* Lark hosts National New Play Network readings

2nd Annual
Playwrights' Workshop Readings

Every year, select writers develop new plays in Lark’s Playwright’s Workshop program, led by Arthur Kopit and co-hosted by esteemed writers like David Henry Hwang, Tina Howe, Theresa Rebeck, and Doug Wright. For the 2nd year, the Lark presents this raw, in-progress work.

Monday, May 19 - Carson Kreitzer
Tuesday, May 20 - James Price
Wednesday, May 21 - Katori Hall
Thursday, May 22 - Kenneth Lin
Thursday, May 29 - Jeroen van den Berg

For more info, CLICK HERE

enchantment by carson kreitzer — May 19
Bruno Bettelheim was born in Vienna in 1903 and died in Chicago in 1990, barbituates in his bloodstream and a plastic bag over his face. In the time between, he studied Freudian psychiatry, spent time in Dachau and Buchenwald, a guest of the Third Reich, put forth (and then disavowed) the theory that autism was caused by bad mothering, and wrote "The Uses of Enchantment", a popular and somewhat scandalously freudian book on fairy tales. Temple Grandin is a high-functioning autistic woman who designs more humane slaughterhouses. ENCHANTMENT explores the reverberations between these two extraordinary lives.

collision course by james price — May 20
Benny Baxter was on his way to a promising career in astro-physics when a personal tragedy sent him reeling, out of the world of science, and into a Fed Ex truck. Content to live out his life in the tangible world of overnight package delivery, one day he meets the love of his life, Angel—an event that sets in motion a series or events that would change his life, Angel’s life, and the life of his obsessed parents. Along the way, others are pulled in to the drama as the dominos fall and secrets are revealed. Collision Course explores the realms of the divine, fate, and chance to ultimately ask the question, what are we doing with our time here on earth, and do we really  have a say in the direction of our lives when all is said and done.

the mountaintop by katori hall —May 21
April 3, 1968. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. retires to room 306 in the Lorraine Motel. When a mysterious young hotel maid comes to visit him during the night, King is forced to confront his mortality and the future of his people.

genius in love (formerly titled Dovetail)
by kenneth lin —May 22
Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton, two giants of The Enlightenment independently and spontaneously invented calculus in the late 17th Century. They accused each other of plagiarism and create a rift between German and English intellectual society that would last for generations. In GENIUS IN LOVE, a play written in modern verse, these two giants meet at the ends of their lives to consider why a world that teetered on the precipice of the industrial revolution (following generations of plague, war, famine and blight) needed Calculus, a study of the rates at which things change, so badly that two of its master thinkers set about creating it and destroying each other in the process.

injury time by jeroen van den berg
—May 29
Four elderly people have to spend their remaining years together in a senior residence. In this unfamiliar environment, they struggle to make their lives worth living. They try to hold on to fading memories or to find the love of their lives. Or they just wait for their heart to stop beating and free them from the burden of a life without meaning.