Wordsmyth Theater Company

Our reading for February 2022!

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Elizabeth Macy is a white passing black woman in the 1940s. She lives three separate identities that she must portray for the benefit of others. That is, until Elizabeth decides to choose herself.

Wordsmyth Theater Company is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

Our first live reading in two years!

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In this comedy, Dr. Meg Carr is an oncologist who cries when her patients die. She’s been fighting for twenty years for California to have a Right To Die Bill so that patients can take death into their own hands and die peacefully. But Meg has to face the reality of what she believes in when a very sick 17 year old terminally ill patient shows up at her home.

Gail Parent was plucked from N.Y.U. to write for The Carol Burnett Show, the only female writer. She wrote for 5 seasons earning 5 Emmy nominations as well as an Emmy win. Gail’s TV credits include: creating the cult series, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, co-writing for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, co-writing Sills and Burnett at the Met with Kenny Solms, garnering an Emmy nomination. She wrote and produced for The Golden Girls earning 3 Emmy nominations as well as the HBO series Tracey Takes On starring Tracey Ullman, earning 8 Emmy nominations and a win. She also wrote on State of the Union for Tracey.

Stacy Sherman is an Oscar nominated and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker (God Sleeps In Rwanda). She Associate Produced the multi-award winning documentaries Chasing Ice and The Babushkas of Chernobyl, which has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

PLEASE NOTE:

Patrons will be required to wear masks and show proof of a negative COVID test result (within 48 hours). A vaccination card may be shown in lieu of the test. Photocopies or a photo on your phone of medical records will be accepted.

Also, due to COVID, there will be no wine service before or reception after the reading.

Reading of The Cry of the Reed, by Sinan Ünel!

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Reading available August 20-30, talkback on the 30th

Wordsmyth’s bilingual play for the 2020-2021 season!

A journalist and her colleague find themselves unexpectedly “detained” by a band of insurgents as bombs rain down on a war-torn landscape. Her captors offer her one telephone call – a chance to reconnect with the mother she hasn’t spoken to in 10 years, now living in Turkey and preparing for a festival celebrating the great Sufi poet Rumi. Violence, religion, and the beauty of whirling dervishes collide in this powerful portrait of a world at war.

The reading is in Turkish/English with subtitles, and will be available to stream on our Facebook page and YouTube channel from August 20-30! On Monday, August 30, at 7:00 PM Central, we will have a live talkback with the playwright hosted on our Facebook page!

Reading of The Canterville Ghost, adapted by Elizabeth A.M. Keel

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The Canterville Ghost an adaptation of a short story by Oscar Wilde adapted by Elizabeth A.M. Keel A Streamed Reading May 18-24 Directed by Elizabeth Bunch With a Live Talkback Monday, May 24th at 7pm CDT

Wordsmyth’s 2021 New Play Reading Series begins May 18th on Facebook and YouTube with Elizabeth A.M. Keel’s adaptation of The Canterville Ghost! The reading will be available from May 18-24, with a talkback on Facebook on the evening of the 24th.

In this one-act adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s ebullient short story, the Otis family moves into Canterville Chase. Their effervescent American charm grates on Sir Simon de Canterville, the resident ghost who does his level best to terrify Hiram, Lucretia, and their sons right back out again. But he cannot show quite the same ire towards their daughter Virginia, who might be the very girl prophesied to save his tormented soul.

Wordsmyth Theater Company is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

Reading for March — by our own William Duell!

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In collaboration with Gerald vanHeerden and vMHF Theatricals in New York.

A gay man who tried to save children during a mass shooting suffers from survivor’s guilt and cannot control his temper. A psychiatrist persuades her husband, a Marine sergeant who lost men in Afghanistan, to talk to him. The sergeant admits to him that it was an American drone and not enemy fire that killed his men, and disaster results: Each man tries to goad the other to commit suicide.

Streaming beginning March 26, talkback is on Monday, March 29, at 7 pm Eastern, or 6 pm Central.

This a FREE event. But donations are welcomed!! Please visit our donations tab!

Reading of Come Find Me by Erin Mallon

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Reading of the new play Come Find Me. Directed by Rebecca Udden, AD of Main Street Theater. Can be watched here: https://www.facebook.com/wordsmyththeaterco/posts/3778894658810456 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZrP1KLb72k

Talkback with the playwright and director will be on Monday, Nov. 23, at 7 pm.Ilda talks to people who aren’t there. Tilly hears fingers clawing at her door. All the while, the moon keeps her watchful eyes on them. Come Find Me is a time-hopping, feminist ghost story spanning two time periods. As it weaves its way through the halls of Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in 1907 and a beach house during the tumultuous summer of 1969 we discover the secret-laden lives of three women and how their worlds intertwine.

Wordsmyth Theater Company is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.