Cape May Stage presents our 2024 Reading Series at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse. We invite you to attend these free events that showcase new and interesting works on our stage. Donations are accepted.
IN PERSON READING
National Playwright Symposium Reading
Tuesday, May 16 at 7 pm
In-Person Reading at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
The National Playwrights Symposium was created by Roy Steinberg and Shawn Fisher to bring Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwrights to work with mid-career writers each May in Cape May. The readings of work will be creations that did not exist prior to the week-long event. Sometimes, the readings you will hear were written that morning. It is a stunning and exciting event.
Written by: Various Playwrights
Directed by: Roy Steinberg
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
The National Playwrights Symposium was created by Roy Steinberg and Shawn Fisher to bring Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwrights to work with mid-career writers each May in Cape May. The readings of work will be creations that did not exist prior to the week-long event. Sometimes, the readings you will hear were written that morning. It is a stunning and exciting event.
Written by: Various Playwrights
Directed by: Roy Steinberg
IN PERSON READING
Tru
Monday, June 24, at 7 pm
In-Person Reading at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
Adapted from the words and works of Truman Capote, Tru takes place in the writer’s New York City apartment during the week before Christmas 1975. An excerpt from Capote’s infamous novel Answered Prayers has recently been published in Esquire and the author’s friends, recognizing the characters as thinly veiled versions of themselves, have turned their back on the man they once considered a close confidant. The play will be read by Hans Friedrichs. This is a special PRIDE Month Event.
Written by: Jay Presson Allen
Directed by: Roy Steinberg
IN PERSON READING
The One Good Thing
Or "Are Ya Patrick Swayze"?
Monday, August 12, at 7 pm
In-Person Reading at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
Two brothers, Jamie and Tommy, share a small cottage in Enniskeel, Ireland, a fictional town on the cliffs of the Irish Sea. One morning, after a severe lashing of rain, Jamie makes an astonishing declaration. He announces that he is dead, a ghost. Tommy, naturally, is unconvinced and maintains that his brother’s delusion is caused by the grief Jamie has suffered since their mother’s death. With humor and pathos, the men explore a trail of love, grief, and guilt.
Written by: Joe Bravaco
Directed by: Roy Steinberg
IN PERSON READING
Leaders & Liberators: Harriet Tubman and her Cape May Connections
Monday, September 30, at 7 pm
In-Person Reading at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse
Presented by the African American Historical Society of South Central Pennsylvania
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
A dramatic reading of an original script, Leaders and Liberators portrays an imagined meeting on July 4, 1872 in Cape May, New Jersey between Harriet Tubman and two abolitionist allies from Columbia, Lancaster County Pennsylvania, the Rev. Stephen Smith and William Whipper. These three influential leaders of the Underground Railroad Movement were courageous conductors and agents who led hundreds to freedom through the anti-slavery network of the Underground Railroad, from the 1830s through the 1850s.
Written by: Randolph Harris & Rev. Martha Harris
Directed by: Chase Jackson
Presented by the African American Historical Society of South Central Pennsylvania
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
A dramatic reading of an original script, Leaders and Liberators portrays an imagined meeting on July 4, 1872 in Cape May, New Jersey between Harriet Tubman and two abolitionist allies from Columbia, Lancaster County Pennsylvania, the Rev. Stephen Smith and William Whipper. These three influential leaders of the Underground Railroad Movement were courageous conductors and agents who led hundreds to freedom through the anti-slavery network of the Underground Railroad, from the 1830s through the 1850s.
Written by: Randolph Harris & Rev. Martha Harris
Directed by: Chase Jackson
IN PERSON READING
Native Gardens
Monday, October 7, at 7 pm
In-Person Reading at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
You can’t choose your neighbors. In this brilliant hot button comedy, cultures and gardens clash, turning well-intentioned neighbors into feuding enemies. Pablo, a rising attorney, and doctoral candidate Tania, his very pregnant wife, have just purchased a home next to Frank and Virginia, a well-established D.C. couple with a prize-worthy English garden. But an impending barbeque for Pablo’s colleagues and a delicate disagreement over a long-standing fence line soon spirals into an all-out border dispute, exposing both couples’ notions of race, taste, class and privilege.
Written by: Karen Zacarias
Directed by: Roy Steinberg
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
You can’t choose your neighbors. In this brilliant hot button comedy, cultures and gardens clash, turning well-intentioned neighbors into feuding enemies. Pablo, a rising attorney, and doctoral candidate Tania, his very pregnant wife, have just purchased a home next to Frank and Virginia, a well-established D.C. couple with a prize-worthy English garden. But an impending barbeque for Pablo’s colleagues and a delicate disagreement over a long-standing fence line soon spirals into an all-out border dispute, exposing both couples’ notions of race, taste, class and privilege.
Written by: Karen Zacarias
Directed by: Roy Steinberg
IN PERSON READING
One Step at a Time
Friday, October 25, at 7 pm
In-Person Reading at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
Many have been caregivers, and each has a story to tell. This is the tale of what it was like for Gayle Stahlhuth, whose husband, Lee O’Connor was diagnosed with cancer on October 1, 2019 and breathed his last on March 21, 2021. It contains the usual disappointments and not-looked-for ugly surprises along the way, but this one-person play is also about hope and joy and living life to the fullest by not letting cancer define what “living” is all about. It’s being aware of the moments and taking it one step at a time. This 75-minute one-act play will be read by Gayle Stahlhuth, and there will be a Q&A afterwards to help Gayle on the path of rewrites and revisions.
Written by: Gayle Stahlhuth
Directed by: Gayle Stahlhuth
No Tickets Required – Free to Attend – Donations Accepted
Many have been caregivers, and each has a story to tell. This is the tale of what it was like for Gayle Stahlhuth, whose husband, Lee O’Connor was diagnosed with cancer on October 1, 2019 and breathed his last on March 21, 2021. It contains the usual disappointments and not-looked-for ugly surprises along the way, but this one-person play is also about hope and joy and living life to the fullest by not letting cancer define what “living” is all about. It’s being aware of the moments and taking it one step at a time. This 75-minute one-act play will be read by Gayle Stahlhuth, and there will be a Q&A afterwards to help Gayle on the path of rewrites and revisions.
Written by: Gayle Stahlhuth
Directed by: Gayle Stahlhuth
To see the complete 2024 season schedule for all Cape May Stage events, just click on the “2024 Season Schedule” button below.