McCarter Lab Fall Festival Features Unstaged Readings by Leading and Emerging US Playwrights, 10/29-11/4

The McCarter Lab Fall Festival 2012 will feature some of the leading and emerging playwrights of the American theater from October 29 through November 4, in a series of unstaged readings and special events in celebration of the artist's work. All events are FREE, but seating is limited and reservations are encouraged. To reserve seats, call (609) 258-2787.

All readings will begin at 7pm in McCarter's Berlind Rehearsal Room. For more information on McCarter Lab, visit www.mccarter.org/lab.

The festival begins with "In The Writer's Voice" on Monday, October 29. This is an extraordinary opportunity to hear writers and composers read and perform excerpts from their own works-in-process. This year's roster will include Pulitzer prize-winner Marsha Norman, and a Princeton favorite, singer-songwriter Sarah Donner.

Thursday, November 1 will feature a reading of "The Noise," a thrilling new play by Rachel Bonds, whose works have been developed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, La MaMa, The Flea, Playwrights Horizons, and Williamstown Theater Festival.

Following on Friday, November 2 will be a staged reading of the new McCarter Commission "Smart People," an exploration of the complexities of race, class, friendship and the human brain, written by the fearless and funny Lydia Diamond (Stick Fly).

The McCarter Lab will continue with "Pure," by A. Rey Pamatmat, on Saturday, November 3. British mathematician Alan Turing fathered computer science (and helped defeat the Nazis along the way), but the puzzle of social rules eluded him. "Pure" is an elegant biographical portrait of a great thinker and the people he loved. Playwright A. Rey Pamatmat, is a Truman Capote Literary Fellow and the current Hodder Fellow in Playwriting at Princeton.

The festival will conclude on Sunday, November 4 with McCarter Artistic Director Emily Mann's newest work "Hoodwinked." Inspired by the Ft. Hood shooting and using FBI transcripts and interviews with experts across the spectrum, this provocative new project explores the clash of civilizations, and the dangerous repercussions of Radical Islam. This reading will be followed by a post-show discussion moderated by Nadine Strossen, who served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 through 2008. Currently a professor at New York Law School, Strossen was named one of "The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America" by the National Law Journal.

This year, McCarter opened its 2012-13 season with the hilarious and moving comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, by Christopher Durang, which was commissioned by McCarter and developed in the Lab in 2010 and 2011. Since 1990, McCarter has produced more than 50 new plays, musicals, and adaptations from leading and emerging American Playwrights, including Edward Albee, Eric Bogosian, Marina Carr, Steven Dietz, John Guare, Danai Gurira, Beth Henley, Tarell McCraney, Will Power, Theresa Rebeck, and ReGina Taylor, among many others. Its multi-faceted, highly customizable approach has made McCarter one of the foremost theaters in the nation for the development of new plays and musicals.

Special thanks to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting McCarter Theatre Center.

Play development at McCarter Theatre is sponsored by The Thomas and Agnes Carvel Foundation, The Geraldine R. Dodge foundation, Edgerton Foundation, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and Theatre Communications Group.

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