Evan Cabnet, Steve Cosson, Liesl Tommy, et al. to Direct Public Theater’s Spotlight Series Readings

The Public Theater has announced the plays by members of the theater’s Emerging Writers Group that it will present in staged readings as part of its Spotlight Series, to run June 1-28.

The series will open with Laura Marks’ Mine (June 1, 8pm), a look at a new mother who has questions about her child, to be directed by Evan Cabnet; and Aaron Wigdor Levy’s The Ball Player (June 2, 8pm), which centers on the pressures a teenage basketball star feels during his senior year in high school, to be directed by Kent Gash.

The second week of the Spotlight Series will include Augusto Federico Amador’s Kissing Che (June 8, 8pm), about the unlikely friendship between Cuba’s last famous drag queen and his attending nurse, to be directed by Victor Maog; and Dominique Morisseau’s Detroit 67 (June 9, 8pm), which centers on a brother and sister who have turned their basement into an after-hours joint, to be directed by Robert O’Hara.

Sevan Kaloustian Greene’s Babel (June 13, 8pm), which looks at two people who find friendship in the middle of a war, to be directed by Jonathan Silverstein, will open the third week of the series, and be followed by Stella Fawn Ragsdale’s Perish (June 14, 8pm), which focuses on a woman’s return the woods of East Tennessee to get the son kidnapped by his father; to be directed by Johanna Gruenhut; and Sukari Jones’ Location, Location, Location!!!! (June 15, 8pm), in which a mother and daughter find themselves living in a house that floats through various catastrophic events in time, to be directed by Liesl Tommy.

During the final two weeks of the series, the Public will present Anna Moench’s Hunger (June 22, 8pm), about a couple living in the hills of China’s Loess Plateau morning their son’s death, to be directed by Eric Ting; Jerome A. Parker’s Bliss (June 23, 8pm), which explores what happens when a writer returns to his conservative home town, to be directed by Andrew Russell; Nikole Beckwith’s Stockholm Pennsylvania (June 27, 8pm), which centers on a woman’s reunion with her parents after spending 17 years in captivity; and Javierantiono González’s Zoetrope (June 28, 8pm), which has been inspired by the letters the playwright’s grandfather sent from New York to Puerto Rico in the 1950s and will be directed by Steve Cosson.

Tickets to the readings are free, but must be reserved in advance by emailing spotlightrsvp@publictheater.org.