The Bechdel Group's New Play Development Reading Series
The 2024 Fall Workshop Season
Click here for Content Disclosures.
Our September workshop readings will be at TheTankNYC.
Our December workshop readings will be via Zoom.
Sign up for the mailing list or contact us for links.
Stay tuned for news of this season's Staged Readings!
Monday, September 9th (live at the Tank), 6:30pm
Deborah Savadge's After the Before Times
"A dystopian play: Dina has been institutionalized. She doesn't know why or where she is. An attendant brings her limited food and few explanations. An AI voice booms out at her at unexpected intervals."
Robin Goldberg's Ask Three Times
"You’re invited to Becca Braverman’s bat mitzvah! That’s totally, for sure, absolutely going to happen. Probably. In lieu of gifts, Becca requests some advice on how to navigate a new relationship with a rabbi when you’re not totally sure you believe in God and what it means when your neurotic family 'just wants you to be happy' (no further explanation). (Also, please ignore that she’s 30 and not 13. Thanks.) Can’t wait to see you there!"
Monday, September 30th (live at the Tank - 6th floor The Attic), 6:30pm
Patti Veconi's 21 Shillings
"On January 25, 1663, Connecticut, for the last time, executed one of its citizens for witchcraft. Mary Barnes was “conflicted of entertaining familiarity with Satan” and she left behind four children, including 16-year-old Sarah. Mary’s husband, Goodman Thomas Barnes, did not defend his wife, attend her trial or witness her execution. He did, however, as a final act of kindness pay the jailer at Hartford twenty-one shillings for Mary’s three weeks in prison.
Ten generations later, Mary’s descendant questions this ancestral legacy and discovers that answers come with consequences."
Diana Ly's Walk Away, Anna May
"Remember how Anna May Wong was passed over for white actors in yellowface? An emerging Asian American screenwriter moves on a kaleidoscopic journey through the entertainment industry -- from silent movies to Crazy Rich Asians -- in order to understand why she's even trying to make it in Hollywood."
Sunday, December 8th (via Zoom), 3:00 pm
Imani Russell's Gold Star
"'Gold Star' opens just after Lottie is left at the altar on her wedding day. Heartbroken and reeling from this grand deviation from her life plan, Lottie reflects on her past and for the first time in her life, begins to confront and navigate her sexuality. The play weaves together scenes set in Lottie's present (2008) and flashbacks to her adolescence (the 1990s) to form a non-linear exploration of memory, sexuality, loss, and growth."
POSTPONED
Monday, December 9th (via Zoom), 6:30pm
Sophie Sam's Buffering
"Meet Maya, a popular trans streamer celebrating her fifth anniversary online. As she looks back on how she got there, she has to reconsider what it was like coming of age online and off as a trans person in an increasingly hostile and isolating world."
Register for the Zoom here.