THREE QUARTER INCHES OF SKY Coming Up At The Playwrights' Center

January's Ruth Easton New Play Series readings at the Playwrights' Center were standing room only, so theater fans will want to reserve their tickets early for February's offering: "Three Quarter Inches of Sky" by Core Writer Sherry Kramer. The readings are February 5 and 6 at 7 p.m. at the Playwrights' Center, 2301 E. Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis. The readings are free, but reservations are recommended and can be made at pwcenter.org.

Kramer will be collaborating with director Madge Darlington and actors including Barbara Chisholm* and Jim Lichtscheidl* (*Member of Actors' Equity Association). Kramer began work on the play last year at the Playwrights' Center, and developed it further in Austin with Darlington and Chisholm; they are looking forward to continuing their collaboration on the piece.

"One of the mysteries I've been trying to understand my whole life is how the small is so big in our lives," says Sherry Kramer. "Folded into that mystery is my longing to sing about the mythic ways compassion and care make heroes of a hundred million people every day. Add in my fascination with our new primal-and often primary-relationship with the vivid lives we co-inhabit when we turn our gaze to our screens? That's this play."

"In this play, Sherry explores grief, time, and memory in a way that truly is only possible in the theater," says Jeremy B. Cohen, producing artistic director at the Playwrights' Center. "Sherry talks about theater as 'time-bound art,' and her mastery of the theatrical possibilities of time is one of many reasons 'Three Quarter Inches of Sky' is so powerful to experience."

Sherry Kramer's recent work is about the American Dream and how we are failing it. She has written about our role in destabilizing the Middle East ("When Something Wonderful Ends"), anti-Semitism in the heartland ("Ivanhoe, America"), the power of the press to distort the shape of a nation's soul ("The Ruling Passion"), and two plays about America's relationship with money and philanthropy ("How Water Behaves" and "The Bay of Fundy, An Adaptation of One Line From the Mayor of Casterbridge"). These plays invite their audience to find new ways to understand who we are as a nation, and how we might find our way back to being the generous, fair, openhearted people we believe we are. Learn more at sherrykramer.net

The Ruth Easton New Play Series provides selected Playwrights' Center Core Writers with 20 hours of workshop time to develop a new play with collaborators of their choice: top local and national actors, directors, designers and dramaturgs. Each play has two public readings, allowing the playwright to experiment and see the play on its feet in front of two different audiences. The Center brings in visiting artistic leaders to see the readings and connect with the playwrights, and more than half of the plays developed in the series over the past decade have gone on to production.

The 2017-18 Ruth Easton New Play Series has already featured Kira Obolensky's "The Overcoat: A Low-Fi Musical" and "How The Ghost Of You Clings, The Anna May Wong Story" by John Olive, and coming up later in the series will be "Quiver" by Meg Miroshnik on March 5 and 6 and "the bandaged place" by Harrison David Rivers on April 9 and 10.

All events in the Ruth Easton New Play Series are free and open to the public. Reserve your spots at pwcenter.org/ruth-easton-series or by contacting the Playwrights' Center at (612) 332-7481 or info@pwcenter.org.