Home is where the ART is.
FIRST LOOK is The Studio's monthly program for live readings of new, original plays from our own Studio playwrights.
All readings are directed and rehearsed before we present them to you.
It's a truly unique offering to join us in the birth of a new theater experience.
Participation is free and no reservations are required.
Just mark your calendars, show up, and become part of the creative process!
Check out this season
One Monday night each month, from 7 to 9 PM, a new play is read by Studio Artists for the benefit of both our audience and the playwrights.
In a fully collaborative environment, playwrights and audience members can ask questions and provide personal feedback, helping our writers hone the plays' elements and perfect their storires.
Since first introduced, FIRST LOOK has become one of The Studio's fastest-growing programs.
June 17, 2024 CORDELIA by Sally Jane Kerschen-Sheppard
Lear, a former governor of an unnamed state, has turned over a new leaf. He has a new, younger wife, new children, and is (surprisingly) a very involved and devoted father and husband to his new family. His daughter from his first marriage, Cordelia, works as his aide, and still tries to gain her father's attention and approval. However, Lear is in the process of rebranding and rehabilitating his image, and he is desperate to distance himself from his past. Cordelia is nothing but a reminder of his past. As Cordelia struggles to understand her relationship with her father, she also must discover how to forge her own identity outside her father's long shadow.
Earlier this season
August 28, 2023: TENT & TABERNACLE by Joe Bardin
What do we owe our heritage and what does it owe us? In this comedy about our emotional vulnerability, physical healing, and human connection, Ike has to go beyond his programmed masculinity and the culture that created it to keep Yuliana, who must decide if she still wants him after years of waiting for him to open up.
November 20, 2023: BIRDIE'S 70th BIRTHDAY BASH by John Perovich
Birdie is throwing herself a 70th birthday bash. To celebrate the milestone, she has invited her group of estranged friends together for a raucous weekend. Plans are set in motion, but not even the precise and controlling Birdie can predict the challenges that arise when the celebration veers off the rails. Birdie’s 70th Birthday Bash is a celebration of life, community, and facing life’s unpredictable, bewildering, and magical moments.
January 1, 2024: THE WHITE SWAN COMPACT by Clark DesSoye
As the neighborhood around her changes, Sophia must decide: will she allow her grown children to take charge of her life or can she find a way to adapt and maintain her independence. A widow for twenty years, she built a new life for herself once, but at 88 she might not have the strength to make the changes in herself to once again feel at home in the city she has loved for half a century.
January 15, 2024 HOURGLASS by Kirt Shineman
Directed by Janis Webb
Featuring: Nicholas Gearing, Pamela Fields, Shana Bousard, Martha Welty, Tommy Francesco
When Allen’s feisty sixty-eight-year-old great-grandmother, Della, suffers a debilitating stroke, his parents send him to spend the summer supervising her convalescence in a dilapidated nursing home. Watching soap operas with a stroke victim is not a teenager’s idea of a summer vacation. Yet, over the summer, Allen discovers the responsibility of connection, the blossom of love, and the joy of overcoming fears. What starts as a comedy about two people who resent being in the same room together develops into drama as family secrets are revealed and old wounds are healed.
February 5, 2024 RECONCILED DIFFERENCES by Richard Warren
Directed by Martha Welty
Narrator: Linda Warren
Featuring: Steven Mastroieni, Shana Bousard, Brittany Brown, Dominik Rebilas & Toni Kallen
As Martin and Ginnie plan to celebrate their 20th year together, away from her rebellious daughter Judy; a person from Ginnie's past appears forcing them all to confront their beliefs, reassess their relationships and come to terms with their desires. A satiric comedy about contemporary sensibilities.
March 4, 2024 THE TEST by Diana Grillo
The Test begins with our oldest ritual, dating. Jimmy, a man/boy living in the past high school glory days of his youth, creates a test for his dates. He uses The Hideout, a local bar owned by his long-time friend and accomplice, Tim. This is where we meet Ann, his latest subject. One night, at the Hideout, the Test and Jimmy’s deceit is unveiled to Ann; she is left feeling humiliated and angry. When Jimmy discovers he’s been exposed, he becomes vindictive and violent.
April 22, 2024 TRIUMVIRATE by Kate Hawkes Video
A career military man and his younger wife must come to terms with the death of their only child due to injuries sustained in combat, as they also navigate their relationship. The path to forgiveness and purpose crosses lines of reality and demands facing hard truths to survive the grief and find meaning in their experience.
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