Fridays@3 | 2010

Fridays@3 is Williamstown Theatre Festival’s annual reading series presented to showcase the new works of emerging playwrights. Each Friday from July 2 – August 13, join us at the Paresky Center at 3pm to listen to these new works read aloud by Williamstown Theatre Festival actors. Admission is $5. Call the box office at 413-597-3400 for reservations.

July 2

HOW. WHAT. NOW. written and performed by Michael Warner

Directed by Campbell Scott

How. What. Now. Stories of Redemption and Hope, Killing Gophers, and how Bubble Gum Pop can save your life.

July 9

THE SUBSTANCE OF BLISS by Tony Glazer

2009 Weissberger Award Winner

In The Substance of Bliss by Tony Glazer, 2009’s L. Arnold Weissberger Award winner, a couple, Donna and Paul, wait up for their troubled son to come home. What they learn about yard fairies, neighborhood cats, the grouchy lady next door, Mrs. Johnston, their son, each other and ultimately, their relationship will change them forever.

July 16

GOOD ON PAPER by Michele Lowe

For a community service credit, 16 year-old Miles returns to the daycare center in his father’s work where he was cared for as a small boy. Even though he has never really understood why his dad left him and his mom, Miles knows it has something to do with this place, once a revolutionary program for children of working parents.  Michele Lowe’s Good On Paper asks us to question when we feel—and when we actually are—safe.

July 23

MIDNIGHT SUN by Chris Eigeman

In association with the Williamstown Film Festival

Chris Eigeman's screenplay Midnight Sun dawns on a cold morning in 1943. When Max Coleman and Jack Priest, two doctoral candidates at Columbia get selected to participate in a secret project, they drop their jazz-filled lives in New York City and move to a remote makeshift village of physicists in the desert. There they begin working on the biggest bomb ever known to mankind. But is it a glorious testimony to the capabilities of mankind and the greatest peacekeeping tool ever invented or a weapon of mass destruction?

July 30

ELEMENO PEA by Molly Smith Metzler

Directed by Amanda Charlton

When Simone invited her older sister, Devon, for a weekend at her boss’ house in Martha’s Vineyard, she never could have anticipated Devon’s reaction to the expensive luxuries which Simone enjoys daily.  Not one to get caught up in this world, Devon points to the men in “pink pants” as just one example of the outrageous values to which the Kells subscribe. Molly Smith Metzler’s Elemeno Pea explores what one must give up in order to have “everything.”

August 6

KNOCK DOWN DRAG OUT by Kyle Jarrow

Directed by John Rando

After losing his job as an accountant, Will, with much urging from his wife, Macy, digs out the old screenplay. The local drama teacher thinks it brilliant, a student of his now L.A. actress, Chloe, thinks its genius, together they will make a short to pitch to Chloe’s connections in L.A. Knock Down Drag Out by Kyle Jarrow brings the cutthroat world of Hollywood to Cleveland, OH where Macy, even though she has always wanted her husband to pursue his dreams, begins to resent the fact that everything she’s ever done, she’s done it for him.