TimePieces Archive: 2007 – 2008 Season (TimePieces Inaugural season)

These plays were presented as part of the TimePieces Play Reading Series during the 2007-08 season:

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WEEKEND 
by Gore Vidal 
directed by Damon Kiely

Reading held Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 7 p.m. 

Set during the 1968 presidential campaign, Weekend tells of a Republican Senator who is about to announce his candidacy for his party’s nomination when his son arrives with shocking — and potentially politically damaging — news. Prejudice, blackmail, self-righteousness and opportunism become a potent mix as the candidate and his handlers conspire through well-calculated maneuvers to save the day.

The New York Post wrote, “Gore Vidal is a clever, witty, intelligent man with an urbanely skeptical point of view,” and Variety raved that Weekend is “a literate play of ideas. It has style, clear characterization, excellent construction and wit.”

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THE TRIANGLE FACTORY FIRE PROJECT
by Christopher Piehler in collaboration with Scott Alan Evans 
directed by Kimberly Senior

Reading held Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 7 p.m.

On March 25, 1911, in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory off downtown Manhattan’s Washington Square, 146 people, mainly young immigrant girls, died in a shocking and historic fire. Using eyewitness accounts, court transcripts and other archival material, The Triangle Factory Fire Project creates a dramatic and heartbreaking moment-by-moment account of that disastrous day and explores the extraordinary upheavals it caused that shaped social, political and economic policies for decades to come.

“This searing play reminds us why theatre exists” wrote the New York Post, and Broadway.com called the play “a collaborative blaze of sadness, energy and poignancy.”

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FOR SERVICES RENDERED 
by Somerset Maugham 
directed by Jimmy McDermott

Reading held Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 7 p.m. 

Acclaimed as one of Maugham’s best plays, the story, which focuses on the devastating effects of World War I on an English family, shocked audiences when it premiered in 1932. As the playwright chronicles the damaged lives of each members of the Ardsley family and their friends, he presents a scathing indictment of the war and the governments that convince young men to sacrifice their lives in the name of glory.

The Guardian wrote that For Services Rendered is “fuelled by such bitter passion that it still has the power to shock,” and The Times called it “an enthralling theatrical entertainment.”