Abingdon Theatre's Ghostlight Reading Series to Continue with THE SUBJECT and CARLO AT THE WEDDING

Abingdon Theatre Company continues its Ghostlight Reading Series with readings of THE SUBJECT by Chisa Hutchinson and directed by Jade King Carroll on Monday, June 5th at 7pm and CARLO AT THE WEDDING by Bryna Turner and directed by Jenna Worsham on Monday, June 12th at 7pm. Both readings are free and open to the public at Abingdon Theatre Company's June Havoc Theatre (312 West 36th Street).

THE SUBJECT focuses on an upstart documentarian who builds his success on the death of one of his subjects and faces the consequences. The cast includes Ryan King (Eurydice, Second Stage Theatre; Defiance, Manhattan Theatre Club), Nedra McClyde (Marvin's Room, Broadway; Jessica Jones), Celestine Rae (Boardwalk Empire; Law & Order SVU), Michael Tisdale (Straight White Men; Venus in Fur), and Analisa Velez (Tell Hector I Love Him, Atlantic Theatre Company).

Playwright Chisa Hutchinson's show Somebody's Daughter is currently receiving its world premiere at Second Stage Theater in Manhattan. She has presented her plays Dirt Rich, She Like Girls, This is Not The Play, Sex on Sunday, Tunde's Trumpet, Mama's Gonna Buy You, Alondra Was Here and Dead & Breathing at such venues as the Lark Theatre, SummerStage, Atlantic Theater Company, National Black Theatre, Rattlestick Theater, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, and Writers' Theatre of New Jersey. She has been a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Lark Fellow, a Humanities Fellow, a Resident at the William Inge Center for the Arts, a New York NeoFuturist and a staff writer for the Blue Man Group, and is currently a fourth-year member of New Dramatists. Chisa has won a GLAAD Award, the John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, the Paul Green Award, a Helen Merrill Award, the Lanford Wilson Award, and has been a finalist for the highly coveted PoNY Fellowship. She received a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from NYU - Tisch School of the Arts.

Jade King Carroll has directed the The Piano Lesson (McCarter), Having Our Say (Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre), Sunset Baby (City Theatre Company), The Whipping Man, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Portland Stage), Trouble in Mind (PlayMakers Repertory Company, Two River Theatre Company). She has served as the Associate Director on Broadway for The Gin Game and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Carlo, the central character in CARLO AT THE WEDDING is going to be really well behaved today. She's not going to get drunk. She's not going to give any long-winded speeches. And she's definitely not going to try to steal the bride back. Inspired by Dorothy Baker's Cassandra at the Wedding. The cast includes Cassie Beck (The Humans; Picnic, Broadway), Eboni Booth (Daredevil), Leale DeVerges (Club), Andrew Garman (Salome, Broadway; The Christians) and Eve Lindley (Outsiders, Mr. Robot), Kelly McAndrew (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Broadway; Orange is the New Black).

Playwright Bryna Turner is based in Brooklyn and originally from Northern California. Her play Bull in a China Shop recently premiered at LCT3 directed by Lee Sunday Evans. Her work has been developed with LCT3, Clubbed Thumb, Colt Coeur, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Mount Holyoke College, Rutgers University, and Rainbow Theatre Project in DC. Other plays include: The Apprentice, Lights Over Philo, The Stand-In and How to Separate Your Soul from Your Body (in ten easy steps!). She is an alumna of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writer's Group, and holds an MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers University.

Director Jenna Worsham has served as the Associate Director on Broadway's The Heidi Chronicles. She also served as Associate Director on Picnic during her SDC Fellowship. Recent directing credits include The Siblings Play by Ren Dara Santiago (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), Street Children by Pia Scala-Zankel (New Ohio Theatre, NY Times Critics' Pick), Have You Been There by Emily Zemba and The First Immigrant by Martyna Majok (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Invincible Ones by Samantha Cooper (Signature Center/Columbia MFA Production), Balm in Gilead (Lee Strasberg Institute), Here to Be Seen (featuring a cast of formerly incarcerated women, commissioned by the Brooklyn District Attorney), Kids by Daniel Talbott (IRT), The Vagina Monologues for Taconic Correctional Facility (also at Cherry Lane Theatre), Agnes by Catya McMullen (Rattlestick). Select development work and readings at The Public, Yale Repertory, EST/Youngblood, the Lark, Playwrights Horizons, Labyrinth, Playmakers Rep, Primary Stages, Rattlestick, and MCC. Jenna is the 2017 Boris Sagal/Drama League Directing Fellow at Williamstown Theatre Festival, and has been awarded a Jonathan Alper Directing Fellowship (MTC), two SDC Foundation Observerships, and was a finalist for the O'Neill Center's National Directors Fellowship. She is a proud member of the Lilly Awards Power Network, The Actors Studio Directors Unit, the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and an Affiliated Artist of New Georges. Jenna is also the Co-founder of Creative Solutions: a residency retreat program at SPACE on Ryder Farm for social justice organizations and human rights advocates.

A ghost light is defined as "an electric light that is left energized on the stage of a theater when the theater is unoccupied and would otherwise be completely dark." With an eye towards production-ready scripts, the Ghostlight Reading Series provides an opportunity for writers, directors and collaborators to share the work with an audience before transitioning into production. By focusing on scripts that reflect our social, political, historical and cultural diversity, Abingdon aims to become a destination for artists grappling with big questions.

Abingdon Theatre Company launched its 2017 mainstage season this January with the world premiere of The Mother of Invention, written by James Lecesne (The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey) and directed by Tony Speciale. In March, Abingdon's 24th Season continued with the world premiere of Chess Match No. 5, conceived and directed by Anne Bogart, text arranged by Jocelyn Clarke from the words of John Cage, created by Siti Company. Abingdon is currently breaking new ground by presenting its first mainstage musical, The Boy Who Danced on Air, music by Tim Rosser and book and lyrics by Charlie Sohne, recipients of a 2015 Jonathan Larson Grant. The Boy Who Danced on Air opened on May 15th and runs through June 11th.

Abingdon Theatre Company is dedicated to developing and producing new work by emerging and established American artists. Under the artistic direction of Tony Speciale, the company provides a safe home where playwrights, directors and actors can collaborate within a supportive and nurturing environment. Abingdon Theatre Company searches for stories about the human experience that reflect our social, political, historical and cultural diversity. To date, the company has collaborated with more than 200 playwrights, produced 90 New York and world-premiere plays, presented more than 700 readings, staged over 175 ten-minute plays, and commissioned 6 one-act plays. Notable artists who have worked with Abingdon Theatre Company include Carl Andress, Bryan Batt, Reed Birney, Anne Bogart, Robert Brustein, Mario Cantone, Maxwell Caulfield, Dick Cavett, John Epperson, Caroline V. McGraw, Jane Greenwood, Arthur Kopit, James Lecesne, Ralph Macchio, Roberta Maxwell, Charles Mee, Iddo Netanyahu, Nancy Opel, Austin Pendleton, Sam Pinkleton, Marcia Rodd, Michael Weller, and Mark Waldrop. Abingdon's 2014 production of Brian Richard Mori's Hellman v. McCarthy, directed by founding artistic director Jan Buttram, was filmed and presented by WNET as part of its inaugural Theatre Close-Up series.

The Ghostlight Reading Series reading of THE SUBJECT written by Chisa Hutchinson and directed by Jade King Carroll is set for Monday, June 5th at 7pm, and the reading of CARLO AT THE WEDDING by Bryna Turner and directed by Jenna Worsham, will take place on Monday, June 12th at 7pm. Both readings are free and open to the public at Abingdon Theatre Company's June Havoc Theatre (312 West 36th Street). Reservations are required, and seating is subject to availability. For more information, visit abingdontheatre.org.

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