Obie Award winner Metropolitan Playhouse will present a free "screened" reading of Alice Gerstenberg's popular comedy, THE POTBOILER, via live stream video, with talkback to follow, on Saturday, May 23, 2020 at 8 PM, EST.
The program will also be simultaneously broadcast on WBAI Radio 99.5 FM and
wbai.org
In THE POTBOILER,
Alice Gerstenberg turns the perspicacity and wit that so readily and affectionately skewered her social set to another world she knew so well: the rarified, competitive, tightly knit world of theater.
Prosperous and prolific playwright, Mr. Sud--an inveterate hack--offers to let a hopeful neophyte, young Wouldby, attend a first read and rehearsal of his new play. Picking up objects on his desk for inspiration, he begins Ms. Pencil and Mr. Inkwell on a desperate and dishonorable plot to sully Miss Ivory, cheat her father of a fortune, and break her promises to the upright Mr. Ruler. The plot thickens, the mustaches twirl, the script is cut and pasted, Sud editorializes throughout, and the actors fight for their lives to make something of the nonsense springing from the great man's imagination. Then someone finds the revolvers.
Another day in the theater.
The Potboiler is Ms. Gerstenberg's second most produced play, after Overtones, and is a welcome celebration of the art we miss so much, while theater has gone into hibernation. It is the 9th showing of The Metropolitan (Virtual) Playhouse.
The reading will be directed by
Alex Roe. Scenic Backgrounds by Vincent Gunn (Fourteen, Suppressed Desires). The cast includes Mike Durkin, SJ Hannah,
David Murray Jaffe,
Olivia Killingsworth, Jen Reddish,
Jay Romero, and
Tom Staggs.
DETAILS
Running Time: 40 minutes
Talkback to follow, including audience questions
Available via Zoom and YouTube:
www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse
Information about the theater's ARTISTS RELIEF FUND may be found at
www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/covidaid
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