Baltimore Playwrights Festival Announces Play Reading Festival

The Baltimore Playwrights Festival (www.baltplayfest.org) announces a public play-reading marathon to take place on Saturday, March 10th, at Red Branch Theatre, 9130-I Red Branch Road, Columbia, MD 21045, (410) 997-9352, www.redbranchtheatre.com.  Beginning at 11:00 a.m. plays to be read are Raising David Walker by Peter Snoad, followed at 1:00 p.m. by Lethal Injection by Michael Reimann, and at 3:00 p.m. by Our Lady of Sandwich by Mario Baldessari and Keith Bridges.  After each reading there will be a discussion of the script with the playwright, director and actors.  The event is free, and the general public is encouraged to attend.

In Raising David Walker, by Peter Snoad, Baltimore-born Serena Fox, an African-American student, takes a class at her Boston College on the history of racism and becomes captivated by the ideas and passion of 19th century black abolitionist David Walker.  After receiving several “visits” from him—“Is this his ghost or am I going crazy?”—Serena is convinced that Walker, who officially died of lung disease, may have been assassinated by the agents of Southern planters alarmed by his incendiary writings.  She leads a campaign to establish a memorial at his unmarked gravesite and to exhume his remains.  Her controversial quest for the truth propels Serena to re-examine her relationship with her white boyfriend and to embrace the broader contemporary struggle for racial justice. 

Peter Snoad is a Boston, MA-based playwright whose plays have received over 70 productions and staged readings around the country and in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.  His full-length play, Guided Tour, garnered Peter two national new play awards, the Stanley Drama Award and the Arthur W. Stone Playwriting Award.  He has twice won the New Play Festival at Centre Stage-South Carolina (with Guided Tour and Identity Crisis), as well as contests of the Santa Cruz Actors Theatre in Santa Cruz, CA (Orbiting Mars), Alarm Clock Theatre, Boston (I’m Not At Liberty to Say), and the Brevard Little Theatre in Brevard, NC (The Life of Trees).  A former Washington, DC resident, Peter received an Artist Fellowship for playwriting from the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 2009.  He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, AFTRA and SAG, and is currently working on a new play, The Draft, about the Vietnam War draft. 

In Lethal Injection, by Michael Reimann, the stakes are high for two well-bred brothers accused of murdering an intruder in their Texas home.  A conviction means death by lethal injection.  The victim, a deranged man with an unhealthy attraction for the fourteen year old daughter of one of the accused has died of a gunshot wound to the head. The defense argues shooting an intruder isn't murder.  Can the prosecution convince the jury a defenseless man was murdered?  In this controversial, death penalty courtroom drama - the audience plays the jury.

Michael Reimann, a native of Washington, DC, graduated from the same high school where Warren Beatty, Shirley McLean and Sandra Bullock started their drama training.  He earned BA and MA from Lenoir Rhyne College and George Washington University respectively.  The author of two novels, The Man Who Discovers Himself and My Christmas Angel,  and three stage plays,  Lethal Injection, Helping Hand and Wall Paint, he held a position as 'Writer in Residence' with the New York Actors ensemble in Orlando, FL for seven years. Michael is a member of the Dramatists Guild, and is currently working on his next writing project.  

Our Lady of Sandwich, by Mario Baldessari and Keith Bridges, tells the story of Sandridge, 

North Carolina -- a typical small, Southern town that finds itself suddenly turned “head-over-Tarheels” when a waitress says she and her gay best friend were visited by the Virgin Mary.  The only thing more bizarre than the reported apparitions are the comical events they set into motion around town – pitting locals against sightseers, Baptists against Catholics, and truth against fiction.  The story provides a funny, yet thought-provoking, look at the nature of miracles. 

Mario Baldessari is a local playwright, actor and acting instructor.  He is currently the Playwright-in-Residence at First Draft at Charter Theater.  Recent plays include the a cappella comedy Three Bears at 1^st Stage (coauthored with Ethan Slater and produced in partnership with First Draft); Jack and the Bean-Stalk at 1^st Stage/First Draft (Helen Hayes Award Recommended); and Fat Gay Jew at Charter Theater.  Other playwriting credits include:  Fear Itself, Wonders Never Cease and Sacred Cows for Charter Theater.  His latest play (coauthored with Slater), The Every Fringe Show You Want to See in One Fringe Show Fringe Show, should premiere this summer at the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival.  

Keith Bridges is a local playwright, director, the founder and artistic director of Charter Theater, and a founder of the Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival.  His playwriting credits include Lie With Me for Mutineer Theatre in Los Angeles; and the Charter Theater productions of F.U. (Forgive Us...What'd You Think We Meant?), Monkeyboy (co-authored with Chris Stezin and Richard Washer),  and Watching Left (nominated for a Helen Hayes Award). 

The Baltimore Playwrights Festival has presented 273 scripts by 165 playwrights, produced by 25 different companies, over the past 30 Years.  Our mission is to provide an environment that nurtures the talents of Maryland and DC playwrights through public readings, discussions, critiques and workshopping of new plays. Our summer season is devoted to the presentation of these newly developed works to area audiences in cooperation with local area theaters.  Further information can be found at www.baltplayfest.org.

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