[Capdist-announce] PRESS RELEASE: WAM Theatre Announces Casting for Second Fresh Takes Reading - "The Tall Girls"

Tue Apr 28 10:17:20 EDT 2015

April 28, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Gail Burns, Marketing and Publicity Associate

www.wamtheatre.com <http://www.wamtheatre.com/#_blank>

pr at wamtheatre.com; 518.243.9627

Press Photos can be found at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wamtheatre/
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/wamtheatre/sets/72157648698789976/#_blank>

 WAM THEATRE ANNOUNCES CASTING

for Meg Miroshnik’s The Tall Girls, next in Fresh Takes play reading series

“Play like it’s the last basketball game of your life.” - Meg Miroshnik

LENOX, MA (April 28, 2015)— WAM Theatre is pleased to announce the cast for
their reading of The Tall Girls by Meg Miroshnik, the next event in the
2015 Fresh Takes Play Reading Series. The first Fresh Takes reading of 2015
sold out last month, as did all five of the readings in 2014 inaugural
season, proving Berkshire audiences embrace contemporary plays written by
women and focusing on the unique stories of women and girls.

WAM Theatre will present the reading on Sunday, May 17 at 3:00 p.m. at No.
Six Depot Roastery and Café, 6 Depot Street in West Stockbridge, MA.

The cast of The Tall Girls features Erin Eva Butcher (Imaginary
Beasts’s Kerplop!
The Frog Prince), Annie Considine (Shakespeare & Company’s Private Lives),
Sarah Jensen (CT Rep Theatre’s Lysistrata), Maizy Broderick Scarpa (Pittsfield
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Catherine Seeley (Oldcastle
Theatre’s My Fair Lady), and Ryan Winkles (Shakespeare & Company’s It’s a
Wonderful Life). Kelly Galvin, curator of the 2014 Fresh Takes Series, and
well known to Berkshire area audiences for her work with Shakespeare &
Company as an actress and educator, will direct the reading.

Welcome to Poor Prairie, circa the 1930s, the dusty, desolate town in the
American midwest where fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Jean has been exiled as
caretaker for her wild-child cousin, Almeda. It’s a grim, dangerous place
to eke out an existence as a teenage girl—until an out-of-towner arrives
with a brand-new basketball in tow. As the town’s girls come together to
form a team set on making it out of Poor Prairie, a murky committee of
townspeople threatens to stamp out girls’ sports altogether. Few plays
exist about women and sports for the American stage, and fewer still that
move away from a simple story of triumph over adversity. Written by
award-winning playwright Meg Miroshnik this play dramatizes issues
important to the WAM Theatre community; the fight for class, education, and
gender equality.

“Meg Miroshnik is one of my favorite playwrights and, I think, one of the
most exciting women writing today,” Galvin said. “For the girls in this
play, the basketball court is the one place that they can completely be
themselves, where they can to continue to play, grow, and be children - in
stark contrast to other their few other options, including marriage at 17
or 18, or holding a menial job. This raises the question: ‘Who gets to have
a childhood in this country and culture?’ That question is really important
to me here and now. For all the lip service we pay to it, childhood really
is a luxury.”

Ryan Winkles, the lone male in the cast, observes, “Meg Miroshnik has
written this beautiful play about women in sports that is so much more than
the typical ‘rise to glory’ story. It is exciting and surprising and I am
really looking forward to being in it and hearing it read before an
audience.”

The Tall Girls is the second presentation in the 2015 Fresh Takes Play
Reading Series, which gives a stage to ground-breaking works – which have
been successfully presented elsewhere but are new to our Berkshire
audiences – that tell women’s stories. Featuring local established and
emerging actors and directors, the series explores the work of provocative
contemporary voices. The series includes a post-reading discussion and will
encourage feedback on which plays audience members would like to see WAM
Theatre produce.

There are only 25 tickets available for this reading. Tickets are $20 and
can be purchased by calling 1-800-838-3006 or going online to
http://www.wamtheatre.com/fresh-takes-play-reading-series-2015. Due to the
limited availability, advance booking is highly recommended. Food and drink
will be available for purchase at the café prior to the reading, which will
begin in the gallery at 3:00 p.m.

The 2015 Fresh Takes Play Reading series is curated by WAM Theatre’s
Artistic Associate Molly Clancy. Future readings include:

   -

   The Tall Girls by Meg Miroshnik, directed by Kelly Galvin (May 17, 2015
   at 3:00 p.m.)
   -

   Noms de Guerre by Jacqueline Lawton, directed by Jayne Atkinson (June
   14, 2015 at 3:00 p.m. – a part of the Lift Ev’ry Voice Festival)
   -

   The Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría
   Hudes, directed by Molly Clancy (August 16, 2015 at 3:00 p.m.)
   -

   The Effect by Lucy Prebble, directed by WAM Artistic Director Kristen
   van Ginhoven (September 13, 2015 at 3:00 p.m.)

Find out more about the series at
http://www.wamtheatre.com/fresh-takes-play-reading-series-2015

About WAM Theatre

Based in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, WAM Theatre was co-founded in
2010 by Canadian director, actor, educator, and producer Kristen van
Ginhoven to create professional theatrical events for everyone, with a
focus on women theatre artists and/or stories of women and girls.

WAM Theatre also has a philanthropic mission, inspired by the book Half the
Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas
Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and donates a portion of the proceeds from its
theatrical events to organizations that benefit women and girls.

Over the past five years, WAM Theatre has donated more than $15,000 to
seven nonprofit organizations and provided paid work to more than 100
theatre artists. In addition to the main stage productions and special
events, WAM Theatre’s activities include a comprehensive educational
outreach program and the Fresh Takes Play Reading Series. For more
information, visit www.WAMTheatre.com <http://www.wamtheatre.com/>

###
-- 
Gail M. Burns

*Marketing + Publicity Associate*
www.WAMTheatre.com <http://www.wamtheatre.com/>
413-458-4246

Click here <http://www.wamtheatre.com/donate/> to make a secure donation to
WAM Theatre

*Thank you for your support!*
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