The Plays

Wednesday, June 25, 8:00 pm

The Berkshire Playwrights Lab is kicking off its 2008 season with a benefit evening of staged readings of one-act plays featuring scripts by Joe Cacaci (Executive Producer The Hoop Life, The Education of Max Bickford) and Berkshire playwright Mike Dowling (Harvest, Tamarack House), and plays written specifically for the evening by Richard Dresser (Rounding Third, Augusta, The Pursuit of Happiness), Cindy Lou Johnson (Brilliant Traces, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd), and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, The Untouchables, November, American Buffalo, Executive Producer of The Unit). Directing two of the plays will be Emmy Award-nominated director Matthew Penn, (Executive Producer, Law & Order 2004-07, NYPD Blue, The Sopranos).

Wednesday, July 16, 8:00 pm
The Berkshire Playwrights Lab continues its premiere season of presenting staged readings of exciting new plays with EGGS IN A BASKET by the outstanding “next generation” playwright Daria Polatin. EGGS IN A BASKET was in the final round for the Princess Grace Award, 2007. Love and international espionage run amok in EGGS IN A BASKET, a farce about a British scientist who gets an Eastern European mail-order bride—and a lot more than he bargained for.

Wednesday, July 30, 8:00 pm

The Berkshire Playwrights Lab continues its premiere season of presenting staged readings of exciting new plays with VARIATIONS ON A THEME by the rising star playwright Anna Ziegler. Ziegler was recently selected to be a writer in residence at The Old Vic Theatre in London. Her plays have been developed at Sundance Theatre Lab, SoHo Rep, The Lark Theatre, Kennedy Center, and the Belvoir St. Theatre in Sydney, Australia. Following a young playwright through her blossoming career and waning relationship, VARIATIONS ON A THEME is a lyrical meditation on love and loss -- and a writer's power to put them in perspective.

Wednesday, August 13, 8:00 pm
The Berkshire Playwrights Lab continues its premiere season of presenting staged readings with two new one-act plays: GOD & COUNTRY by the Berkshire Playwrights Lab co-Founder and co-Artistic Director Joe Cacaci and ASHES by Los Angeles playwright Edgar Lyall. Cacaci is currently finishing writing for a new film script; Lyall most recently wrote an episode for the new series “Army Wives.” GOD & COUNTRY depicts a day in the lives of an Irish-American clan forced to confront a long hidden and very disturbing family revelation. ASHES contemplates a woman’s life after the death of her unfaithful husband when she starts a lusty affair with one of her students.

Wednesday, August 27, 8:00 pm
The Berkshire Playwrights Lab concludes its premiere season of staged readings with AGAINST THE RISING SEA by Kelly Masterson. Masterson wrote the screenplay for the acclaimed film Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which was directed by Sidney Lumet. In AGAINST THE RISING SEA a long time couple's struggle with their uncertain future and elements of a troubled past event, comes full circle when their path collides with a younger version of themselves, in this funny and poignant piece, set in Provincetown.

Wednesday, September 24, 8:00pm
The Berkshire Playwrights Lab extends its season into the Fall with a staged reading of THE BOOK OF DAVID by Bob Clyman. Longtime BPL associate Tom Bloom directs. What If? Are there interrupted moments in your life which determined the person you are today? What if those moments had evolved differently? Would you dare revisit them? One man's attempt to revise a single pivotal choice in his past, creates an avalanche of effects on his present.