Works by McDonald, Stoller & Cefaly Slated for 2017 Sigworks Series

The Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre continues its commitment to new work and developing local talent by presenting the third season of SigWorks: Monday Night New Play Readings at Ali's Bar.

This season Signature will bring back new revisions of three plays that have been workshopped in previous years - Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by Heather McDonald, Fortune Cookies for Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes by Dani Stoller, and Alabaster by Audrey Cefaly.

"Heather, Dani, and Audrey are three writers we believe in strongly, and the initial SigWorks readings of their plays got great responses from our audiences," said Signature Theatre Director of New Work Joe Calarco. "All three playwrights wanted to do more work on their plays, and we were eager to see their next drafts. As an incubator of new work, we know how beneficial it is, not just for playwrights but for our audiences as well, to be part of a steady, committed, developmental process."

SigWorks: Monday Night New Play Readings at Ali's Bar is an initiative which highlights and supports the work of DMV and regional playwrights. This year, each play will receive an extended three day mini-developmental workshop with professional actors. This series is an opportunity for playwrights, actors, directors, designers, and patrons to explore new plays in a fun and informal environment. Each reading will be followed by a dialogue with the audience and the artists.

The Monday Night New Play Reading Series is hosted at Ali's Bar in Signature Theatre's Mead Lobby. See full schedule of featured plays below. Ali's Bar will be open before and after each reading and audience members are invited to come early for drink specials.

The readings are free and open to the public, no reservations are required.

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Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

by Heather McDonald

November 6, 2017 at 7PM

A hundred years war. The Museum of Art & Antiquities is being used as a prison. When negotiations between three women, a soldier, a student, and an art restorer take a violent turn, the restoration of a Rembrandt painting causes them to redefine their ideas of culture, barbarism, and forgiveness.

Fortune Cookies for Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes

by Dani Stoller

February 5, 2018 at 7PM

Marian Amsel assumed that retirement would be a quiet life with her new husband Richard in their Southern Florida gated community. However, a surprise visit from her grown daughter Lee, who has been kicked out of her own home by her husband, a guest room being used by Richard's pregnant teenage niece, Kitty, and some extra attention needed by Bobby, the boy next door with the absentee father, suicidal sister, and mental hospital bound mother, leaves Marian with an empty nest a little fuller than she'd imagined.

Alabaster

by Audrey Cefaly

June 4, 2018 at 7PM

A noted photographer sets out to explore the topography of "scars." Her journey lands her in the mysterious realm of an undiscovered folk artist hiding away in a small farmhouse on the outskirts of Alabaster, Alabama. This intimate portrait explores the meaning and purpose of art and the struggle of the lost and tortured souls that seek to create it.

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Readings are free and open to the public with no reservations required. Ali's Bar will be open with a full food and beverage menu. The series is free and open to the public. No tickets are required. For more information about the series visit www.sigtheatre.org.

Founded in 1989, Signature Theatre is a Tony Award-winning regional theater that broadens and brightens the region's cultural landscape with its bold productions of challenging new and established works and engaging education and outreach programs. Under the leadership of co-founder and Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer and Managing Director Maggie Boland, musical theater has become Signature's "signature," and the Theatre is renowned for its definitive Sondheim productions, inventive adaptations of overlooked or forgotten works, and investment in fresh new projects. Called a "musical theater powerhouse" by The Washington Post, Signature combines Broadway-caliber productions with intimate playing spaces and aims to be a leading force in U.S. musical theater. Since its inception, the Theatre has produced 58 world premiere works-including 19 new musical commissions-and is home to the single largest musical theater commissioning project in the United States, The American Music Voices Project. Attracting talent from the DC metropolitan region and New York, Signature has grown to reach more than 100,000 people annually from the Washington, DC region and beyond. Signature has won 103 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in the Washington, DC region's professional theater and has been honored with 411 nominations.

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