Tammy Ryan's TAR BEACH Gets Reading at Luna Stage, 11/5

Luna Stage's New Moon Reading Series presents TAR BEACH by Tammy Ryan on Monday, November 5 at 7:30pm, directed by Cheryl Katz.

Featuring: Natalie Dix , Catherine Eaton (Reparation), Leah Greenhaus, Joseph Langham (The Dangers of Electric Lighting), and Melissa Toomey

It is July 1977 and New York City is in the midst of a brutal heat wave. Two best friends, sixteen year old Mary Claire and Mary Francis start that day sunning themselves on the roof of an Ozone Park row house. Younger sister, Reenie, is searching for her prize winning Greek Mythology Class Project: The Head of Medusa, while their parents are consumed by the battles of their troubled marriage. The Boy Crazy Marys hatch a plan to stay out all night with a bonfire on the beach, but the unexpected happens: the biggest blackout since 1965, a chance encounter with Son of Sam, and a sudden loss of innocence.

Tammy Ryan’s plays have been produced nationally and internationally at such theaters as Florida Stage, The Alliance Theater Company, People’s Light and Theater Company, 29th Street Rep, City Theater and the Pittsburgh Playhouse among others. She was awarded the 2012 Francesca Primus Prize by the American Theater Critics Association for her play Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods, which was developed at the New Harmony Project, and was a featured play at the National New Play Networks 2009 Showcase of New Plays and co-produced by Premiere Stages and Playwrights Theater of New Jersey in 2010. Other plays include Dark Part of the Forest, A Confluence of Dreaming and Lindsey’s Oyster, which has been produced in the United States and Turkey and won 2nd place for the 2012 David Mark Cohen Award. Ryan has received fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. She is based in Pittsburgh where she is a regional representative for the Dramatists Guild of America.

No Reservations Necessary. $5 Suggested Donation at the door. The reading will be followed by a talkback with the playwright. 

See lunastage.org for more information.

Pictured: Tammy Ryan