New Work Now Spring Series

The Public Theater presents its New Work Now Spring Series, a free Monday night play reading series, featuring plays and musicals in development at the Public Theater.

April 19 – 7 pm DIRTY TRICKS by John Jeter, directed by Margaret Whitton
Watergate revealed firsthand by spirited “mouth of the south” Martha Mitchell. You’d have to be crazy to take on the President of the United States of America, but just because you’re paranoid that doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

April 26 – 7 pm THE ANTIGONE PROJECT, by Amy Brenneman, Karen Hartman, Chiori Miyagawa, Lynn Nottage, Sabrina Peck, and Caridad Svich; directed by Sabrina Peck; and conceived Sabrina Peck and Chiori Miyagawa.
Antigone is swept into 2004 in five short plays inspired by Antigone’s savage tradition of protest. From an Antigone Museum to present day Africa to a princess of privilege being courted by a surfer, these new plays shed light on an ancient myth. In association with Classic Stage Company and The Women’s Project.

May 3 – 7 pm WELLSPRING by Ruth Margraff, music by Nikos Brisco, directed by Elyse Singer
A radical operatic exploration of a UN peacekeeper haunted by the Sarajevo massacre of 1994 in Bosnia-Hercegovina. His romantic wife follows him deep into the Balkans, discovering the losses of local survivors and abandoning her comfortable life in the process.

May 10 – 7 pm NINE PARTS OF DESIRE by Heather Raffo
“God created sexual desire in ten parts; then he gave nine parts to women and one to men.” Heather Raffo brings to life Iraqi women: artists, doctors, wives, exiles. Hear a society long silenced, finally speak. “But I am good at being naked – I mean, that’s what I do, in secret.”

May 17 – 7 pm SURFING DNA by Jodi Long
Starting with her vaudevillian parents who broke barriers as Asian-American performers, Jodi Long’s funny and painstaking voyage of self-discovery thwarts genetic and cultural expectations.

May 24 – 7 pm OUTLYING ISLANDS by David Grieg directed by Jo Bonney
On the brink of World War II, two young soldier-scientists prepare an uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland for Anthrax testing. The soldiers’ friendship is tested by the island’s elderly owner and his young niece. Back in London, the fate of this tiny piece of Empire is decided. A new play by one of Scotland’s hottest young writers.

June 7 – 7pm MEASURE FOR PLEASURE by David Grimm
Restoration comedy meets the contemporary sex farce in this outrageous new comedy by Kit Marlowe author David Grimm — complete with gender-switching, mistaken identities, double-dealing, mortal duels, gay marriage and, of course, the obligatory sex cave.