CentreStage Kicks Off Final New Series Of 2009-10 Season of Theatrical Tapas 4/8

CENTERSTAGE kicks off the final new series of the 2009-10 Season of Theatrical Tapas with the Concert Readings, a three-week festival of international play readings.

Each of the readings will be performed in an informal setting over four days apiece during the three weeks of the festival, April 8-25. CENTERSTAGE will also offer a glimpse of the creative process at several open rehearsals for each play. Two of the playwrights, Motti Lerner and Hannah Moscovitch, will be in residence at the theater throughout their rehearsals and readings.

April 8-11, 2010
after the quake
By Haruki Murakami, adapted by Frank Galati
Over the last three decades, Haruki Murakami's prize-winning novels (Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore) have heralded the onset of a new generation of Japanese literature. Surreal, yet filled with quotidian detail; influenced by American pop culture as much as by Japanese tradition; characterized by a deadpan humor that covers deep feeling-Murakami is Japan's Kurt Vonnegut, a Thomas Pynchon for the Far East. In after the quake, an elliptical short fable inspired by the Kobe earthquake and its aftermath, Murakami's full range of expression is on display. Tender, nostalgic, fantastical, and utterly modern-a unique perspective on the Tokyo of today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

April 15-18, 2010
Wrestling with Angels
New Perspectives on the Middle East

Benedictus
By Motti Lerner
Seven Jewish Children
By Caryl Churchill
Only We Who Guard The Mystery Shall Be Unhappy
By Tony Kushner
An evening of political theater from three premier practitioners. Benedictus, a simmering thriller from Israel's Motti Lerner (The Murder of Isaac), tackles the timely topic of nuclear brinkmanship and the delicate negotiations among Iran, Israel, and America. Caryl Churchill's controversial Seven Jewish Children condenses millennia of history into an intensely poetic moment. And polemic and farce merge in Tony Kushner's uproarious, passionate, and informed short, featuring an unlikely encounter: Laura Bush and an otherworldly interlocutor.

April 22-25, 2010
East of Berlin
By Hannah Moscovitch
When a young, German-born Argentinean discovers the truth about his expatriate father, he sets off for his ancestral homeland in a journey of painful self-discovery. This new play, by an acclaimed Canadian writer, explores the weight of history and the nature of personal responsibility while asking big questions-about fathers and sons, the banality of evil, and the deceptive games that memory plays on identity. East of Berlin is a finalist for the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Information on all shows and playwrights, the schedule of public readings, and details of times and reservations for the open rehearsals can be found by visiting www.centerstage.org/readings.

At this point many of the Concert Readings are almost sold out, with only a limited number of tickets left to a few performances. However, just before show time for each reading, patrons on stand-by will be able to purchase general admission tickets on a first-come, first-served basis for $5 cash. For more information, call the Box Office at 410.332.0033.

Since 1963, CENTERSTAGE has been committed to producing and developing an eclectic repertory of challenging, bold, and thought-provoking work, representing a varied array of theatrical styles and forms, in collaboration with leading artists. Each year, a consistently broad range of productions in two intimate performing spaces attracts highly diverse audiences of more than 100,000 people-including thousands of fiercely loyal subscriber members, many of whom have been with the theater during its entire history. Additionally, CENTERSTAGE offers a variety of dramaturgical, community, and educational programs to broaden access and enhance the theatergoing experience, earning its honorary designation as the official State Theater of Maryland.

 

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