Rounding out our 2012 Season is The Matchbox Reading Series featuring public readings of new works by three phenomenal local playwrights, Michelle Carter, Eugenie Chan, and Kate E. Ryan, and joined by the nationally acclaimed Chicago-based playwright, Thomas Bradshaw. All readings are free to the public and will be presented at a.Muse Gallery, 614 Alabama Street in San Francisco. Seating is limited! Reserve your space now.
We’re pretty excited about the line-up this year and can’t wait to introduce these new works to you! Those following our development work closely have likely already made this connection, but a lot of the work you see in these early stages often finds it’s way onto our mainstage or onto other stages across town. Come see what tomorrow may bring!
Monday, March 5 at 7pm
Snakewoman by Eugenie Chan
directed by Evren Odcikin
Snakewoman is a mythic tale of a three-breasted, three-armed, Asian goddess—half woman, half snake. Now an angry single mother of three teen princesses—one Black, one White, and one Lemon Yellow—Snakewoman must contend with their man-crazy desires. But love proves a powerful and destructive force when her zeal leads to tragedy. In Snakewoman, Eugenie Chan weaves a lyrical fairy tale about transforming woman’s fury into mother’s blessing.
Tuesday, March 6 at 7pm
How to Pray by Michelle Carter
directed by Marissa Wolf
Faith, who is carrying a baby for her brother and his wife, asks herself , “Sometimes something happens that you didn’t choose. And you find yourself wishing that you were a certain kind of person—the kind of person you’d always expected you would someday become. Who would you be if you let go of that person?” When she learns that her bother’s marriage has dissolved, a pregnant Faith embarks on a journey of self discovery. A chorus of helpful (and not so helpful) advice from a wild menagerie of family, friends, lovers, and even her eloquent cat, teach Faith lessons along the way, including how to pray…her way.
Monday, March 12 at 7pm
The Bereaved by Thomas Bradshaw
directed by Marissa Wolf
Ferocious, startling, and unsettling, The Bereaved depicts a “typical” suburban family whose lives take a series of sudden turns toward nightmarish destruction. Or do they? With a voice that is both aggressive and measured,Chicago satirist Thomas Bradshaw forges a dark, gleaming comedy that exposes both the blithe entitlement of upper-middle-classAmerica and the feral appetites and violent prejudices roiling just beneath the surface.
Tuesday, March 13 at 7pm
MARK SMITH by Kate E. Ryan
directed by Jessica Heidt
1980s rock-and-roll legend Mark Smith came from a small town and touched the lives of each of its citizens in some small way. Some in very small ways. Some in…er…very, very small ways. When a documentarian starts looking for the hometown back-story of a star, he finds instead that larger-than-life may not be the most interesting story after all. Dryly comic and beautifully bleak, Kate E. Ryan’s MARK SMITH is about distractions, awkward exposures, and trying to tell a story that doesn’t quite fit the reality.
About the Playwrights:
Thomas Bradshaw (The Bereaved) Bradshaw is the author of Mary, which premiered at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 2010; The Ashes; The Bereaved, which was named one of the Best Plays of 2009 by Time Out New York and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick; and Southern Promises and Dawn, both listed among the Best Performances of Stage and Screen for 2008 in The New Yorker. Bradshaw has been featured as one of Time Out New York’s ten playwrights to watch, and as Best Provocative Playwright in the Village Voice. He is the recipient of a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship ,the 2010 Prince Charitable Trust Prize, The Lark’s NVNY Fellowship for 2011, and the 2012 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award.
Michelle Carter (How to Pray) Carter’s plays have received the Susan Glaspell Award, Backstage Garland Awards, the PEN West Award, and the PEN USA Literary Award in Drama. Her work has been produced and developed at theaters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Florida, Washington, New Jersey, and London, where she held a residency at the Donmar Theatre. She’ll soon return to London to continue work on DREAMSPIEL: A Ukulele Opera, a collaboration with The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. She has published a novel with Penguin Books and she’s a professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University.
Eugenie Chan (Snakewoman) Eugenie Chan’s work has been produced or developed at Cutting Ball Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Magic, the Public, Playwrights Horizons, Houston Grand Opera: HGOco, among other venues. She contributed the text to Tontlawald, a devised piece, that debuted this February at Cutting Ball, where she is the Resident Playwright. Eugenie is a member of New Dramatists and an alumna Resident Playwright of the Playwrights Foundation.
Kate E. Ryan (MARK SMITH) plays include Design Your Kitchen, Dot, Him, Science is Close (a sequel to Dot) and an adaptation of Sophocles’ Women of Trachis. Kate is a Resident Playwright at the Playwrights Foundation. She was a BASH! playwright in the 2011 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. InNew York, Kate’s work has been produced or developed by 13P, Clubbed Thumb, The Drama League, The Flea Theater, The Ontological, Soho Rep, Target Margin and The Vineyard. Ryan has received support from sources includingCalifornia’s Creative Capacity Fund. MFA from Mac Welllman’s program atBrooklynCollege, where she won a MacArthur Scholarship for Creative Writing.
