJ-based playwrights of all career levels who seek collaboration, methodology, and excellence in their work. At each and every point of engagement at The NJPL, whether through developmental residencies, play development forums, or dramaturgical services, the focus is on providing the knowledge and opportunity to move forward in one's artistic and professional journey.

And Every Creeping Thing will be presented on Wednesday, June 1 at 7:30 pm at the Oakes Center, 120 Morris Avenue, Summit, NJ. Tickets are $10, and may be purchased here.

On June 7, Vivid will present a reading of Erin Mallon's Soft Animals at 7:00 pm at NJPAC's Chase Room. This comedy with heart asks, what would your life be like if you couldn't feel physical pain? If your body had a mind of its own? What if you never fell asleep? How about if you remembered every single thing you've ever felt, thought or experienced? Four medical misfits sign up for a three-day workshop to tackle their issues. Can a former male nurse and self-professed "woo-woo" guide them toward healing? Or... perhaps they aren't the ones most in need of a cure.

Erin Mallon is a playwright, author, and narrator of over 550 audiobooks with a special affinity for the romance genre. She is a six-time Earphones Award Winner and a five-time Audie Award Nominee. Her audio play These Walls Can Talk is a 2021 Independent Audiobook Award Winner for Humor. The Natural History Series is Erin's debut trio of romantic comedy novels: Flirtasaurus,(July 2020) Lovebug, (February 2021) and Sharkbait (coming Fall 2021). Erin's plays have been presented with Urban Stages, New Georges, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, The Collective, Cherry Picking, Great Plains Theater Conference, Samuel French #OOB Short Play Festival, Project Y Theater, Dreamcatcher Rep, Mile Square Theatre and more. Erin's play Branched (dir. Robert Ross Parker) premiered with InViolet Theater at HERE Arts Center in NYC and is in print with Original Works Publishing. Her play, The Net Will Appear had its Off-Broadway Premiere at 59E59 Theaters in NYC starring the great Richard Masur and is now available on Audible.com as an audio drama co-starring Matilda Lawler (Disney Plus' Flora & Ulysses, Broadway's The Ferryman). Erin's Other full-length plays include: Good Riddance, Soft Animals, Hand Me Down, Stunning Displays of Prowess, Skin Hungry, The Other White Meat, Come Find Me and These Walls Can Talk 2: The Narwhal Strikes Back!

Cutting-edge play development meets insightful community dialogue at NJPAC Stage Exchange, a collaboration of professional New Jersey theaters and talented Garden State playwrights. Following readings and Q&As at NJPAC related to each Stage Exchange work, a world premiere production will be staged by the dramatist's partner theater.

Soft Animals will be presented on Tuesday, June 7 at 7:00 pm at The Chase Room at NJPAC, 1 Center Street, Newark, NJ. Tickets are $5, and may be purchased here.

For information on these or any of Vivid Stage's programs, please call 908-514-9654, or visit www.vividstage.org.

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