4TH SATURDAYS READING SERIES Launches With THE TABLE This Month at Potentialist

UNIVERSAL ACCESS PRODUCTIONS, a Reno-based non-profit theatre company, has announced the launch of their 4th Saturdays Reading Series at the Potentialist Workshop Theatre, Ali's Alley. All shows are at 2pm, and all performances are Pay-What-You-Can with a non-perishable food item for the Food Bank of Northern Nevada.

The Table, presented on July 29th at 2pm, is a 1994 novel by Mark Curtis, a celebrated Reno advertising Creative Director/writer. The play is adapted by UAP Founding Artistic Director, Jeanmarie Simpson.

"Mark shared the book with me back in the mid-nineties," Simpson said, "and I immediately thought it would make a great play. It's packed with delicious details about Reno and northern Nevada, wonderful nostalgia about the Misfits era, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, the Truckee River, and Lake Tahoe. It's a love letter from one of its favorite sons to the region. Mark has a unique perspective that you don't get much these days. So much has changed - the Mapes is long gone, and Las Vegas has left Reno in the dust as the leading entertainment capital of the country. But Mark has given us a funny, wistful story full of longing that reminds us where we've been and inspires us as we move forward," Simpson concluded.

Simpson was also the Founding Artistic Director of the Nevada Shakespeare Company. In the late 90s, they produced a workshop production of The Table, first on the then-unfinished bottom floor of the Riverside Artists Lofts and later at the brand-new Wayne and Miriam Prim Theater at the Nevada Museum of Art.

"I wrote The Table in 1995," Curtis said, "and soon after, Jeanmarie turned it into a staged reading. It sat on old floppy disks for 28 years until we revitalized the project. Boy, is it fun working with Jeanmarie again. What she's done with the new format is exciting and strange," he laughed, then added, "Mostly exciting. Can't wait for folks to see it."

Universal Access Productions is a radically inclusive theatre and stage-to-film company that creates exceptional works informed by principles of universal design. We breed originality, spark passions, nourish artistic convictions and, in the process, make outstanding art.

The play is written and directed by Jeanmarie Simpson. The cast includes Jeffrey Bentley, Cori Lynne Cooper, Gary Cremeans, John Frederick, Kirk Gardner, Sarah Riley, Tom Strekal, and Amber Teen. Stage Manager is Liz Strekal.

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