Gotham Stage Company Announces SPRINGboard Reading Series, Opens 4/11

Off-Broadway's Gotham Stage Company is announcing the launch of their SPRINGboard Reading Series to run this April through June at Greenwich Village's historic Players Theatre. The series will debut on April 11th, 2011 with a reading of Sara Farrington's Thanksgiving, directed by company member Zach Shaffer, with the cast to be announced shortly.

Thanksgiving is about a family's attempt at a normal American Thanksgiving despite something being obviously wrong. Existing in real time, the family slowly starts to burn as each member attempts to steer the spiraling holiday their way, hoping to uncover the truth about how this "every family" went astray.

Playwright Sara Farrington is currently in the MFA playwriting program at Brooklyn College with Mac Wellman. She is a MacDowell Colony Fellow, a playwright in the 2011 PlayLab Group at the Great Plains Theater Conference, and co-founder of Fine Feathered Friends theater company.

Director Zach Shaffer has appeared as an actor on Broadway in A View From The Bridge and The Man Who Came to Dinner. Film and TV acting credits include Salt (Columbia Pictures), Strangers With Candy, The Black Donnellys, All My Children, Six Feet Under, XX/XY, Law & Order.

According to Co-Artistic Director Michael Barra, "Gotham's mission is two-pronged; to create opportunities for emerging artists and to increase the accessibility of theatre to the general public. This series is designed to allow us to further our mission on both fronts."

Tickets will be free to the public and can be reserved via the company's website.

Gotham Stage Company is a 501(c)(3) not for profit theatre and is comprised of a membership that spans all theatrical disciplines. The company is best known for their world-premiere production of Resident Playwright Randall David Cook's Sake with the Haiku Geisha at the former Perry Street Theatre.

Subsequent readings in the series include Ethan Lipton's Luther, on May 9th, directed by Hayley Finn, and an as yet to be announced reading on June 13th, with additional details to be announced in the coming weeks.

For more information, or to reserve tickets, please visit www.gothamstage.org