The Centenary Stage Company 2017 Women Playwrights Series concludes with Hitler's Tasters by Michelle Kholos Brooks, in the Lackland Center. Inspired by the true story, three times a day, every day, a group of young women have the opportunity to die for their country. They are Adolph Hitler’s food tasters. And what do girls discuss as they wait to see if they will live through another meal? Like all girls, throughout time, they gossip and dream, they question and dance. They want to love, laugh, and above all, they want to survive.
Reservations are encouraged and a $5 donation is suggested. To reserve, call the CSC box office at (908) 979-0900.
About the Author:
Michelle Kholos Brooks’ play, Hostage was chosen as a finalist for the 2016/17 Woodward/Newman Drama Award. It was first presented as a reading at the Skylight Theatre’s INKubator series and later at The Road Theatre Summer Playwrights Festival. Hostage was also a semi-finalist for Premier Stages Play Festival. It is scheduled for production at the Skylight Theatre in January 2018. Kalamazoo, co-written with Kelly Younger, was the winner of the Reva Shiner Comedy Award, Bloomington Playwrights Project, and was published recently by Dramatists Play Service. Kalamazoo has been produced by Pacific Resident Theatre, the Adirondack Theatre Festival and Bloomington Playwrights Project, among others.
Family Planning made its world premiere at the Colony Theatre, Los Angeles, with additional support from EST-LA and Pacific Resident Theatre. It was a finalist for the Reva Shiner Comedy Award, Bloomington Playwrights Project. Brooks’ play Chair was a finalist for the Firehouse Theatre’s Festival of New American Plays. Other select works for the stage include: Two Parents, Two Weddings, Two Years (Wings Theatre, New York City; Laurelgrove Theatre Company, Los Angeles); See How We Are (Laurelgrove Theatre Company); Love and Other Allergies (Vox Humana Theatre Ensemble); and Famous in Luxembourg (Rogue Machine, Around-the-Clock Short Play Festival), among others. Additional staged readings of various works have been produced at Snapshots, a benefit to raise funds for the Susan G. Komen Foundation; Venue 9 Theatre, San Francisco; The Barrow Group, New York; Drama West, Los Angeles; and the Bay Street Theatre, New York. Bad Outfit Productions produced Brooks’ plays, Cab and Allergic to Walnuts as short films. Publications include Room Magazine and The Daily Beast. Brooks earned a B.A. from Emerson College and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Otis College of Art and Design. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America and Pacific Resident Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. She lives in Venice, California with her husband and son.
About the Women Playwrights series:
Now in its 24th season, the WPS is a developmental program dedicated to providing a working forum for the unique and underserved voice of women writing for the theatre today. Each season 3-4 new plays are selected for a collaborative workshop process, with a professional director and actors. At the end of the rehearsal, a staged reading of the play is presented at CSC (50 miles west of NYC) for our regional audiences, giving CSC audiences larger exposure to new work, as well as offering the playwright an opportunity to get feedback from the audience during the development process.
Women writers from around the country will converge in Hackettstown for the three week event, which will bring dramatic workshop-presentations of the three new full-length plays by women writers.
Plays presented in the developmental WPS program are finalists in the Susan Glaspell Award competition, and are under consideration for full production in a subsequent season at the Centenary Stage Company, the professional, Equity theatre in residence on the campus of Centenary University.
Centenary Stage Company
Centenary Stage Company is a performing arts center located on the campus of Centenary University. Year-round events include Professinal Theater Series, music events, dance events, a Women Playwrights Series, Young Performers Workshop, an annual holiday spectatular, and more!