(SUMMIT, NJ) -- Vivid Stage, in residence at Oakes Center at 120 Morris Avenue in Summit, will present its annual Meet the Artist new play reading series on Wednesdays, May 3, 17, 24 and 31. All readings will take place at the Summit Public Library, 75 Maple Street, at 7:00pm. The series features works by Richard Willett, Joe Sutton, David Lee White, and Brianna Barrett.
The new play reading series is a chance for the audience to participate in the development of new works, both to hear the plays read by professional actors and also to discuss the projects with the playwright, director and actors afterward. There will be an opportunity for the audience to provide feedback to the team after every performance.
On May 3, Vivid will present Richard Willett’s Grief at High Tide. When struggling New York photographer Jennifer Evers tells her husband Christopher that the photo she took of him by his mother’s deathbed—the one he never gave her permission to take and asked her not to show anyone—was secretly entered in a very prestigious competition, it doesn’t go well. To try to investigate the role that art plays in real-life relationships, Jennifer goes out on assignment to California, to create a piece on a Pulitzer Prize−winning photograph, Grief at High Tide, which changed the lives of everyone involved.
Richard Willett is the author of the plays Triptych, Random Harvest, The Flid Show, and Tiny Bubbles, which have been presented off-off-Broadway and at theaters across the country. Honors include an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship. His play A Terminal Event (Julie Harris Playwriting Award from the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild and finalist for the Woodward/Newman Drama Award) received its world premiere at the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles in June of 2022; 9/10 is scheduled for a world premiere in New York in 2023; and he is developing a one-woman show about Ingrid Bergman with actress Annemette Andersen and director Henning Hegland in New York, London, and Copenhagen. Richard is also an optioned screenwriter who has twice been in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowships Top 50 and a finalist for both the Sundance Feature and Episodic Labs. He was also a finalist for the Cynosure Diversity Screenwriting Awards, the Stage 32 Diverse Voices Springboard, and won the Lonely Seal Film Festival award for the best script with a disabled lead character. He lives in Los Angeles.
On May 17, Vivid will present Idée Fixe by Joe Sutton. A young, ambitious doctor latches onto the notion that vaccinations cause more harm than good as his ticket to medical notoriety. A chorus of five actors play all the people he encounters as he dives deeper and deeper into the world of twisted proof and tainted evidence. How will the scientific world treat his quest for fame? And more importantly, will ordinary people looking for an answer for their children's afflictions embrace or reject his flawed science?
Joe Sutton’s work includes As It Is In Heaven (New York Theatre Workshop) and Voir Dire (Seattle Rep), nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the Best Play Award of the American Theatre Critics Association, and produced by dozens of theatres across the country. Joe’s many other works have been performed across the U.S. at such theatres as Trinity Rep, the Old Globe, Arena Stage, Primary Stages, and the Cleveland Playhouse. His plays have also been produced internationally at such theaters as the National Theatre of Turkey, the Vaganten Buhne in Berlin, and Maggio Musicale in Florence. His play Twirl was produced at Vivid Stage in spring 2022. For many years, Joe taught playwriting at Dartmouth College. He now lives in West Orange, NJ with his wife Anne Travers.
On May 24, Vivid will present The Festial Quartet by David Lee White. Four high school seniors who make up a chorus struggle with the recent death of one of their friends, as they approach their own graduation and life choices in the world beyond. Against the backdrop of a Christian education, the students grapple with their own desires and the sometimes cloudy difference between right and wrong. When the adults in their orbit are also dealing with loss and moral quandaries, they turn to each other for support and clarity.
David Lee White is a playwright/performer/educator based in New Jersey. His work with Kate Brennan on The Infinity Trilogy, a series of YA musicals, was the recipient of a MAP Fund award, and the first musical in the trilogy, ALiEN8, is now available through YouthPLAYS. David was also in the inaugural group of playwrights to receive commissions from the New Jersey Performing Arts Centers’ Stage Exchange Program. The result was FIXED – a play about navigating the mental healthcare system. His mental health awareness work continued with PANTHER HOLLOW, his solo show about his battle with clinical depression in his youth. David continues his comedic work at Vivid Stage as a member of their comedy troupe “The Flip Side.” Vivid Stage also recently produced an audio production of his play WAYS TO HAPPY. David also teaches Advanced Improvisation, Theatre History and Dramatic Analysis at Drexel University, where he co-created the web-series ESSENTIAL with director Bill Fennelly. Spring 2023 will mark the premiere of CLEAN SLATE, his second musical with Kate Brennan, as a co-production of Passage Theatre and Rider University. The Fall of 2023 will see the premiere of the musical THE ANGRY GRAMMARIAN (with Jeffrey Barg) at Raw Street Theatre.
On May 31, Vivid presents Brianna Barrett’s Acts of Creation. Thea and Reed have been married for 25 years, but now Thea is convinced that she's dying. Her legacy will be to write a play using technology that randomizes language, and she trusts her wife and two daughters to make sure it sees the light of day. With wit and humor, the play poses the question of whether art can be artificially created, and tells the story of a family mourning the loss of an actual person who has attempted to digitize her memory.
Brianna Barrett is a writer and performer fascinated with identity crises, double lives, mortality, grief, dick jokes with heart, and the forgotten history of stuff that happened surprisingly-not-that-long-ago. Recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize in Comic Playwriting and twice-voted Portland’s Best Storyteller in Willamette Week, her short plays are published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals and Applause Books. She has an MFA in Playwriting from UCLA.
All readings will be held at the Summit Public Library, 75 Maple Street, at 7:00 pm. Admission is $10. For touchless advance ticket purchases, go to their website. For more information, call 908-514-9654. The library is wheelchair accessible.
These readings are is part of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance 2023 Stages Festival, made possible by support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts; Bank of America; The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey; OceanFirst Foundation; NJM Insurance Group; Customers Bank; and Fund for the New Jersey Blind.
Vivid Stage was founded in 1994 as Dreamcatcher Rep, and is a non-profit professional ensemble of actors who build community with the audience by sharing contemporary, life-affirming stories that challenge, energize and entertain. Their work has at its heart a belief in the essential goodness of people and the power of live performance to connect people through our shared humanity. They expose theatregoers to ideas and lives like and unlike their own with the intention of awakening their imaginations and creating empathy for others. They deepen the experience of all their patrons with personal contact through receptions, talkbacks, and interactive programs.
The company’s activities include mainstage productions, improvisational comedy and cabarets, new play readings and a variety of educational and senior outreach programs.
Vivid Stage’s programs are funded by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and many other corporations, foundations and individuals. Vivid Stage is an Equity Producing member of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance.
Vivid Stage, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) corporation, incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey.
