Works by Kimber Lee, Jen Silverman and More on Tap for MTC's Ted Snowdon Reading Series

Manhattan Theatre Club has announced the lineup for this spring's Ted Snowdon Reading Series, formerly titled the Ernst C. Stiefel Reading Series.

The readings kick off Monday, March 13 and will be held on consecutive Mondays through April 3. The readings will take place at New York City Center - Stage I (131 West 55th Street). All readings are free and open to the public, but space is limited and RSVPs are required. To RSVP, visit THIS LINK or call (212) 399-3000 x 4163.

Now in its 19th year, this rehearsed reading series is dedicated to the support and development of innovative new work, offering each playwright a week-long rehearsal period with directors and actors. This year, the series will feature four new plays by a group of exceptional writers as well as a sneak peek into one of MTC's upcoming spring productions. MTC is grateful to Ted Snowdon for his generous support of the reading series.

Several plays developed in this reading series have gone on to full productions at MTC, including David Auburn's Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning Proof, Joe Hortua's Between Us, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Based on a Totally True Story, Molly Smith Metzler's Close Up Space (Susan Smith Blackburn finalist), and Nick Jones' Important Hats of the Twentieth Century.

Plays previously featured in this reading series that have been produced elsewhere in New York and around the world include Nick Gandiello's The Blameless, Nicky Silver's This Day Forward, Michael West's The Chinese Room, Halley Feiffer's I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Joshua Harmon's Significant Other, Ethan Lipton's Tumacho, Rachel Bonds' Five Mile Lake, Ayad Akhtar's The Who and the What, Penelope Skinner's The Village Bike, Rona Munro's Donny's Brain, Jonathan Caren's The Recommendation, The Civilians' The Great Immensity, Heidi Schreck's There Are No More Big Secrets, Eric Simonson's Fake, David Adjmi's Stunning, Naomi Iizuka's Strike-Slip, Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Little Flower of East Orange, Julia Cho's Durango, Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter, and Theresa Rebeck's The Scene.

Below is the 2017 Ted Snowdon Reading Series schedule. Please note the varied start times.

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March 13 at 4pm: The Niceties
by Eleanor Burgess, directed by Mike Donahue

Zoe, a biracial student at a liberal arts college, is called into her white professor's office to discuss her paper about slavery's effect on the American Revolution. What begins as a polite clash in perspectives explodes into an urgent debate about race, history, and power. In this tense and incisive new drama, more than ideas are at stake.

Eleanor Burgess' plays include The Niceties, Start Down (ALLIANCE THEATRE, Centenary Stage Company), Chill (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), and These Dying Generations. She's been the recipient of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award and an EST/Sloan commission. She received an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU/Tisch.

March 20 at 4pm: The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane
by Jen Silverman, directed by Saheem Ali

South African soccer phenomenon Noxolo has found safety and freedom in England through a soccer scholarship. But when her former love Pretty Mbane, who runs a secret safe house for lesbians, disappears during the World Cup, Noxolo risks everything to find out what's happened to her. Enlisting the help of a British journalist, Noxolo embarks on a suspenseful mission to discover the truth - and faces parts of herself she thought she left behind.

Jen Silverman's plays include The Moors (Yale Repertory Theatre, The Playwrights Realm), Phoebe in Winter (Clubbed Thumb), The Roommate (Actor's Theatre of Louisville, South Coast Repertory, etc.), Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Boops (Woolly Mammoth, The Theater @ Boston Court), and All the Roads Home (Cincinnati Playhouse). She is the 2016-2017 PoNY Fellow at the Lark and recipient of the Yale Drama Series Award, among others.

March 27 at 11am: to the yellow house
by Kimber Lee

1888. Paris and Provence. A failing artist in desperate pursuit of a new way of seeing, haunted by his past, and hoping to remake his future in the color and light of the south. At what point in an endless cycle of failures do faith and persistence become delusion and foolishness? A meditation on love, art, and not being popular.

Kimber Lee's plays include tokyo fish story (South Coast Repertory, TheatreWorks, Old Globe Theater), brownsville song (b-side for tray) (Humana Festival, Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3, Long Wharf, etc.), and different words for the same thing (Center Theatre Group). She is recipient of the Hartford Stages New Voices Fellowship and the inaugural 2015 Bush Theatre/PoNY Playwright Residency in London, among others.

April 3 at 4pm: Right to Be Forgotten
by Sharyn Rothstein, directed by Lynne Meadow

Derril made a mistake when he was 17 and he's been trying to get it off the internet ever since. Enter Marta, an activist lawyer who sees Derril's fight for privacy as her opportunity to make a mark in the digital age. But freedom of information is also big business and the tech companies aren't going down without a fight. In a time when everyone has their own version of the truth and their own way of spreading it, who decides what must be removed from online and what will live forever? Memory and forgiveness crash against politics and technology in this riveting new drama about truth, lies and the internet.

Sharyn Rothstein's plays include By the Water (Manhattan Theatre Club/Ars Nova, American Theater Critics Association Francesca Primus Prize) and All the Days (McCarter Theater Center, Kilroys List 2014, Edgerton Foundation Award). She is a writer for the television drama Suits. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU.

Sneak Peek Developmental Workshop Reading:

March 27 at 4pm: Fulfillment Center
by Abe Koogler, directed by Daniel Aukin

In the New Mexico desert, a down-on-her-luck folk singer takes a job at a giant online retailer's shipping center. Her young manager struggles to connect with his girlfriend newly relocated from New York. And a drifter living at a local campground dangerously links them all. Raw, surprising, and funny, this new drama coming to MTC's Stage II this spring is about four lonely lives coming together in the search for fulfillment.

Abe Koogler's plays include Kill Floor (Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3, American Theater Company) and Blue Skies Process (Goodman Theatre workshop). He is a winner of the Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Award and the Williamstown Theatre Festival's L. Arnold Weissberger Award. He earned an MFA from UT Austin and is a graduate of Juilliard's Playwrights Program.

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Ted Snowdon has supported new plays and playwrights his entire career, working in both the commercial and non-profit sides of theater. His producing credits reach back to 1979's Tony Award-winning The Elephant Man and include more recent plays and musicals like Buyer & Cellar, The Visit, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, The Mountaintop, Reasons To Be Pretty, The Little Dog Laughed, Spring Awakening, and Souvenir. With MTC he co-produced Master Class, Time Stands Still, and LoveMusik. He has long championed the arts and LGBT causes. He is on the boards of Glimmerglass Opera and Primary Stages, where he is co-presenting Michael McKeever's new play Daniel's Husband at the Cherry Lane Theatre in March and April.

Manhattan Theatre Club, under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, has become one of the country's most prominent and prestigious theatre companies. Over the past four and a half decades, MTC productions have earned numerous awards including six Pulitzer Prizes and 20 Tony Awards. MTC has a Broadway home at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street) and two Off-Broadway theatres at New York City Center (131 West 55th Street). Renowned MTC productions include Heisenberg by Simon Stephens; The Father by Florian Zeller; Fool For Love by Sam Shepard; Airline Highway by Lisa D'Amour; Casa Valentina by Harvey Fierstein; Outside Mullingar and Doubt by John PatRick Stanley; The Commons of Pensacola by Amanda Peet; Murder Ballad by Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash; Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney; The Assembled Parties by Richard Greenberg; Wit by Margaret Edson; Venus in Fur by David Ives; Good People and Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire; The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez; Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies; Ruined by Lynn Nottage; Proof by David Auburn; The Tale of the Allergist's Wife by Charles Busch; Love! Valour! Compassion! by Terrence McNally; The Piano Lesson by August Wilson; Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley; and Ain't Misbehavin', the Fats Waller musical. For more information on MTC, please visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.

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