picnic plays – fall 2017
This reading series featured three new plays in progress by local playwrights Patrick Shaw, Megan Tabaque, and Elizabeth Doss. A casual afternoon of listening to new work, with lively discussion and feedback with the writers to follow, and share an intimate look into our upcoming season and the development process.
Each date is a different reading – Check out all three!
Tickets are at the door only & pay-what-you-can.
December 9, 10, & 17. All readings at 4pm!
Questions? Call: 512-686-6621 or Email: info@paperchairs.com
December 9th
The Repentance of Saint Joan by Patrick Shaw
4pm at Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (CMPBS)
8604 FM 969, Austin, TX 78724
Joan of Arc is long gone and the Hundred Years War has winded down when, out of nowhere, her sibling invites me over to his apartment for dinner. He knows my secret; he knows that fifteen years ago, when I was just a boyfriend, I followed Joan as she rescued France and left the world. But you know what? I don’t care what Stephen says: History’s not in books; it’s not on TV. It’s in carpets and homemade go-carts and the worst things you ever said. It’s understanding whose voices fill our heads right now, right this very minute, and, somehow, I start to see Stephen knows who’s echoing through mine.
December 10th
Decapitations by Megan Tabaque
4pm at Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (CMPBS)
8604 FM 969, Austin, TX 78724
In the Santos home, an alligator stalks, a mother talks to her car, a prodigal daughter binges on cereal, a devoted son raises lizards, and a neighbor’s dog vanishes. Funny, strange, and haunting, Decapitations is a Filipino-American ghost story about mixed identity and lost relatives.
December 17th
The Divine Narcissus by Elizabeth Doss
4pm at 4008 Cherrywood. Dr. Austin, TX 78722
A rough approximation of a 17th Century play originally written by Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, often referred to as the New World’s first feminist. It is interpreted and translated (loosely) by local playwright Elizabeth Doss. So far, this adaption has uncovered lyrical language spoken by mythic and biblical characters who have unusual philosophical arguments on a mountainside. Join us in this new world, found through an original rendering of an old voice.
paper chairs is a fiscally sponsored project of The Austin Creative Alliance.
This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.