TimePieces Archive: 2009 – 2010 Season
These plays were presented as part of the TimePieces Play Reading Series during the 2009-10 season:
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A PICASSO
by Jeffrey Hatcher
directed by Rachel Walshe
Reading held Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 7 p.m.
Paris, 1941. A city once renowned for its artistic freedom finds its most famous creative force at the heart of the Nazis’ latest investigation. Detained alongside three of his alleged works, Picasso is interrogated by Miss Fischer, cunning “cultural attaché” of the Nazi Party. As his work is being authenticated for a public showing, Picasso learns the true nature of this “exhibition” and takes Miss Fischer on a deeply intimate and riveting journey through the birth of his works, including Guernica. Required to retrieve only “a” Picasso, Miss Fischer reveals her own furtive past in a passionate and heated negotiation. A taut face-off with a climactic twist, A Picasso is a thrilling tale of art and politics, truth and façade, with one of the modern era’s most prolific and inspired artists.
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SONG OF EXTINCTION
by EM Lewis
directed by Nick Bowling
Reading held Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at 7 p.m.
A new play about the science of life and loss, the relationships between fathers and sons, Cambodian fields, Bolivian rainforests and redemption. Max Forrestal is going to fail biology if he doesn’t complete a 20-page paper on extinction by 2 pm on Tuesday — but his mother, Lily, is dying of cancer and school is the last thing on his mind. His father, Ellery, a biologist obsessed with saving a rare Bolivian insect, is incapable of dealing with his wife’s impending death, or his son’s distress. Max’s biology teacher, Khim Phan, tries to figure out why Max is failing the class. Helping Max, however, pushes Khim into a magical journey of his own — from the Cambodian fields of his youth into the undiscovered country beyond.
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A LESSON BEFORE DYING
by Romulus Linney
directed by Jonathan Wilson
Reading held Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 7 p.m.
Based on the celebrated novel by Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying is the story of Jefferson, an innocent young man condemned to death in backwoods Louisiana in 1948. After his lawyer tries to save his life by calling him no more a human being than a hog during the trial, Jefferson decides to act like one, insisting that he will be dragged like that hog to his death in the electric chair. Desperate to help Jefferson, his godmother asks schoolteacher Grant Wiggins to teach him to die like a man. As execution day approaches, Jefferson and Grant explore the meaning of life and death in an engrossing, moving and ultimately devastating story.