Rogue Machine
Reading
Series
Join us for the readings of Beside Herself by Nick Ullett and Peter Elbling and Blue Roses by Tim Venable the last week of February.
These readings are a part of our ongoing Reading Series where we give space to playwrights to invite people to a first reading of their new work. Usually these are still in progress and the readings are a simple set up of actors with music stands performing the words with minimal to no tech. It’s a great experience for theatre fans to experience what a show looks like in its beginning stages, and your presence helps the playwrights see where more work needs to be done.
Best of all, the readings are free to the public with a suggested $20 donation. That means that if you have the means to support us, your $20 will go towards directly ensuring we can afford to present these readings for free. If you aren’t in a place where you can give - we want you to come, too.
We at Rogue Machine believe that money should not stay in the way of accessing art - a balancing act for us as a non-profit. Choose your ticket price and join us in this truly thespian presentation of new work.
A Staged Reading of
BLUE ROSES
by Tim Venable
In the final scene of Tennessee Williams' masterpiece, The Glass Menagerie, Tom abandons his sister Laura and his mother Amanda, "attempting to find in motion what was lost in space." Blue Roses tells the story from Laura's point-of-view, a few months after Tom's painful exit and we see her, no longer the fragile piece of glass we thought she was, finding a job, and taking care of her mother, thriving and self-sufficient. But Jim returns, professing his love, and after a whirlwind romance between Laura and her Gentleman Caller, the country is thrust into WW2 after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Blue Roses is a continuation of the story of the extraordinary characters created by one of America's greatest dramatists, and imagines how lives are changed forever when the bombardments the world has been waiting for finally arrive.
A Staged Reading of
BESIDE HERSELF
by Nick Ullett and Peter Elbling
Beside Herself is a comedy about the use of talent, the abuse of celebrity, and the vagaries of romance.
Successful sitcom actor, Lacey Summers, is convinced that her playwright husband, Adam, has fallen for Zoe, an ambitious and up and coming starlet. Her jealousy leads to an accident, which results in Adam’s temporary blindness. Lacey’s manager, Carla, seizes the opportunity to publicize her client thereby creating more mayhem. Lacey meanwhile is determined to show Adam how shallow Zoe really is by creating her own puppet, Rosalind, and ministering to Adam in the guise of a social worker. But her plan horribly backfires when Adam appears to fall for Rosalind. To complicate matters further Adam persuades Rosalind that she can help fellow patient, Hubbell, an accident prone do-it-yourself fireworks inventor.
Suddenly, Lacey finds herself confronted by a host of dilemmas: Is she being unfaithful? Has she lost Adam for good? Is she being deceitful - not only to Adam but to Hubbell, who believes that his salvation lies with the entirely fictitious Rosalind?
Identity, always a nebulous concept in Hollywood, is turned upside down and inside out in Beside Herself.