Aaron Grant Theatrical Launches New Play Development This Summer

Producer Aaron Grant introduces his new theatrical Production Company's first slate of new plays in a summer developmental reading series that begins on July 1. The series, cast entirely by Daryl Eisenberg Casting, is meant to foster new works by matching directors and casts with new plays at different stages of the development process.

"The approach to each show is different," says Grant, who opened Aaron Grant Theatrical, Inc. in January. "I want this to be an annual series, a new play incubator, that gets projects closer and closer to that moment when we believe they are not only good, but can be financially successful."

The first in the series, "The Legend of Bobby Stone and the Good Feeling Hat," a comedy by Ben Andron, will be seen on Monday July 1. "You're Really Not Helping" a comedy based on true event by Erik Shapiro gets going on Monday July 29, and "First Love," a dark romance by Alex Rubin, is seen for the first time on Monday August 19. All readings are 2pm. RSVP and confirmation required by e-mailing SummerReadings@theatrical.ag

Peter Scolari directs "The Legend of Bobby Stone" in which a young television gossip reporter gets more than he bargained for when he interviews the notoriously crazy Bobby Stone, forcing him to interview the man and not the legend. This is Grant's second collaboration with Andron, the L.A.-based playwright who wrote "White Lies," which Grant produced at New World Stages in 2010. Andron first pitched the story to Grant four years ago. This will be the play's first public reading.

The reading of "You're Really Not Helping" culminates a nine-month collaboration between Shapiro, the playwright, and the director and dramaturge Jeremy Scott Blaustein, a marriage brokered by Grant. In this comedy based on true events, powerhouse real estate executive Rod Landy refuses to take life sitting down, which is tough since an encounter with a tree on a ski vacation has left the type-A control freak paralyzed from the waist down. Of this biting comedy, Grant says, "It read more like a sitcom when I read it a year ago," says Grant. "Now there's something very important about its message, and it's something I don't ever recall seeing on stage before. Everyone in my office is extra excited about this one."

Co-produced with Big Vision Empty Wallet, Rubin's "First Love" is directed by Andy Sandberg, who directed the play's first developmental reading as part of Big Vision's Playwriting Fellowship. In "First Love" a well-adjusted New Jersey couple, married for 20 years, can attest to their deep, abiding love from the very first. But something at the root of their relationship, they learn, is not very Kosher. And what that is exactly will scandalize the entire nation.

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