Roger Q. Mason's WAITING FOR A WAKE Will Receive Reading With Page 73

Acclaimed Black Filipinx playwright and Kilroys List honoree Roger Q. Mason will receive a developmental reading of their new play Waiting for a Wake with Page 73 at Open Jar Studios (1601 Broadway 11th floor, New York, NY 10019) on Friday, April 21 at 4pm. The reading will be directed by Timothy Douglas with dramaturgy by Gaven Trinidad. The event is free and open to the public.

Please visit https://ci.ovationtix.com/3082/production/1153874 to reserve your spot.

Meet the Brickstones: Quentin dreams of escaping the nest at 30 years old through fashion design. His father Ovid wants to write his memoirs - and make all his family members his secretaries. His mother Divinia pines for peace in the house and runs away often to find it.

And Jason plays video games in his room to quell the rage he exhibits when things don't go his way. As we spend one day in their house, once a beacon of social mobility, we see a Black and Filipino family deferred from their American dreams by co-dependence, mental illness and mutual financial abuse. How will they survive their lives without destroying each other completely?

"People of the global majority are the new American family, and our stages should reflect our demographic and cultural truths," said playwright Roger Q. Mason. "As an industry, theatre is experiencing a reckoning - who is the theatre for, who goes to see it, who creates it, who runs it, and whose stories do we let through the gates? Waiting for a Wake aims to bust down the doors of theatrical access, creating a work that employs people of color and carves new space in the canon for plays that reflect who we are and who we will become as a country and a craft."

Inspired by the tradition of the American Family drama, Waiting for a Wake is a post-kitchen sink drama which will establish black and brown folks as the new protagonists of the American Dream and its struggles.

Waiting for a Wake was originally commissioned by Leviathan Lab (Ariel Estrada, Founder & Producing Artistic Director).

Playwright Roger Q. Mason was recently acclaimed "a daring theatrical talent" by Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times and "a major voice in the theatrical vanguard" by TheaterMania. The Brooklyn Rail said Mason is "quickly becoming one of the most significant playwrights of the decade."

Roger Q. Mason (Playwright - they/them) is a writer and performer who uses the lens of history to disrupt the biases that divide rather than unite us. Their playwriting has been seen on Broadway (Circle in the Square Reading Series); Off and Off-Off-Broadway; and regionally. Mason's World Premiere of Lavender Men was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as "evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris and Michael R. Jackson." As a filmmaker, Mason has been recognized by the British Film Institute, Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, SCAD Film Festival, AT&T Film Award and Atlanta International Film Festival. Their films have screened in the US, UK, Poland, Brazil, and Asia. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. They are a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and Ma-Yi's Writing Lab, as well as an alum of Page 73's Interstate 73 Writers Group and Primary Stages Writing Cohort. Mason has co-hosted the podcast Sister Roger's Gayborhood and hosted This Way Out Radio's Queerly Yours: Portraits in Courage. They are a lead mentor of The Marsha P. Johnson Institute's Starship Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship and the Shay Foundation Fellowship. Instagram: @rogerq.mason

Timothy Douglas (Director) Off-Broadway: Frankenstein (Classic Stage Company), Brontë (Alloy / Ars Nova). Regional productions include August Wilson's Seven Guitars, and the world premiere of Radio Golf (Yale Rep), and over 100 plays, musicals and premieres for Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arena Stage, Berkeley Rep, Childrens Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Denver Center, Guthrie Theater, Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, Portland Center Stage, Roundhouse Theatre, Signature Theatre, Steppenwolf, Sundance, and many others. Opera: Champion (Boston Lyric Opera). International: Disgraced (Great Theatre of China), Insurrection and Three Sisters (Toi Whakaari, New Zealand). Upcoming: Blue (New Orleans Opera). Recipient of the Lloyd Richards Directing Award from the National Black Theatre Festival. www.timothydouglas.org

Page 73 is a Tony and Obie-award winning theater company whose mission is to advance the careers of talented playwrights by producing impactful Off-Broadway debuts and awarding substantial development resources exclusively to playwrights who have not yet had a professional premiere in New York City. Page 73 developed and, with Playwrights Horizons, produced the World Premiere of Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop, which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and transferred to Broadway, receiving the 2022 Tony Award for Best Musical. Among Page 73's many other celebrated world and New York premieres are Zora Howard's STEW, which was named a Finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Mia Chung's Catch as Catch Can, Leah Nanako Winkler's Kentucky, Max Posner's Judy, Clare Barron's You Got Older, and Quiara Alegría Hudes's Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue. Now in its 25th year, Page 73 was honored with an institutional Obie Award "for providing extraordinary support for early career playwrights." Visit www.page73.org for more information.

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