Dorset Theatre Festival's New Play Reading Series to Continue with Chris Newbound's THE TROUBLE WITH NICOLE

Dorset Theatre Festival's 2015 New Play Reading Series continues on August 3 with Chris Newbound's The Trouble with Nicole. Newbound is a Berkshire-based playwright whose full-length play Birthday Boy received its world premiere at Berkshire Theatre Group in 2011 and was recently published by Samuel French. Last January, Chris's play Cigars was given a staged reading at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, New York, and in February, his short play, Just Friends, was selected as one of ten plays to be included in Barrington Stage's popular 10X10 new play festival, making it the second time a short play of his was produced there. He's had numerous readings of various plays at Berkshire Theatre Festival, Made in the Berkshires, Berkshires Playwrights Lab, and New Stage.

"The New Play Reading Series is one of the most important and exciting things we do each summer at the Festival," says Ashley Connell, Artistic Associate. "Knowing that we provide opportunities for wonderful emerging writers as well as some of the greatest established playwrights in the American theatre to create and develop the plays that will become part of the canon is so satisfying."

This year's New Play Reading Series will take place at the Marble House Event Barn as part of an ongoing collaboration between the Dorset Theatre Festival and the Marble House Project. "Our collaboration with the Marble House Project has been enormously successful, and we are so excited to continue working with them to bring great art into the community." says Dina Janis, Artistic Director. "It's also an artistically stunning location for our playwrights and performers to work on these wonderful new plays." This year DTF's acclaimed series has been underwritten by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Foundation, leaders in supporting the development of new work nationally.

Artistic Director Dina Janis will direct the reading of The Trouble with Nicole, a tense and emotional piece about a single father, his young daughter, and the shockwaves that threaten his family and community when his daughter acts out in a sexually inappropriate way at school. "Theatre at its best asks something of its audience. This play asks us to consider the danger in making and acting on assumptions, a very difficult, and important, message," says Janis. "We are excited to engage the community in this conversation."

The reading will take place on August 3rd at 7 pm at the Event Barn at the Marble House Project, 1161 Dorset West Road. Audiences should note that this event features frank talk of sexuality and may be inappropriate for younger audiences. Tickets and info are available by calling (802) 867-2223 or online at www.dorsettheatrefestival.org

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