Readings are an essential part of the play development process. We are proud to offer the Primary Plus Developmental Reading Series as a creative lab for emerging and established playwrights. Conveniently located in our fully accessible in-house rehearsal studios, our reading series provides a home for writers to hear their new work read aloud.
Readings are free of charge. Patrons, subscribers, and friends of Primary Stages are invited to attend and be a part of a playwright’s creative process. Several plays have received productions at Primary Stages since participating in our reading series including Charles Busch's Olive and the Bitter Herbs, Michael Hollinger’s Opus, Lee Blessing’s A Body of Water and Tina Howe’s Chasing Manet.
All readings are free of charge. The Primary Plus Developmental Reading Series is made possible, in part, by a generous donation from the Axe-Houghton Foundation.
A People's Guide to History in the Time of Here and Now - Monday, November 25 at 3:00PM
Primary Stages ESPA presents Detention #49: Home for the Holidays - Wednesday, December 4 at 8pm
Featuring ESPA Artists including: Alison Shapiro, Allison Lewis-Tobes, Ashley Formento, Chad Kaydo, Charlie Gillette, Clio Doyle, Dave Marr, Donnie Tuel, Erica Lynn Ceci, Ginny Mohler, Heather Bildman, Isabella Dawis, Jade Anderson, Janine Renee Cunningham, Jeff Smith, Jessica Chang, Joshua Youngerman, Kathryn Elizabeth Miller, Katrina Michaels, Louisa deButts, Maggie Wilson, Martha Garvey, Meghan Duffy, Nicole Reinert, Paige Felger, Ross Pasquale, Sam Given, Samantha Walsh, Samantha Walsh, Sarah Caroline Billings, Sarah Ceballos, Sarah Krohn, Savannah Core, Sezen Hatta, Shaun Bennet Fauntleroy, Shauna Bloom, Shuyler Nazareth, Steven Kranner, Susan Hochtman, Tara Tisch-Wallace.
Detention is an evening of new and original theater pieces written, directed, and performed exclusively by artists at the Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA), the school for emerging and established professionals at Primary Stages. In this special year-end edition of Detention, writers were paired with actors and, based on their personal conversations and collaborations, have created pieces specifically for them. Because this evening of monologues will be held at Primary Stages home at the Cherry Lane Theatre, these works are based on the theme of home – whatever that means, evokes, or strikes in the actors and writers.
The Latinx Playwrights Circle presents Latinx Theater State of Emergency: an evening of conversation and excerpts featuring the Latinx Playwrights Circle Intensive Mentorship Finalists - Tuesday, December 10 at 8pm
Featuring work by Andres Osorio, Nilsa Reyna, Andrew Rincón, Noelle Viñas, and a town hall conversation with members of the Latinx Playwrights Circle and The Sol Project.
Across Latin America, people are revolting against corruption, challenging the status quo, fighting for their lives, and protesting against climate change. How do we, as Latinx artists in the US, show support? How do we join the fight for truth and justice? How can our art make an impact globally if our voices are being silenced and ignored locally? Through conversation and art sharing, we seek to engage in these questions and amplify our voices in the American Theatre and beyond.
The Latinx Playwrights Circle’s mission is to create a network of Latinx playwrights that theaters can get to know by offering space where the playwrights can hear their plays out loud in an environment that nurtures and uplifts their work with the goal to eventually develop new work that is ready to be workshopped/produced in NYC. The Latinx Playwrights Circle is the Primary Stages inaugural 2019 Company-in-Residence.
The 2019 Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award Reading: Welcome to Matteson! - Monday, September 9 at 7:00PM
Welcome to Matteson!
by 2019 Jeffry Melnick Award winner Inda Craig-Galván
directed by Logan Vaughn
featuring Rolando Boyce, Billy Eugene Jones, Cynthia McWilliams, and Heather Alicia Simms
A suburban couple hosts a welcome-to-the-neighborhood dinner party for their new neighbors — a couple recently (forcibly) relocated from Chicago's roughest housing project — and it's anything but welcoming. A dark intra-racial comedy about reverse gentrification and how we deal with the "other" when the other looks just like us.
Inda Craig-Galván is a Chicagoan living in Los Angeles, where it’s warm. Plays include BLACK SUPER HERO MAGIC MAMA (Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles) and I GO SOMEWHERE ELSE (Playwrights’ Arena, Los Angeles). Her work has been developed and presented at Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Lab, San Francisco Playhouse, American Blues Theatre, and others. Honors include the Kilroys List, Kennedy Center Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, Steppenwolf’s The Mix, Blue Ink Playwriting Prize, Humanitas Prize Play LA, and Princess Grace Playwriting Prize (runner-up). Inda is a story editor on How To Get Away With Murder and previously wrote on ABC’s The Rookie. MFA in Dramatic Writing, University of Southern California.
The Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award, established by Jeffry Melnick and administrated by Primary Stages, is given to worthy playwrights who the selection committee deems deserving of wider recognition. The other finalists for this year's award include Sanaz Toosi, Joshua Young and David Zheng. Those involved in the selection process included Sasha Emerson, Robert O'Hara, Jiehae Park, Christopher Schout and Leah Nanako Winkler.