REP READS

Over the last three years, Rep Reads has become a fan-favorite artistic engagement program. We are happy to continue offering this beloved play reading club. Each month, we independently read a script and come together to discuss its themes, characters, and impact. Rep Readers gain a deeper appreciation of dramatic literature while building community connections with fellow theatre lovers at The Rep.

REP READS FALL 2023 SESSION

Join us for our fall Rep Reads series, Legacy: Across Generations, Across Time. Inspired by this season’s mainstage productions, these epic plays span decades, following communities and families through the highs and lows of history, and even into the future. Each of these three plays explores the legacies we leave behind, as well as how those legacies are received by the generations that follow. We hope that this series of plays, including two recent Tony Award-winning Best Plays and a contemporary off-Broadway favorite, inspires lively discussion and enhances your appreciation for our work onstage.

Tuesdays at 2 pm and 7 pm – Virtual Sessions.
You’ll receive a Zoom link to join us on the Monday before.
(New for Fall 2023!) Wednesdays at 2 pm – In-person at the Novel Neighbor
7905 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves, MO 63119.

September 2023 Sessions: LEOPOLSTADT by Tom Stoppard: September 12 – 13, 2023

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Leopoldstadt was the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna, a city humming with artistic and intellectual excitement. Stoppard’s epic yet intimate drama centers on Hermann Merz, a manufacturer and baptized Jew married to Catholic Gretl, whose extended family convene at their fashionable apartment on Christmas Day in 1899. Yet by the time the play closes, Austria has passed through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust, which stole the lives of 65,000 Austrian Jews alone. From one of today’s most acclaimed playwrights, Leopoldstadt is a human and heartbreaking drama of literary brilliance, historical verisimilitude, and powerful emotion. Winner! 2023 Tony Award for Best Play.
October 2023 Sessions: THE INHERITANCE by Matthew Lopez: October 10 – 11, 2023

Decades after the height of the AIDS epidemic, The Inheritance tells the story of three generations of gay men in New York City attempting to forge a future for themselves amid a turbulent and changing America. Eric Glass is a political activist engaged to his writer boyfriend, Toby Darling. When two strangers enter their lives—an older man and a younger one—their futures suddenly become uncertain as they begin to chart divergent paths. The Inheritance is an epic examination of survival, healing, class divide, and what it means to call a place home. Winner! 2020 Tony Award for Best Play.
November 2023 Sessions. MR. BURNS, A POST-ELECTRIC PLAY by Anne Washburn: November 14 – 15, 2023

After the collapse of civilization, a group of survivors share a campfire and begin to piece together the plot of The Simpsons episode "Cape Feare" entirely from memory. Seven years later, this and other snippets of pop culture (sitcom plots, commercials, jingles, and pop songs) have become the live entertainment of a post-apocalyptic society, sincerely trying to hold onto its past. Seventy-five years later, these are the myths and legends from which new forms of performance are created. A paean to live theater, and the resilience of Bart Simpson through the ages, Mr. Burns is an animated exploration of how the pop culture of one era might evolve into the mythology of another. Winner! 2015 Whiting Award for Drama.

TESTIMONIALS

Program Participation

Rep Reads is open to our donor community, and we encourage participation from members at all levels and of all life experiences. We value diverse perspectives and unique responses to these complicated, rich plays; in fact, our discussions depend on it!

To sign up:

1. Fill out the short form below!

2. Order your scripts from The Novel Neighbor by clicking this link. Order by September 1 to guarantee you’ll receive your copies in time for the first session.

The Novel Neighbor is our favorite local bookstore. Buying your scripts through The Novel Neighbor benefits The Rep too! 20% of sales of these three titles will be donated back to The Rep.

Do not let cost be a barrier! Share scripts with friends, check out a copy from the local library, or download an e-reader version for low or no-cost options to read each play. If you need assistance finding copies, contact Rob at rkapeller@repstl.org.

3. Read the play independently (or out loud with a friend!) and join us on Rep Reads day to discuss!

If you have questions or need assistance signing up, please email development@repstl.org or reach out to Rob at 314-687-4031.

*Please ensure pop-ups are enabled in your browser to be able to view the form.

PLAYS FROM PREVIOUS SESSIONS:

January 2023 Sessions: TOPDOG/UNDERDOG by Suzan-Lori Parks: Tuesday, January 17, 2023, 2 PM and 7 PM

Wednesday, January 18, 2023, 2 PM

A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity is Suzan-Lori Parks’ riff on the way we are defined by history. The play tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers whose names were given to them as a joke, foretelling a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by the past, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future. Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
February 2023 Sessions: A SOLDIER'S PLAY by Charles Fuller: Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 2 PM and 7 PM

Wednesday, February 22, 2023, 2 PM

In a segregated Louisiana army camp in 1944, the murder of a rancorous Black sergeant stirs deep-seated animosity and corruption among the soldiers under his command. When a clean-cut Northern captain arrives to investigate, truths are confessed and a shocking secret is revealed. Winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
March 2023 Sessions: INDECENT by Paula Vogel: Tuesday, March 21, 2023, 2 PM and 7 PM

Wednesday, March 22, 2023, 2 PM

Indecent by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel is a deeply moving play inspired by the true events surrounding the controversial 1923 Broadway debut of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance—a play seen by some as a seminal work of Jewish culture, and by others as an act of traitorous libel. Indecent charts the history of an incendiary drama and the path of the artists who risked their careers and lives to perform it. Winner of the 2015 Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award.
April 2023 Sessions: BETRAYAL by Harold Pinter: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, 2 PM and 7 PM

Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 2 PM

The play begins in the present, with the meeting of Emma and Jerry, whose adulterous affair of seven years ended two years earlier. Emma’s marriage to Robert, Jerry’s best friend, is now breaking up, and she needs someone to talk to. Thereafter, in a series of contiguous scenes, the play moves backward in time, from the end of the Emma-Jerry affair to its beginning, throwing into relief the little lies and oblique remarks that, in this time-reverse, reveal more than direct statements, or overt actions, ever could. A classic from the 2005 Nobel laureate in Literature.

June 2022 Sessions: A RAISIN IN THE SUN by Lorraine Hansberry: June Session I: Tuesday, June 28, 2022, 2 PM CST

June Session II: Tuesday, June 28, 2022, 7 PM CST

June Session III: Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 2 PM CST

Play Synopsis: Set on Chicago’s South Side, Lorraine Hansberry's celebrated play concerns the divergent dreams and conflicts in three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis, and matriarch Lena. When her deceased husband’s insurance money comes through, Mama Lena dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. Hansberry's portrait of one family’s struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration.
July 2022 Sessions: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST by Oscar Wilde: July Session I: Tuesday, July 19, 2022, 2 PM CST

July Session II: Tuesday, July 19, 2022, 7 PM CST

July Session III: Wednesday, July 20, 2022, 2 PM CST

Play Synopsis: The most renowned of Oscar Wilde’s comedies, The Importance of Being Earnest is the story of two bachelors, John ‘Jack’ Worthing and Algernon ‘Algy’ Moncrieff, who create alter egos named Ernest to escape their tiresome lives. They attempt to win the hearts of two women who, conveniently, claim to only love men called Ernest. The pair struggle to keep up with their own stories and become tangled in a tale of deception, disguise and misadventure. The elaborate plot ridicules Victorian sensibilities with some of the best loved, and indeed bizarre, characters to be found on the modern stage.
August 2022 Sessions: FEFU AND HER FRIENDS by María Irene Fornés: August Session I: Tuesday, August 23, 2022, 2 PM CST

August Session II: Tuesday, August 23, 2022, 7 PM CST

August Session III: Wednesday, August 24, 2022, 2 PM CST

Play Synopsis: On a spring day in 1935, eight women gather at Fefu’s New England home. A gracious host, Fefu organizes a weekend of camaraderie as well as work: The friends are rehearsing a charity presentation for a local school. But this gathering lays bare past heartaches and secrets among the women, from heartbreak to emotional and physical exhaustion, to devastating illness. At the center of this group is Fefu, a woman who is both powerful yet broken, belittling women as she cares for and nurtures her friends. Fefu and Her Friends is a feminist exploration of women’s roles and relationships--how they support each other, how they injure each other, and how they can create a community together. Notable for its experimental staging in which the audience moves through the theatre building to view different scenes, Fefu and Her Friends is a dynamic story of women, friendship, and the secrets that bind them together.