Industry Reading of THESE BLUE NEW HAMPSHIRE NIGHTS Will Be Performed at Hunter College

The Rita and Burton Goldberg MFA Playwriting Program at Hunter College will present a developmental workshop reading of THESE BLUE NEW HAMPSHIRE NIGHTS by Jack Becker, directed by Kleban Prize Winner Phillip Christian Smith on Friday, April 24th at 3PM.

The reading will present an early excerpt of an experimental theatrical epic about the students and faculty of a New England boarding school embroiled in national and internal scandals. It's the fall of 2015, and two best friends reckon with their separate and entwined relationships to their charismatic yet abusive theatre teacher with the tentative help of the school psychologist. A blend of memory and imagined conversations, the play seeks to discover and expand the limitations of turning creative, narrative nonfiction into a work of theatre.

The reading will feature of cast of six actors, including Keith Randolph Smith, Nigel Berkeley, Okyu Guyven, Christopher Gonzalez, and more.

The Hunter College MFA Playwriting Program is a highly-selective and rigorous two-year program located in the heart of New York City. Hunter MFA students study with award-winning dramatists including David Adjmi, Eboni Booth, Lisa D'Amour, Haruna Lee, and Anne Washburn in a program that offers intensive, hands-on writing workshops and fosters a collaborative, close-knit artistic community. With only five students in each cohort, the program ensures each playwright receives dedicated, personal attention. As part of the CUNY system, the Hunter College MFA Playwriting Program is noted for providing an exceptional and affordable education. Learn more here: https://theatre.hunter.cuny.edu/mfa

The reading will be held in Hunter College's North Building (695 Park Ave) and will be open to industry guests and the public.

Jack Becker is a first year student in the MFA Playwriting program at Hunter College. In the past they've been a Times Square ticket-schlepper, a gourmet pretzel-monger, a bartender/bookseller at Riffraff Bookstore & Bar, a standardized patient at Brown University's medical school, and Lead Bartender at Trinity Rep in Providence, Rhode Island. Their plays A BOYFRIEND FOR ED and VLTAVA have had amateur, community-driven readings at the Barker Playhouse and the Gamm Theatre lobby (both of which are in Providence, as well). Nowadays you can find him panicking in Brooklyn, or enrapt in front of a computer screen at the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Phillip Christian Smith is a resident member of New Dramatists 2023-2030, this year's winner of the Kleban Prize for most promising librettist, holder of a Sloan Commission, Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, a Roe Green Commission with Cleveland Playhouse, a Fire This Time Festival Playwright, Fresh Ground Pepper PGPG, a Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee (current staff), Playwrights Realm and Lambda Literary Fellow, Winter Playwrights Retreater, The Outrage: A Queer Writers Residency. Florida Rep PlayLab, Valdez Conference. O'Neill, PlayPenn, Trustus, and BAPF Finalist. Phillip is a founding member and 1/5 th of The Omnivores. He teaches playwriting at Medgar Evers College, acting at Pace University and Hunter College where he has also taught playwriting. MFA Yale School of Drama acting, MFA Hunter College playwriting, BFA UNM. www.phillipchristiansmith.com