New York Theatre Barn will be presenting its second annual New Play Reading Series on Sunday, June 8 and Monday, June 9 at the Manhattan Theatre Club Studios. The pieces in this year's series are the new play Good Hope by August Schulenburg and the new musical Wood by Julianne Wick Davis and Dan Collins.
The stage reading of Good Hope will be presented on Sunday, June 8 at 6pm and will be directed by New York Theatre Barn advisory board member Keith Powell (30 Rock, Artistic Director Contemporary Stage Co., Artist in Residence Stamford Arts Center). The cast will feature Michael Potts (Grey Gardens), Karina Mackenzie (Barrymore Award for Collected Stories with Lynn Redgrave), Howard Overshown (Yellowman), Stephen Conrad Moore and Ken Glickfeld. Good Hope takes place in 1850's South Africa, where the Xhosa people have endured seven long wars with the English. But when a sickness strikes their sacred cattle, the Xhosa turn to the apocalyptic visions of a teenage girl. Can the unlikely friendship between a leader of the Xhosa and the daughter of an Anglican priest stop the prophecy? Based on a real tragedy, Good Hope explores the dangerous and necessary power of belief.
Wood, a new musical, will be presented on Monday, June 9 at 2pm and will be directed by Thomas Caruso (Mimi LeDuck), who is also a New York Theatre Barn advisory board member. Christopher Littlefield will serve as music director and the cast will feature Joe Cassidy (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), Sally Wilfert (Spelling Bee at Barrington Stage Co., William Finn's Make Me a Song), Adam Heller (Caroline, or Change, A Class Act), Ryan Ratliff (Altar Boyz), Kate Wetherhead (Legally Blonde), Michael Zahler, Evan Harrington (Avenue Q) and Josh Sassanella. Wood, which has been accepted into the 2008 New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF), is a modern day re-imagining of A Midsummer Night's Dream complete with spandex clad color guard enthusiasts, shirtless Christians, quarreling divas, under-cover mothers and a sassy trio of Fairies who sing and dance and put En Vogue to shame from the stalls of a public men's room!
Manhattan Theatre Club Studios is located at 311 West 43rd street on the 8th floor. For more information on the plays and the series please visit www.NYTheatreBarn.org.
