Word for Word's Off the Page Staged Reading Series Continues Next Week

Word for Word's Off the Page staged reading series is back for 2023. The next performance is on March 27, 7 pm at the American Bookbinders Museum and will feature two stories by Kevin Barry, "Who's Dead McCarthy" and "The Wintersongs," both directed by Word for Word Core Company Member Paul Finocchiaro.

Kevin Berry is a master storyteller who skillfully blends humor and pathos; he is a natural choice for Word to Word to feature this Irish Heritage Month."Who's Dead McCarthy" is a hilarious tale of a self-appointed messenger of death for his small Irish town. He sways one man to look to his own mortality for meaning. In "The Wintersongs," two strangers travel by train to Dublin. One, a world-weary old busybody, cautions the other, a younger woman whose life's journey has just begun.

Off the Page staged readings are at 7 pm. Tickets are free with a suggested donation of $25

For more info go to zspace.org/offthepage

Word for Word's Off the Page staged reading series is the public's first look at pieces being considered for upcoming full productions. With a public reading of a short story, audiences are invited to see the steps in Word for Word's process of bringing a work from the page to the stage. Their unique style uses every word from a selection of text. Off the Page readings are interactive, the audience is encouraged afterwards to engage in a conversation with the creators, giving valuable feedback as they decide on the next steps of a work's development.

The first full production of Word for Word's season is

HOME by George Saunders

April 8 - 29 at Z Below.

This production continues Word for Word's long history of adapting stories by George Saunders. HOME is about a war veteran returning to a home that is increasingly cruel and absurd, and his quest for understanding and compassion. HOME is directed by Word for Word core company member Sheila Balter with a cast that features Tre'Vonne Bell

Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, Robert Ernst*, Norman Gee*, Lisa Hori-Garcia*, Brennan Pickman-Thoon*, Brian Rivera* and JoAnne Winter*. (*AEA)

Information and Tickets at zspace.org/wfw-home.

March 27: Two by Barry "Who's Dead McCarthy" and "The Wintersongs" by Kevin Barry

Directed by Paul Finocchiaro: American Bookbinders Museum 355 Clementina St, San Francisco

"Who's Dead McCarthy" and "The Wintersongs" Kevin Barry, a master storyteller, skillfully blends humor and pathos in these two stories: "Who's Dead McCarthy" is a hilarious tale of a self-appointed messenger of death for his small Irish city. He sways one man to look to his own mortality for meaning. In "The Wintersongs," two strangers travel by train to Dublin. One, a world-weary old busybody, cautions a younger woman whose life's journey has just begun."I had to quit reading this book the first day I had it in my hands, just so I could have it to read the next day. It's that good."-Richard Ford

June 12: "The Secret Source" by Ben Okri Directed by Rotimi Agbabiaka

at the American Bookbinders Museum 355 Clementina St, San Francisco

"The Secret Source" Two young people discover that the water supply has been contaminated with something that is sapping the population's ability to question those in authority and must evade smugly complacent scientists and hostile fellow citizens in their quest to find a source of true water.

In the words of author Ben Okri, "the story is a slice of reality, a fable, a satire, a cautionary tale, an immaterial finger writing a warning on a wall, a cry in the dark, a good old-fashioned piece of speculative fiction in a tradition as old as 'Candide' or the Decameron, tales that we tell one another in the twilight of strange times."

July 17: "Come Softly to Me" by David Gilbert

Directed by Delia MacDougall

At Z Below, 470 Florida St., SF 94110

"Come Softly to Me" At a country home in the Berkshires, three sisters and their extended families come together, as they do every summer, to participate in a macabre ritual. "It came from a dream I had of this strange ceremony to honor their dead sister." says author David Gilbert. Gilbert was struck by, "the sweetness of these sad girls and how their only true power over death was the power of repetition and remembrance." Past, present and future meet in a generational story of love, loss and the power of the creative imagination to heal. Published in The New Yorker Oct 10, 2020.

October 30: "How Fear Departed the Long Gallery" by E. F. Benson

Directed by Wendy Radford
At Z Below, 470 Florida St., SF 94110

"How Fear Departed the Long Gallery" For the Peverils, the appearance of a ghost in their ancient family home is no more upsetting than the appearance of the mailman at an ordinary house. They relish their dead relatives' visits-except for the twin toddlers: to set eyes upon them means almost certain death. No one would dare be caught in the Long Gallery after dark...on purpose. E.F. Benson's "How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery," first appeared in Windsor Magazine in 1911, was then published in his 1912 collection, The Room in the Tower and Other Stories, and was Benson's own personal favorite of all his short tales.

December 4: "Carried Away" by Alice Munro

Directed by Jim Cave

At Z Below, 470 Florida St., SF 94110
(Rights Pending)

"Carried Away" by Alice Munro opens in the small Canadian town of Carstairs, Alberta, in 1917. The story, epic in scope, follows librarian Louisa from an illness during the Spanish Flu epidemic, to an intimate correspondence with soldier fighting in WWI, through all the events of her life. The story is a beautiful and mysterious saga of a small-town librarian's discovery of self.

"Munro's incomparable empathy for her characters, the depth of her understanding of human nature, and the grace and surprise of her narrative add up to a richly layered and capacious fiction. Like the World War I soldier in the title story, whose letters from the front to a small-town librarian he doesn't know change her life forever, Munro's unassuming characters insinuate themselves in our hearts and take permanent hold."

-Margaret Atwood, in her introduction to Alice Munro's collection of short stories, Carried Away.

Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 for her work as "master of the contemporary short story".

CITIZEN by Greg Sarris October 21 - November 12

Word for Word returns this fall with a full production of a story by long time company friend and collaborator Greg Sarris. "Citizen" tells the tale of Salvador, born in the U.S., raised in Mexico; son of an American Indian mother and a Mexican father. He has returned to California to find his mother, or rather, her grave. Working in the fields and ranches around Santa Rosa, he meets his mother's family, encountering both kindness and opportunism, as well as glimmers of hope. An American citizen, who speaks no English, Salvador procures his proof of citizenship and begins to discover his true identity, and what it means to belong. The production is directed by Gendell Hing-Hernández.