BY THE BOOK Staged Readings: 2013-2014

ALL SHOWS, DATES & TIMES SUBJECT TO CHANGE
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MURDER BY POE

By Jeffrey Hatcher, adapted from the stories of Edgar Allan Poe

A dark and dreadful night. A woman in white lost within a wood. And the only shelter is a house full of murderers. Mixing funhouse tricks, Grand Guignol and a deadly game of cat and mouse, MURDER BY POE is a theatrical reimagining of some of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous tales of terror —”The Black Cat,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “William Wilson,” “The Purloined Letter,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” As each haunted figure tells a story of crime and mayhem, the woman must solve the puzzle of the house and the riddle of the man who ushers her into its mysteries.

This project was made possible with funding by the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County in our City of Arts and Innovation.

Performance:

Friday, October 25, 2013 at 8 pm

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ELVIS PEOPLE

By Doug Grissom

With the iconic mythology of Elvis as a backdrop, Elvis People is a funny and touching journey through the decades that examines the King’s impact on American culture through the eyes of the disparate people he affected throughout and beyond his life. In a series of vignettes and monologues, you’ll meet a variety of Elvis fans, worshipers and detractors, such as: an Elvis impersonator who rises from near obscurity to almost-fame, a family torn apart by the daughter’s love of Elvis, a daughter who shoulders her elderly mother through one last trip to Graceland, a couple who almost get an amazing present from Elvis until they comically ruin their own good fortune, and a Vietnam vet who makes it through a traumatic episode with the help of Elvis. You’ll see how a button torn from Elvis’ shirt comes between a young couple in hilarious and complicated ways, how a snapshot of Elvis brings on a marital crisis, and how a recovered filling from Elvis’ teeth leads to memorabilia collectors debating the meaning of faith … sort of. The play explores not just the phenomenon of Elvis Presley but also broader aspects of modern culture, such as celebrity worship and fan obsession.

This project was made possible with funding by the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County in our City of Arts and Innovation.

Performance:

Friday, November 1, 2013 at 8 pm

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AS IS

By William H. Hoffman

The time is 1985, the place New York City. Rich, a young writer who is beginning to find success, is breaking up with his longtime lover, Saul, a professional photographer. The split is particularly difficult for Saul, who still loves Rich deeply, but the mood is one of bantering and ironic humor as they divide their belongings. However Rich’s idyll with his new lover is short-lived when he learns that he has AIDS and returns to the goodhearted Saul for sanctuary as he awaits its slow and awful progress. Thereafter the action is comprised of a mosaic of brilliantly conceived short scenes, some profoundly moving, some brightly humorous, which capture the pathos of Rich’s relationship with friends and family; the cold impersonality of the doctors and nurses who care for him; and the widely diverse aspects of New York’s gay community — an honest and unsparing examination of a deeply felt human relationship shattered by a mindless, destructive force which cannot be tempered or turned aside.

This project was made possible with funding by the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County in our City of Arts and Innovation.

Performances:

Friday, January 3, 2014 at 8 pm
Saturday, January 4, 2014 at 8 pm

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K2

By Patrick Meyers

The setting is an icy ledge high up on K2, the world’s second highest mountain. It is the story of Taylor, an arch-conservative and womanizing assistant district attorney — and Harold, a physicist and family man.  The two climbers are stranded at 27,000 feet, and Harold has suffered a broken leg in their precipitous descent. They have also lost one of their ropes, and the remaining one is neither long or strong enough to serve as a sling to lower Harold to the next ledge. As Taylor climbs back up the mountain in an attempt to recover the other rope the two men keep up a running conversation which begins in a lighthearted vein but gradually shades into an absorbing discussion of the meaning and value of life.

This project was made possible with funding by the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County in our City of Arts and Innovation.

Performance:

Friday, April 4, 2014 at 8 pm

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THE GOOD BODY

By Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, turns her unique eye to the rest of the female form in The Good Body. Whether undergoing botox injections or living beneath burqas, women of all cultures and backgrounds feel compelled to change the way they look in order to fit in. The Good Body merges cross-cultural explorations with Eve’s own personal journey coming to terms with her “less-than-flat, post-forties stomach.

This project was made possible with funding by the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County in our City of Arts and Innovation.

“Ms. Ensler wants to soften the ever-fraught relationship between American women and their bodies, to expose the destructive formulas that lead them to assuage their insecurities by punishing their flesh…rich in pointed, amusing details…forthrightly funny…bristling with wisecracks [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][and] exotically harvested snippets of wisdom.” —New York Times

“Passionate, funny, frank, revealing, even shocking, and genuinely committed to improving life on this planet.” — San Francisco Chronicle

Performance:

Saturday, May 10, 2014 at 8 pm

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