Ashland, Ore. - The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has announced a new series of play readings called "COLD: a series of readings in July", which will be presented in Carpenter Hall on July 16, 17 and 18.
The idea for the series came from director of dramaturgy and literary development Lue Morgan Douthit, who thought it would be a fun idea to solicit some favorite play titles from the OSF company, then gather for a few summer mornings to hear them read aloud cold - with no prior rehearsal. This process replicates the earliest stage in the rehearsal process, when actors gather together on the first day of rehearsal and read the play together.
The submitted titles were winnowed down to three, which will be presented on the following dates:
Wednesday, July 16 at 11:00 a.m.: The Piano Teacher, by Julia Cho.
Mrs. K, a retired piano teacher, reaches out to her former students, wondering why they stopped coming for lessons. Two students visit her, and their revelations are not at all what she expects. Dee Maaske will read the role of Mrs. K.
Thursday, July 17 at 10:00 a.m.: Ethan Frome, a dramatization of Edith Wharton's novel by Owen and Donald Davis.
Wharton's haunting, compelling New England tale unfolds in the home of Ethan and Zeena Frome, whose lives are forever altered by the arrival of the beautiful young Mattie.
Friday, July 18 at 10:00 a.m.: The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window by Lorraine Hansberry.
Set against a stormy political campaign, the play tells of a failed entrepreneur, his wife, and their varied friends and family as they search for meaningful lives during a turbulent era in America.
Tickets for the COLD readings are $8, or $6 for OSF members and youth ages 6-17.
The annual Daedalus play reading has also been announced for Monday, August 18 at 1:30 p.m. in the Angus Bowmer Theatre. This year's selection is Millennium Approaches, the first part of Tony Kushner's monumental Angels in America.
Kushner's groundbreaking play won every conceivable award in the 1993 and 1994 theatre seasons, including the Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Drama Desk Award.
Set in New York City in the mid-1980s, Millennium Approaches introduces us to the central characters of Angels in America. As the play opens, Louis Ironson learns his lover, Prior Walter, has AIDS. As the play and Prior's illness progress, Louis becomes unable to cope and moves out. Meanwhile, closeted homosexual Mormon and Republican law clerk Joe Pitt is offered a major promotion by his mentor, the lawyer Roy Cohn. Joe doesn't immediately take the job because he feels he has to check with his wife, Harper, who is unwilling to move. Unbeknownst to Joe, Roy is himself deeply closeted and, as Roy himself discovers later, has AIDS.
Veteran OSF actor Robynn Rodriguez will direct a cast that includes Tony DeBruno, Rex Young, Jonathan Haugen, Sarah Rutan, K.T. Vogt, Christopher Liam Moore, Tyrone Wilson, Kjerstine Anderson and Robert Vincent Frank. All tickets are $15.
To purchase tickets for the COLD: play readings or the Daedalus Project play reading, visit www.osfashland.org or call the OSF Box Office at (800) 219-8161 or (541) 482-4331, or stop by the Box Office at 15 S. Pioneer Street.
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