Next! Readings of New Works by Regional Playwrights

Cards and Spinners by Daniel Smirlock has been moved to March 6.

Virtual Readings of New Works by Regional Playwrights Offered by Fenimore Art Museum

NEXT! Readings of New Works by Regional Playwrights
Three virtual performances will take place on select Sundays: March 6, March 20, and April 3 • 3:00-5:00 p.m.
All readings are free and stream live on Glimmer Globe Theatre’s Facebook page: facebook.com/GlimmerGlobeTheatre
Donations appreciated.

Returning for a sixth season, the NEXT! play-reading series produced by Fenimore Art Museum and the Glimmer Globe Theatre continues its mission to celebrate and inspire Central New York playwrights, as well as to introduce their work to a larger audience. Each year, playwrights across the region are invited to submit plays for consideration; of these, three are selected as the most exceptional and promising works based on their literary and artistic merit. This workshopping program is designed to be a constructive part of the playwriting process that allows the playwright to hear and see their play, receive audience feedback, and strengthen the piece to make it full-production stage-ready. Play readings are virtual and stream live on Glimmer Globe Theatre’s Facebook page on select Sundays at 3:00 p.m. (March 6, March 20, and April 3). There is no charge for these programs, but please consider a donation of $10.00 or more to help us continue to provide more content in the future.

2022 SCHEDULE:

March 6, 2022 • 3:00pm  NEW DATE!
Cards and Spinners by Daniel Smirlock
Streaming on Glimmer Globe Theatre’s Facebook page

Synopsis: June 2019: Two middle-aged married couples, good friends who haven’t seen each other for a while, get together for drinks, dinner, and catching up in the suburban home of one of them.  The evening begins as a pre-prandial session of one-liners and funny stories. By the time dinner is ready, though, annoyances are voiced, grievances are aired, and frustrations are vented. February 2020: The couples, their nerves frayed by kids and work, again get together for drinks. laughs, and drama. Eleven months later, it is Inauguration Day 2021, and the characters—each couple now in their own home—are already in a celebratory mood, despite the pandemic, when an unexpected piece of (arguably) good news arrives.  Finally, in May, 2022, with the pandemic receding, they get together in person again.

March 20, 2022 • 3:00pm
The Tragedy of the Faerie Queen and Her Councilors by Joseph Scott
Streaming on Glimmer Globe Theatre’s Facebook page

Synopsis: The faerie forest, once a serene and blissful utopia, is now in turmoil.  Unknown forces have brought on it a premature autumn and plunged the realm into endless twilight. Furthermore, a mysterious spectre has used twisted sorcery to disable and paralyze the magical faerie queen, and abducted one of her trusted councilors. As the faeries work to restore things to as they were before, they begin to realize that their problems, perhaps, lie inside the forest as much as they do outside.

April 3, 2022 • 3:00pm
Locker Room Talk 
Written and directed by Karen Butler
Streaming on Glimmer Globe Theatre’s Facebook page

Synopsis: To overthrow fusty gender stereotypes… toss humor at ‘em! Locker Room Talk, a good-natured skewering of the patriarchy, speculates how women and men fell to disorder.  The answer lies back with the ancients who taught Homo sapiens to think—would they had taught us to think straight!  It’s hard to fathom, but the sages—Homer, Ovid, Henry James and their ilk—indulged in common locker room talk, and our world suffers the slings and arrows for it to this day. Alarms blare. How to fix this before too late? Delving into our ancestral and even animal past, a troupe of rackety actors hurtle through ancient literature, underworld myth, and 19th century novels, knocking against Fate and rickety shibboleths. They play on surges of theatrical absurdism as alarms sound and civilization teeters. In the grand scheme of things, does the human species even matter?  Of course we do; we know love.