Wisconsin Wrights New Play Festival

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Performers in the Forward Theater reading of "Sapiens" by Eric Schabla (clockwise from top left): Nadja Simmonds, Daniel Torres-Rangel, Jack Dwyer, Deija Richards, Jennifer Vosters and Di'Monte Henning.

Forward Theater is soldiering on during the COVID-19 crisis by hosting online readings of the three plays that won this year's Wisconsin Wrights playwriting competition. On Thursday: The Year Without Summer by Greer DuBois, a play set in an Italian villa in 1816; Friday's reading is Sapiens by Eric Schabla, an examination of human identity; and Saturday features The Mytilenian Debate by Quan Barry, about a successful heart surgeon whose much younger wife gets pregnant while his own daughter struggles with fertility. As always for a Forward Theater production, the directors and casts are top-notch. It's required watching for folks missing the experience of live theater. For streaming info, visit Forward's website.

press release: Wisconsin Wrights and Forward Theater Company support and develop new theatrical work, awarding three Wisconsin playwrights with the rare opportunity to develop their plays in a professional public reading series. Because we are unable to produce these staged readings in a traditional setting, they will be streamed online!

If you've never viewed a live play reading online, we're making it easy.

On the evening of your desired performance, visit the

WI Wrights New Play Festival page on our website: https://forwardtheater.com/event/wisconsinwrights

The festival page will provide a link to your performance. This is your ticket! You'll be sent to a livestream of the reading, presented on the Forward Theater YouTube channel. (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS618u5DgxegUNP-uW-Qd6A)

Each performance will begin at 7:00pm.

After a short break, a live talkback will follow with the playwright, cast, director, and Artistic Director Jen Uphoff Gray.

You can access the talkback via a link provided on the YouTube viewing page. There, you can ask questions and provide feedback in real time via the comment section on screen!

Explore our YouTube channel in advance and check out all of our online content, including episodes of Tuesdays With Forward!

Thursday, June 25 @ 7:00pm: The Year Without Summer, by Greer DuBois

Synopsis (provided by playwright):

It's 1816. Nina Radcliff, a young Englishwoman, goes to visit her aunt in a villa in Italy. Her vacation is interrupted by the arrival of two strange men to her aunt's house. After a series of escalating hijinks, music, and conversations, Nina decides to remain in Italy instead of returning to her repressed life at home.

Director: Jeanne Leep

Dramaturg: Deanie Vallone

Stage Manager: Shannon Heibler

Cast:

Whitney Derendinger, Lea Hulsey, Chantae Miller, Shawn Padley, Andy White, Jessica Jane Witham

Friday, June 26 @ 7:00pm: Sapiens by Eric Schabla

Synopsis (provided by playwright): A young PhD student embarks on an ambitious research project in a private wing at a zoo. What she and her colleagues discover behind closed doors leads them to questions of taxonomy, human identity, and the nature of inquiry.

Director: Jake Penner

Dramaturg: Rachel Lynett

Stage Manager: Karen Moeller

Cast:

Casem AbuLughod, Jack Dwyer, Di’Monte Henning, Daniel Torres-Rangel, Deija Richards, Nadja Simmonds, Jennifer Vosters, Jonathan Wainwright*

*Appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

Saturday, June 27 @ 7:00pm: The Mytilenian Debate by Quan Barry

Synopsis (provided by playwright): Latimer is a successful heart surgeon. When his much younger wife, Nina, unexpectedly (and rather ambivalently) gets pregnant post-9/11, Latimer must break the news to his grown daughter, Mary, who is herself newly wed to Charles, a jazz musician with whom she's trying desperately to conceive. Questions of legacy abound as well as the responsibilities inherent in bringing a black child into a complicated world.

Director: Mark H.

Dramaturg: Jen Plants

Stage Manager: Jo Chalhoub

Cast:

Jeb Burris, Olivia Dawson, Gavin Lawrence*, Samra Teferra

*Appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.