The Bechdel Group's New Play Development Reading Series
The Fall 2020 Workshop Season
All readings will be via Zoom until otherwise announced.
Sign up for the mailing list or contact us for links.
Monday, September 28th, 6:30 pm:
David Hilder's Those Days are Over
"Those Days Are Over concerns the five MacKillop sisters in the immediate wake of their mother's death. They're not exactly close, these five, and as they tussle with each other they're also tussling with the past. Alliances are formed and broken; detente is reached one moment, dissolved the next. Fundamentally the play looks at what it is to be a Gen X woman now. It's a vigorous collage, a deeply felt comedy, a joyous journey into grief."
Tuesday, September 29th, 6:30 pm:
Shoshannah Boray's The First Sister Trip
"Three sisters are stuck on a long flight with their mother's ashes in an urn. They've been changing alliances, keeping secrets and trading insults among the three of them for more than 50 years. The First Sister Trip is about the ways we love and understand one another, and asks if it is possible to put aside our assumptions, and our differences, in order to care for one another."
Monday, October 26th, 6:30 pm:
Tiffa Foster's Notorious MILFs
"When a group of diverse mothers from a Midwestern suburb decide that marriage and family have robbed them of their future, they form a guerrilla-style militia to take down the Patriarchy, one picket-fenced McMansion at a time."
Tuesday, October 27th, 6:30 pm:
Molly Powers Gallagher's True Now
"A floundering recent grad joins a multi-level marketing scheme to pay the bills only to discover she’s entrenched herself in a mad-as-hell Mom group seeking revenge for political corruption in the Department of Education."
Monday, November 16th, 6:30 pm:
Elisabeth Giffin Speckman's Clyt; or The Bathtub Play
"Clytemnestra never launched a thousand ships, but that doesn't mean she couldn't have."
Tuesday, November 17th, 6:30 pm:
Mollie Gordon's Hartford, Or: A Hellish Haven for Exceptionally Strong Quirky Lesbian Sexual Trauma Survivors
"It's a way too early morning on a train platform at Hartford Union Station. We meet Babyface, a young woman who defines herself as 'pedophile-bait.' This is her story. She is alone until she isn't."
CW: sexual violence. Please contact us if you'd like more details.
Monday, December 7th, 6:30 pm:
Clé's Stretch
"Set in a recently-gentrified neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, an uptight yoga studio owner is forced to share her space with a joyous, well-choreographed group of Zumba-dancers. In the process, she discovers that sometimes it’s good to stretch. This musical showcases a jukebox of up to 25 upbeat, energetic Latin, pop, hip-hop, and West African hits."
Tuesday, December 8th, 6:30 pm:
Donna Hoke's Finding Neil Patrick Harris
"When frenemy salon workers Cha-Cha and Katie are privileged to hear a favorite customer's dying wish, they set off to make it come true--and find themselves on a quest to make their own wishes come true as well--even though they don't know what they are.
SHORTLIST SUNDAY
Sunday, January 10th, 1pm
An afternoon of ten minute selections from shortlisted scripts by:
Alaina Messineo
Amy Tofte
Bambi Everson
Emily Breeze
Lilly Camp
Mallory Jane Weiss
Rachael Carnes
Rachel Rios
Robynne Graffam