OUTSIDE THE BOX Reading Series

Actors' Reading Collective presents OUTSIDE THE BOX, 

a series of summer play readings.

CLICK HERE to book your ticket to The Children.

**Read all about the offerings below**

Choose your ticket price!  We believe live theatre should be accessible to all.

$10 - $50

Play #4

THE CHILDREN

By Lucy Kirkwood

Directed by Tim Redmond

Monday, July 31, 2023 at 7pm

In a remote cottage two retired scientists, Robin and Hazel, live a quiet life in the wake of a catastrophe at a nearby nuclear plant. When Rose, a fellow nuclear physicist whom they haven’t seen for years, suddenly turns up, their precariously ordered existence is disrupted. As the shocking reason for Rose’s visit is gradually revealed, Robin and Hazel are forced to make a difficult choice about the future.

Critics have called Lucy Kirkwood “the most rewarding dramatist of her generation.” And her Tony nominated play The Children “…a richly suggestive and beautifully written piece of work… tantalizingly hard to define: …somewhat menacing, and often funny… What it is not is a polemic about the irresponsibility of baby boomers; instead it rather penetratingly asks what they owe younger generations, exactly.”

Cast:

Mary Baird*, Luisa Sermol*, Michael Torres*

CLICK HERE to book your ticket to The Children.

1. Shakespeare & the Zombie Plague of 1590 - Monday, June 5. 

2. Pipeline - Monday, June 19. 

3. The Ferryman - Monday, July 10. 

4. The Children - Monday, July 31.  

Play #1

SHAKESPEARE AND THE ZOMBIE PLAGUE OF 1590

by Richard Henry & Eric Hissom

Directed by Aldo Billingslea

Monday, June 5, 2023 at 7pm 

In 1590’s England, emerging young playwright William Shakespeare is drawn into one of his own plays where Macbeth and his Witches conjure a horde of Zombies to destroy Queen Elizabeth and a cast of the Bard’s most famous characters. This epic adventure follows our reluctant hero as he tries to find his voice as a writer and save the world from the undead in a rock and roll horror comedy mash up. This wild ride by playwrights Eric Hissom & Richard Henry takes the audience on a hilariously creepy carnival ride through a monster mash-up of Shakespeare’s world with the walking dead.

Cast includes:

Sam Ademola*, Rotimi Agbabiaka*, Andre Amaratico*, Mary Baird*, James Carpenter*, Bez Jifar, Kina Kantor, Amy Kossow*, Jennifer Le Blanc*, Danielle Levin*, Gwen Loeb*, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong*, Lisa Morse*, Carrie Paff*, Timothy Roy Redmond*, Luisa Sermol*

Play #2

PIPELINE

by Dominique Morisseau

Directed by Leontyne Mbele-Mbong and Emilie Talbot

Monday, June 19, 2023 at 7pm

Nya, an inner-city public high school teacher, is desperate to give her only son Omari opportunities her students may never have. When a controversial incident at his upstate private school threatens to get him expelled, Nya must confront his rage and her own parental choices. Will she be able to reach him before a world beyond her control pulls him away? Acclaimed playwright Dominique Morisseau (Skeleton Crew) pens a deeply moving story of a mother’s fight to give her son a future — without turning her back on the community that made him who he is.

Dominique Morisseau has won numerous awards and fellowships, including two OBIE awards and a TONY nomination, the Sky-Cooper Prize, and the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama, among many others. Her work has been produced at major theaters throughout the nation. She is a recent Macarthur Genius Grant Fellow. While her work has been produced at major theaters throughout the nation, this particular play has never been produced in the Bay Area

A Bay Area premier on Juneteenth

Cast:

Michael J Asberry*, Ron Chapman*, Eddie Ewell*, Gianna DiGregorio Rivera*, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong*, Emilie Talbot*

Play #3

THE FERRYMAN

by Jez Butterworth

Directed by Robert Parsons

Monday, July 10, 2023 at 7pm

Northern Ireland, 1981. The Carney farmhouse is a hive of activity with preparations for the annual harvest.  A day of hard work on the land and a traditional night of feasting and celebrations lie ahead. But this year they will be interrupted by a visitor.

Jez Butterworth, acclaimed author of Jerusalem, brings us this powerful play that is a “stunning piece of writing, teeming with life; an astonishing, enormous, feast of intricate storytelling. It’s absorbing, soulful and emotionally abundant… An instant classic… sending stories, characters, history, politics and love skittering across the floor with the flair of a gambler rolling dice.”

Cast:

Andre Amaratico*, Michael J. Asberry*, Mary Baird*, Tony Baldacci, Sylvia Burboeck*, James Carpenter*, Ron Chapman*, Daniel Chung, Sheila M. Devitt, Eddie Ewell*, John Flanagan*, Anthony Fusco*, Kina Kantor*, Julian Lopez-Morillas*, Susan Lynskey*, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong*, Davied Morales, Timothy Roy Redmond*, Cathleen Riddley*, Genevieve Schmidt