Theatre West Reading Series 2025
TUESDAYS at 7:30 PM
February 18
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Playwright: Tom Walla
Director: Michael van Duzer
Logline: The Turtle Springs Community Players face opening night of their Christmas show without a full cast.
Synopsis: Inadvertent comedy arises when a sudden shortage of actors hits the Turtle Springs Community Players as they gamely try to soldier on for the first performance of their Christmas show, which helps fund their season.
March 4
THE CONFERENCE
Playwright: Lloyd Schwartz
Director: Bill Sehres
Logline: They have to be killed...all of them.
Synopsis: In a villa in Wannsee Germany, a group of Nazis met to arrange the Final Solution. This play is set in 1942…or is it? Certainly, the subject is the same, the arguments are the same, but the time frame? Seven characters with no accents and no uniforms but with all modern conveniences force the audience to draw their own comparisons.
March 11
OX-BOW INCIDENT
Playwright: Jim Beaver (adapted from the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark)
Director: Charlie Mount
Logline: A Nevada posse’s zeal for justice turns deadly in this tale of mob mentality and vigilantism.
Synopsis: In 1885 Nevada, a posse forms to hunt down cattle rustlers, fueled by suspicion and mob mentality. As the pursuit unfolds, the townspeople's rush to judgment threatens to lead to devastating consequences, forcing them to confront their own culpability.
March 18
MR. SAM’S PLACE
Playwright: Mark Bowen
Director: Mark Bowen
Logline: In an age where profit trumps principle, can we dare to be nostalgic for a past with principles often so wrong?
Synopsis:The night before its scheduled demolition, Councilman Willie Williams wanders into the diner looking for mementos. He is confronted by a journalist, Audrey Walker, who has followed him there for an interview. She wants to understand why Willie (the council’s lone African American representative and lone vote against the new development) is so attached to the place, and to a past that stinks so badly of Jim Crow. In telling his story, he shows us a series of flashbacks intended to paint a more accurate picture of this place’s past, and especially that of its enigmatic owner, with whom he had developed an unlikely friendship. He is determined to achieve some level of understanding from her regarding his nostalgia for the old-fashioned values that the newly dawning century is threatening. By the end of the night, we are left to wonder whether he has had any success.
March 25
SCREAM!
Playwright: Chris DiGiovanni
Director: Arden Teresa Lewis
Logline: What happened to Jane three weeks ago, and how and why did she end up at this private hospital thirty miles from her home?
Synopsis:In their private hospital and mental institute, Dr. Malahide, a neuropsychiatrist, and Dr. Luce, a psychologist and clinical social worker, must protect their patient, Jane, as she wakes from a coma after three weeks and has amnesia. Then Sam, claiming to be her estranged brother, and Angela Fair, his attorney, suddenly show up, demanding to see Jane. And a mysterious man moves surreptitiously through the estate, seeming to protect Jane from everyone, as Eddie, an orderly, goes missing.
April 1
A WONDERFUL VIEW
Playwright: Kres Mersky
Director: Paul Gersten
Synopsis: A whimsical tale of one woman’s unexpected journey through connection and nostalgia, accompanied by another short play, ROPE.
Rope
Playwright: Kres Mersky
Director: Paul Gersten
Logline: A daffy tale of an unusual friendship.
Synopsis: A short whimsical tale of one woman's unexpected companionship, showing us the surprising ways with whom and where we can find connection.
April 8
IN A YELLOW WOOD
Playwright: Garry Kluger
Director: Arden Teresa Lewis
Logline: Unless you ask for help, no one will ever know you need it.
Synopsis: IN A YELLOW WOOD is the story of a young man in therapy, trying to come to grips with the death of his wife. Along the way he also finds he has to deal with the many unsaid things with his family: his best friend, his mother, and his deaf sister.
April 15
HERE BE DRAGONS
Playwright: Charlie Mount
Director: Charlie Mount
Logline: Based on actual events, Here Be Dragons examines a debate on teaching Intelligent Design in schools, an Inherit The Wind for the 21st century.
Synopsis: An American high school classroom becomes the battleground for a debate on teaching Intelligent Design. Arguing for faith-based teaching is Jerome King, author of a new science curriculum that can now be legally taught in the State because the school board has changed the definition of what science is, permitting the method to examine the supernatural as well as the natural. Arguing against the curriculum is Jerome’s estranged half-brother Robert Bell, an editor for a skeptic’s magazine. As the two men brilliantly present their arguments they also must contend with their own personal acrimony. In the end the winner of the debate could influence school systems across the nation. Inspired by a number of court cases and School Board “Science Hearings” taking place across the country now.
SUNDAYS at 6 PM
April 20
THE THRESHOLD OF EVERYTHING
Playwright: Elayne Heilveil
Director: Elayne Heilveil
Logline: On the Threshold of Everything Eugenia Rose discovers first love through the trials and tribulations of a post World War 2 world and ultimately discovers her independence and strength in those turbulent times.
Synopsis: On the Threshold of Everything Eugenia Rose discovers first love through the trials and tribulations of a post World War 2 world and ultimately discovers her independence and strength in those turbulent times.
April 27
ACCEPTANCE
Playwright: Marc Littman
Director: Marc Littman
Logline: An autistic teen who thinks he’s broken is cast in a play and fixes the jaded director and his fellow actors, who are just as broken in real life as the characters they’re playing.
Synopsis: A jaded director and an ensemble of dysfunctional actors who play quirky characters are rehearsing a play about a brave teenage boy, Eddie, who has autism and who thinks he’s broken because he’s different. Between scenes, the actors try to fix the special needs teen who plays Eddie, mirroring what their characters strive to do; but it’s Eddie who fixes them in the play and in real life.