Dynamic Duos continues! A free staged reading series that spotlights the magic that unfolds when two actors share the stage. After over 300 submissions, our literary committee selected 6 first-round plays and a handful of second-round plays that we are now showcasing.
And it is all In celebration of Urban Stages’ 40th anniversary! This season we mark four decades of bringing new works and talents to the stage by spotlighting as many playwrights and new plays as possible.
Monday, August 12 | 7pm
Seeds of Doubt
By Gino DiIorio. Directed by Padraic Lillis.
Julie is an aging activist turned research scientist. Her daughter Simone is also an activist, increasingly disillusioned with the complacency of her mother’s generation. In a desperate attempt to win a victory for the environment, Simone takes extreme measures into her own hands that set the two women on a collision course. What does it profit a person to save the earth, only to find they’ve lost their soul? How much of the earth are we willing to destroy in order to save it?
RSVP HERE
Wednesday, August 14 | 7pm
The Judge and His Daughter
By Ruth Apolonia Zamoyta. Directed by Kim T. Sharp.
A fictional conservative Supreme Court justice whisks away his environmental-radicalist 16-year-old daughter to a camp in the Adirondacks when she is suspended for destroying her school’s air conditioning system with a sledgehammer. As they will be living in the wilderness together until she "learns to behave," they submit to the family psychologist’s rules designed to help them get along: He can’t talk about God or banish her to her room. She can’t blame him for everything and has to relinquish her phone. The plan works; the two are starting to enjoy each other’s company, fishing, hunting, searching for an elusive moose, and discussing the Supreme Court docket. But, when the daughter discovers her father's ulterior motive for bringing her to the camp, the Judge is faced with the hardest decision of his life: does he sacrifice his ideological beliefs for the sake of his family? RSVP HERE
Previous Readings
Mon, February 26, 2024 | 7pm
My Brother's Keeper
By John Scavone. Directed by Kim T. Sharp.
Starring Christopher Daftsios and Eric Percival.
Adam’s wife has died suddenly, and Adam has come to explain how and why, as much to himself as to his brother, Brian. The truth is discovered in a clash of beliefs between two men who grew up together but have taken different paths in life. Each must now confront himself and confess his own sins.
Thurs, February 29, 2024 | 7pm
The American Dream
By Juan Ramirez Jr. Directed by Daniela Thome.
Starring Maria Isabella Rojas and Reza Salazar.
Corina is an immigrant from Guatemala who has smuggled her way across the border guided by Efren, her coyote aka human smuggler. Instead of finding freedom, she finds herself imprisoned by Efren, who now holds her inside a safe house, awaiting the final Western Union payment from her husband. Set in the last hour and twenty minutes, Corina begs for her freedom but letting her go is against everything Efren stands for.
Mon, March 4, 2024 | 7pm
The Audit
By Lynda Crawford. Directed by Leigh Selting.
Starring Joel Ripka and Jehan O. Young.
A tax audit reveals a lot more than flawed accounting when the auditor is a returning female vet and her subject a frequently high and highly disorganized aging hippie songwriter. A new comedy.
Thurs, March 7, 2024 | 7pm
The Smiths
By Sam Walsh. Directed by Maria Mileaf.
Starring Antoinette LaVecchia and Claire Siebers.
Ryan, an addict, didn't come home. Now all his mother, Terri, and sister, Stephanie, can do is stand at their kitchen window in Appalachia. Swinging wildly through blame, shame, rage, and mourning, they stand waiting for the return of a man who is already gone.
Mon, March 11, 2024 | 7pm
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
By Ian McRae. Directed by Vincent Scott.
Starring Dave Droxler and Michael James.
A white man writes a play about a Black family, submits it to a contest, it wins, and is now headed to Broadway. The problem is the contest was only for African Americans. So the white playwright invites a Black playwright over to ask him to take credit for it in order to see the production through. Who's story is it? Who has a right to tell it? Where does talent come from? Can empathy and a desire to do right transcend the racial biases that divide us? These are just some of the questions asked as the two playwrights confront who they are, what has shaped them, what they stand for, and what it means to do the right thing.
Thurs, March 14, 2024 | 7pm
Atacama
By Augusto Federico Amador. Directed by José Zayas.
Starring José Febus and Socorro Santiago.
Thirty years after the dirty wars waged by the General Pinochet regime on the Chilean people. Two strangers; a mother and father, search the Atacama Desert for their buried loved ones and discover there are darker truths awaiting them underneath the hard sands of the Atacama.
Mon, June 10 , 2024 | 7pm
CROOKED LAKE
By Laura Ekstrand. Directed by Vincent Scott.
Starring Nick Hardin and Joanne Hoersch.
It's getting close to midnight, and Bert's estranged wife, Tessa, pops up at the lakeside house they once shared. As they slip back into their once comfortable friendship, they consider whether it's finally time to get a divorce. But what they really need is a resolution to their story, which will necessitate both of them coming to terms with their own secrets, fears and history.
Thursday, June 13, 2024 | 7pm
THE TWO OF THEM
By Joe Sutton. Directed by Alex Keegan.
Starring TBA.
THE TWO OF THEM charts the growing relationship between two women – Pat Adams, wife of Supreme Court Justice Thomas Adams, and the justice’s one-time accuser, Ashley Duncan. By the end, after some very dark secrets are shared, the two women force a confrontation with justice.