TimePieces Play Reading Series
TimePieces is TimeLine’s series of one-night only presentations designed to extend our mission beyond the four subscription series productions we offer each season.
This play reading series offers audiences a chance to hear new or rarely produced plays inspired by history that connect with today’s social and political issues.
Each play reading is FREE (although donations are accepted) and includes a brief post-show discussion to give the audience a chance to reflect on the piece and the themes and issues it presents.
Reservations are strongly recommended for all TimePieces presentations, as seating is limited. For information and to request reservations, please email the TimeLine Box Office or call 773.281.8463 x6.
The 2019-20 TimePieces season is generously underwritten by an anonymous sponsor.
Upcoming …
THE CHINESE LADY
by Lloyd Suh
directed by Helen Young
Monday, January 13, 2020 at 7pm
TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave., Chicago
Afong Moy is 14 years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s life, The Chinese Lady is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.
“Piercing and intimate … this quiet play steadily deepens in complexity as we trail the idealistic Afong and the more knowing Atung through the decades … by the end of Mr. Suh’s extraordinary play, we look at Afong and see whole centuries of American history.” —The New York Times
Featuring Deanna Myers and Wai Yim
Previous readings this season …
MARYS SEACOLE
by Jackie Sibblies Drury
directed by Regina Victor
Tuesday, December 10, 2019 at 7pm
TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave., Chicago
Born in 1805 Jamaica, Mary Seacole is determined to live an extraordinary life. As she travels across oceans and centuries, through a Jamaican hospital, a Crimean battlefront, a contemporary nursing home, and everywhere in between, Mary moves through life with Herculean fortitude. But as her brazen spirit meets historical reality, Mary’s world explodes, splitting, multiplying, and redefining her narrative. Based on the life of the famous nurse and entrepreneur, Marys Seacole is an examination of what it means to be a woman paid to care.
Featuring Janet Ulrich Brooks, Wydetta Carter, Sydney Charles, Laura T. Fisher, Nicole Michelle Haskins, and Kayla Raelle Holder
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Later this season…
TimePieces Reading TBA
Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 7pm
TimePieces Archive
See below for information about past seasons of TimePieces.