2010 Season > Shaw EnrichedText Size  S  M  L

Reading Series

The Gigli Concert

by Tom Murphy
August 15		 Tom Murphy (who adapted The Cherry Orchard) chronicles the relationship between a quack self-help guru and a despairing property magnate who longs to sing like Gigli, the great Italian opera singer. A story of the fragility and endurance of the human spirit, it has been called one of the greatest Irish plays of the century.

Trouble in Tahiti

by Leonard Bernstein
Musical Reading
August 29		 A little-known piece by brilliant musician and writer Leonard Bernstein. Written in 1952, this one-act opera looks at the post-WWII American dream through a day in the life of Sam and Dinah, a seemingly happy and successful couple who wish for intimacy but cannot achieve it. A touching treatise on love, backed by a jazzy Greek-style chorus.

Gross Indecency:
The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

by Moisés Kaufman
September 19		 In 1895 Oscar Wilde brought a libel suit against the father of his young lover, setting in motion events that would culminate in Wilde’s ruin and imprisonment. Interweaving courtroom testimony with Wilde’s writings and those of his contemporaries, Moisés Kaufman’s play unveils Wilde, the writer of An Ideal Husband, in all his genius and frailty.

After the Orchard

by Jason Sherman
October 2		 Jason Sherman’s play is both a tribute to Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and a contemporary departure. Set around the delicate negotiations within a family deciding whether to sell their cottage near Peterborough, this funny and perceptive story is a heartfelt look at family, fathers and farewells.