7 Stages this week launched its new — and free — Home Brew Series of new-play readings with a piece titled Mass Transit Muse by Michael Molina.
Muse, told with rhymed and metered prose, spoken-word poetry, and visual and musical accompaniment, follows a city bus on its journey and tells the diverse stories of the riders it encounters. The script is typical, if there is such a word for 7 Stages, of the work the company’s audiences tend to favor.
The series continues at 6:30 p.m. Sunday with Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by Atlanta playwright Nathaniel Lachenmeyer. It explores cults and the exit counselings that help members leave them. Lachenmeyer uses that framework to explore themes of family, loss and responsibility. The cast: Harrison Long, Ann Marie Gideon, Mark Kincaid, Tess Malis Kincaid and Jimi Kocina. Details HERE or at 404.522.0911.
Other scheduled readings:
- March 11-13: The Navigator by associate artistic director Michael Haverty (also of The Object Group). More details forthcoming.
- May 24-25: 7 Trumpets, which explores the natural, mystical and man-made occurrences of the number 7.
Although all readings are free, 7 Stages will be happy to accept any donations you wish to make.
The Home Brew Series, designed to foster and develop new work, follows the process that led to 7 Stages’ season opener, Dracula: The Rock Opera. Post-show conversations, at which audience members are invited to ask questions, are all part of it.
“I’m not saying we’ll implement every suggestion,” says marketing director Charles Swint, “but the audience feedback after we premiered Act 1 of Dracula in 2011 actually changed the way we used the live band in the final production and affected some of our staging choices.”
Home Brew joins an already healthy climate for new work in Atlanta, from Working Title Playwrights’ on-demand reading series to the Alliance Theatre’s Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition each February, and with Horizon Theatre’s New South PlayWorks Festival, Essential Theatre‘s annual summer series, Actor Express’ Turner Voices in the Works Reading Series and Synchronicity Theatre with its Playmaking for Girls program and rotating SheWRITES new-play competition for women playwrights, among them.
7 Stages created Home Brew to provide an access point for the local, national and international artists who call it home. As with other such series around town, taking part doesn’t necessarily mean a fully staged production will follow, but it’s a very real possibility.
