FREE ADMISSION., donations accepted.
Further Info: 828 335-2996, or swanthtre@aol.com

These evenings are STAGED READINGS, which means the actors stand book-in-hand with minimal stage movement. Two of these works have never been heard publically before. Both plays will begin at 6 PM in the All Souls sanctuary. Admission is FREE, but a donations bowl for the All Souls Arts Commission will be difficult to miss.

 On Thursday, August 5, at 6 PM in the sanctuary, the series opens with Nothing But an Old World by UNCA student, poet and writer Michael Ackley. This is Ackley’s first finished play, a stunning tour-de-force for one actor, starring Casey Morris, who may be familiar to local audiences from The Beautiful Johanna and What the Butler Saw. Michael Ackley is not only a playwright, but also vocalist and songwriter for Poormouth, Asheville’s finest Irish-poetical, the Pogues meet Mallarme original band.

 On Friday, August 6, the offering is In Plato’s Garden, by Black Swan director David Brendan Hopes. Hopes is an nationally known playwright with four New York productions behind him, and an important turn off-Broadway coming up with The Loves of Mr Lincoln, produced by SunnySpot Productions. This is the first time In Plato’s Garden will be heard in public.

 Look forward to a staged reading of Distant Music, by Massachusetts playwright James McLindon. Distant Music is the winner of the first Jane Bingham Award for Theater of the Spirit, and I think you’ll agree this piece has not only spirit, but lots of gripping theater as well. Judges chose it out of a pool of nearly 200 entries. James McLindon is one of America’s most active and most prize-winning playwrights, and we will be honored to be the first to present his words to an Asheville audience. Playwrights interested in submitting plays for the Jane Bingham Festival should contact swanthtre@aol.com.