Generic Theater Brings PROJECT UNSPEAKABLE to the Players' Ring Tonight

Generic Theater will present Project Unspeakable -- a new play about the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King - in a rehearsed reading 7 pm, tonight, Jan. 14, at the Players' Ring, 105 Marcy St., Portsmouth NH. Generic Theater's monthly play-readings are free and open to the public.

Author Court Dorsey, formerly of Portsmouth, says the book JFK and The Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Mattersby James Douglass (Simon& Schuster, 2010) inspired him to write Project Unspeakable. He built the play around primary sources -- historical quotes, news reports and official documents related to the assassinations within a five-year span 50 years ago.

Baby boomers, Dorsey says, "saw the great leaders of their generation slaughtered in officially whitewashed circumstances."

By examining those circumstances, Project Unspeakable "has the potential to bolster current demands for government and corporate openness," Dorsey says. "It provides both Boomers and younger Americans a means to discuss the 'unspeakables' of the past and the present."

Dorsey's wants the play presented -- and discussed -- as widely as possible. So far, that includes more than 30 venues around the nation in the past year; a special performance of an expanded script is scheduled for Harlem this February. It's been endorsed by actor Martin Sheen, playwright Eve Ensler, whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg and singer Joan Baez, among many others.

"The play can make you feel very uncomfortable because it points to government involvement in the deaths of these men," says Cathy Wolff, who is directing the Generic Theater reading. "But it also is a moving reminder of the lost greatness of these leaders, and of the dreams many of us shared with them."

The sit down reading features Cathy Wolff, Susan Turner, Betsy Kimball, Stephen Erickson, Tomer Oz, Alex Pease, Roland Goodbody, Alan Huisman, Scott Degan, John Tulgren, Katy Littlefield.

About the Players' Ring: Since 1992, the mission of the Players' RIng has been to promote the efforts of local artists through the production of original works, while providing an affordable theater space to local production companies. "The Ring" provides an environment where artists can thrive, grow, take risks, and make daring choices.