Roundabout's 5th Annual Underground Reading Series to Feature New Works by Alexander Gemignani & More

Roundabout Theatre Company has confirmed the lineup for its fifth annual Roundabout Underground Reading Series this morning, a five-night event that includes nightly readings of new works written and directed by emerging artists, as well as curtain speeches by Roundabout Underground artist alumni and post-show receptions. The Reading Series will feature new works by Ben Steinfeld, Alexander Gemignani, Jiréh Breon Holder, Sylvia Khoury, Martín Zimmerman and Jessica Moss.

The Roundabout Underground Reading Series is February 8-12 at 7:00PM at the Black Box Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre. Tickets are FREE.

This year will feature the return of a few Roundabout alumni. Sam Gold, Roundabout's Resident Director, will direct Too Heavy for Your Pocket by Jiréh Breon Holder, returning to the Underground for the first time since Tigers Be Still (2010). Ben Steinfeld (Into the Woods) and Alexander Gemignani (Assassins, Sunday in the Park...) also return to the Roundabout as playwrights.

Roundabout Underground is an initiative to introduce and cultivate artists in Roundabout's 62-seat Black Box Theatre, at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street, NYC, NY, 10036). Prior productions include the acclaimed world premieres of Lindsey Ferrentino's Ugly Lies the Bone (2015), Stephen Karam's Speech & Debate (2007), Steven Levenson's The Language of Trees (2008), Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days (2009), Kim Rosenstock's Tigers Be Still (2010), David West Read's The Dream of the Burning Boy (2011), Andrew Hinderaker's Suicide, Incorporated (2011), Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews (2012), Meghan Kennedy's Too Much, Too Much, Too Many (2013), and Jeff Augustin's Little Children Dream of God (2015).

It was recently announced that the program will increase to two new works every season, beginning in the 2016-2017 season with Kingdom Come by Jenny Rachel Weiner.

Roundabout Underground showcases new works that will either give a debut production to an emerging writer or director or allow an experienced director to go back to his/her creative roots. Robyn Goodman (Artistic Consultant to the Roundabout) serves as Artistic Producer, with Associate Producers Jill Rafson and Josh Fiedler, for this initiative that continues to be a creative breeding ground for nurturing new talent.

The 62-seat Black Box Theatre, below the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, allows Roundabout to take artistic risks that are better suited for a more intimate space.

DIAMOND ALICE
Book by Ben Steinfeld, Music & Lyrics by Alexander Gemignani, Directed by Ben Steinfeld
Monday, February 8 at 7:00PM

London, 1920. World War I has just ended and Victoria, Alice, and Maggie - the three Diamond sisters - are angry. Once the best of friends, these young women find themselves at odds with each other as they begin to navigate their roles in evolving post-War society. While Victoria tries to climb her way into the upper-ranks of British society, Alice and Maggie are fed up with the elite. When the two sisters are unexpectedly reunited, they decide to change their lives forever. Recruiting a ragtag team of feisty, independent women, they set out to disrupt the status quo in the most unladylike fashion they know - by transforming themselves into a gang of jewel thieves.

Set at a moment when feminism was on the verge of a giant step forward, Diamond Alice is an exciting new musical that takes us on a journey of love, loss, ambition, greed, and sisterhood, as we watch these dynamic women discover what it means to live life by their own rules.

TOO HEAVY FOR YOUR POCKET
By Jiréh Breon Holder, Directed by Sam Gold
Tuesday, February 9 at 7:00PM

It's graduation day at the Joyce Howard School of Glamor, and Sally Carter is dressed to the nines. Tony Carter's green Chevy is revved and ready to go, with Evelyn and Bowzie Brandon in the back seat. The future is set for these two black couples, especially after Bowzie is accepted to college with a full ride - but tensions are rising with each bus ride that the Freedom Riders take. When Bowzie sacrifices his college education and his family to make something of his life and join the civil rights movement, the lives these couples had built are thrown into jeopardy: Evelyn swears off her marriage, Sally suspects the worst as Tony works late into the night, and Bowzie fears that he'll never see his wife again. Too Heavy for Your Pocket tells the story of the Brandons and the Carters as they work to make a better life for their children and fight to remember what makes them grateful.

AGAINST THE HILLSIDE
By Sylvia Khoury, Directed by Portia Krieger
Wednesday, February 10 at 7:00PM

With the all-too-familiar buzz of American drones in the sky above the Pakistani countryside, Sayid and Reem worry that their son will grow up too quickly in the presence of so much death and destruction. From nearly 8,000 miles away in the New Mexico desert, Matt pilots one of these aircraft, getting so drawn into the lives he observes that his own wife wonders if he's present enough to start a family. In this newly interconnected world, the aftershocks of each explosion spread far and wide, splintering families, stealing loved ones, and providing more questions than answers. In these wars fought at a distance, who suffers more: the observer or the observed?

ON THE EXHALE
By Martín Zimmerman, Directed by Michael Wilson
Thursday, February 11 at 7:00PM

A professor is being haunted by a disturbing recurring dream: a male student walks into her office with a gun and pulls the trigger. The professor's nightly brush with death has brought a sense of inevitable peril to her daily life. She is anxious about being alone in her office; she worries about being her young son's only guardian; she sweats at merely the image of a gun. But when the violence she so fears is realized, even her long-held dread hasn't prepared her for the outcome - or for the horror of her own response.

CAM BABY
By Jessica Moss, Directed by Margot Bordelon
Friday, February 12 at 7:00PM

Joseph and Matabang are members of The Brobonic Union, a clubby group of male friends who purport to be "purveyors of excellence." Really, they're purveyors of something less upstanding: illicitly filmed videos of the (attractive, female) guests staying in the spare rooms of Joseph's apartment. Joseph has few moral qualms about booking the unwitting stars... until the girl he's been obsessed with for three years asks to crash at his place. Now, he's left to choose between broadcasting the life of his crush, Natalie, or that of his awkward high school classmate, Clara, who's just moved in. He opts for the latter. Matabang and the Union are outraged, but when the private life of Clara proves to be more absorbing than even the best reality television, the Union's brand of voyeurism shifts from pervy to deeply personal. A comedy about the selves we create and the stories we consume, Cam Baby tests the boundaries of intimacy and entertainment - and will make you think twice about subletting.

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