First Annual Staged Reading Performance Series
Committed to the vision of staging new works and re-imagined classics, we assembled six dynamic plays for our First Annual Staged Reading Performance Series. From March through August, we showcase a play each month featuring a total of over 90 actors, musicians, and directors, combined with minimal lighting, sound and set elements.
The artists are given a week to rehearse and present, book-in-hand, their piece for two evenings. Each production is free and open to the public.
Pick Your Play
What makes Bricolage’s Staged Reading Performance Series unique is the audience’s participation. At the end of the six-month series, through an Internet survey, we ask our audience for their evaluation. Whichever play receives the most enthusiastic response becomes a future Bricolage full production. By engaging the audience as stakeholders in the creation of a play, the observer becomes participant, and the artistic connection between the audience and the play itself is deepened.
#1
Don Juan Returns from the War (New Work)
March 19th and 20th, 2006
By Odon Von Horvath, Adapted and Directed by David Maslow
A hauntingly beautiful adaptation, this 30’s expressionist classic features Don Juan, literature’s greatest romantic scoundrel, as he returns from the trenches searching for the true love he betrayed before the war. An ensemble of women play 35 roles opposite the one man trying desperately to escape the peril of his ways.
#2
Peace (Pittsburgh Premiere)
April 23rd and 24th, 2006
By Aristophanes, Directed by Jeffrey Carpenter
This new adaptation of Aristophanes’ comedy begins with Trygaeus, sick of war, flying to Olympus on a dung beetle to entreat the mighty Zeus to put an end to it. But Zeus has washed his hands of humanity, allowing the monster War (who has buried Peace in a cave) to have free rein.
#3
Phaedra’s Love (Pittsburgh Premiere)
May 21st and 22nd, 2006
by Sarah Kane, Directed by Melissa Martin
This dirty and dangerous retelling of the Seneca myth is a story of love and lust taken to violent extremes. In this shocking and perverse political commentary, Kane maps out the darkest and most unforgiving internal landscapes: violence, loneliness, power, and love.
#4
Chicks with Dicks (Bad Girls on Bikes Doing Bad Things) (Pittsburgh Premiere)
June 25th and 26th, 2006
By Trista Baldwin, Directed by Tami Dixon
This 60’s B-movie parody with a twist is set in and around Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania’s very own nuclear power plant. The irreverently absurd plot centers around Vespa de Amore, a prom queen runner-up who ends up on the road with an all-girl biker gang. This wild ride features plenty of go-go dancing, hair pulling, mud wrestling, and kung-fu fighting as these good-girls-gone-bad get even worse!
#5
Key to the Field (New Work) – Winner of the 2006 SRPS – Audience Choice
July 30th and 31st, 2006
Written and Directed By David Turkel
A controversial schoolteacher wakes in the middle of the night to find a brick thrown through the picture window of his suburban home. Things get worse when a police officer arrives and, instead of investigating, takes him hostage. Written to mirror the work of Rene Magritte, Key to the Field is a surrealist thrill-ride through the twisted landscape of the American dream.
#6
SCarrie! The Musical (New Work)
August 20th and 21st, 2006
Book by Joel Abbott, Kimmy Gatewood, Vince Gatton, Matt Morrow, and Nathan Phillips, Original Music by Joel Abbott, Directed by Matt Morrow
A musical tale of love, menstruation, and telekinetic revenge, SCarrie is an unauthorized musical parmage (parody/homage) of the classic 70’s horror film Carrie. Pigs’ blood, dirty pillows and gender bending run amuck while creepy Carrie suffers all the more in this warped musical romp through high school with a rockin’ original 1970’s score.