Since the Echo Reads Play Reading and Discussion Series began in September 2001, one hundred and fifty-four women playwrights have had their voices heard through lightly rehearsed, staged readings of their work. Many of these scripts were later produced in Echo Theatre's Mainstage Season, largely due to our audience talk-backs after those readings. We invite you to join us to experience Echo Reads and the work of these talented playwrights! It's FREE! Everyone is welcome.
Be a Part of the Art!
Readings Programmed and Produced by Caroline Hamilton
Season 25 Echo Reads Fall Series
Finalist Honorees & A Winner from the TEXAS Shout Out New Play Contest.
Readings Programmed and Produced by Eric Berg and Caroline Hamilton
Season 24 Echo Reads Fall Festival Series
Featured Finalist Honorees from the Big Shout Out 3 New Play Contest.
DAISY VIOLET
The Bitch Beast King by Sam Collier
directed by Katie Ibrahim
fEATURING:
Octavia Y. Thomas, Bwalya Chisanga,
Lauren floyd, and frankie whitaker
with stage directions by Larsen Nichols
dec.13.22 - Bath House Cultural Center
dec.14.22 - BUZZBREWS KITCHEN/LAKEWOOD
Two sisters create Daisy Violet, a new sister to take the blame for their messes. Gleefully monstrous, she's rejected by adults and becomes increasingly ravenous. A play about sisterhood, the malleability of memory, and an explosion of beauty products.
This play is for mature audiences. Viewer discretion advised.
SLEEP/WAKE by Yael Haskal
directed by Katie Ibrahim
fEATURING:
LIz Sankarsingh, lauren floyd,
celeste perez, and thomas magee
with stage directions by kristen lazarchick.
dec.06.22 AT THE bATH HOUSE CULTURAL CENTER
dec.07.22 at Owenwood Farm & Neighbor Space
A teenager struggling with dissociative episodes becomes obsessed with a sleepwalking murder case. A feminist study in dissociation, portraiture, and the latent power of the supine woman.
FROZEN FLUID A Gender Non-Conforming Creation Myth by Fly Jamerson
directed by Chris Sanders
fEATURING:
Sinclair Freeman, Petra Milano, and Alex Moffitt
with stage directions by Bwalya chisanga.
Nov.29.22 AT THEatre three
Nov.30.22 at Owenwood Farm & Neighbor Space
Three scientists living in Antarctica deconstruct notions of gender, identity, religion, climate, and time itself.
THOSE HOLLOW BODIES by Emma Joy Hill
directed by Hadley Shipley
fEATURING:
Claire Fountain, Erin Malone Turner, & Cooper Wilson
with stage directions by Alex Moffitt.
Nov.15.22 AT THE bATH HOUSE CULTURAL CENTER
Nov.16.22 at Owenwood Farm & Neighbor Space
K and Ann struggle to be full. The voyeuristic Man gorges on food and waits for the danger he's bound to commit. A play exploring how bodies are taught to love. NOTE: Recommended for mature audiences.
Season 23 Echo Reads Winter Salon Series
Friday, December 10, 2021, 8:00pm at Owenwood Farm & Neighbor Space
Saturday, December 11, 2021, 8:00pm at Bath House Cultural Center Mainstage
IN A WORD by Lauren Yee / Directed by Eric Berg
Today is Fiona’s birthday and the two-year anniversary of her son’s disappearance, and still, nothing makes sense to her: not the incompetent detective, her “understanding” boss, or the neighborhood kidnapper who keeps casually introducing himself at the grocery store. Her husband, Guy, is desperately trying to move on, but Fiona delves back into her memories of that fateful day, struggling to find the right words to bring her son home. A comedy about grief and how the words we use to describe tragedy can take on a life of their own. NYT Critic’s Pick - Best New Play (2017) Frencesa Primus Prize (2017)
Friday, November 19, 8:00pm at Owenwood Farm & Neighbor Space
Saturday, November 20, 2021, 8:00pm at Owenwood Farm & Neighbor Space
BOURBON AT THE BORDER by Pearl Cleage / Directed by Mikaela Brooks
When May and Charlie went to Mississippi in 1964 for a massive voter registration drive, they had no idea their lives were about to change forever. White supremacists responded with violence that left three civil rights workers dead and many more psychologically scarred. Decades later, May and Charlie are still searching for a way back from the damage that was done to them during that long ago “Freedom Summer.”
May is unable to confide even in her best friend, Rosa, about the demons that haunt her dreams and twist Charlie’s love for her into something she can no longer recognize. Rosa’s boyfriend, Tyrone, gets Charlie a job as a truck driver, but May is convinced that if she can just get Charlie to leave Detroit and cross the bridge to Canada, they can start a new life. But when the two couples hear about a serial killer targeting white people in Detroit, the madness of that summer bubbles over until it threatens all of their very lives.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: LANGUAGE, DRINKING, DISCUSSION OF VIOLENCE AND RACISM.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 8:00pm at Bath House Cultural Center's Shoreline Stage
Thursday, October 21, 2021, 8:00pm at Bath House Cultural Center's Shoreline Stage
THERE IS EVIL IN THIS HOUSE by Natalie Nicole Dressell / Directed by David Fisher
This play was written as a biography by Natalie Nicole Dressel, an actress/playwright from Muskegon, Michigan. The coming-of-age story follows a trans-woman as she unwinds the many twisted threads of her life: her mother is manic, her new stepdad is a con-man, and the ghost of her dead father won’t stop re-arranging the furniture. The play weaves therapy, horror, Hamlet, and late-night talk shows together into a meta-theatrical examination of Penny’s continually evolving relationship with her mother and how the past can—quite literally—haunt you. Eugene O'Neill National Playwright Conference, Finalist (2019)
TOMORROW GAME by Brandy N. Carie
directed by Eric Berg
fEATURING:
Isabelle Culpepper and SAVANNAH ELAYYACH
with stage directions by katie ibrahim.
May.10.22 AT THE bATH HOUSE CULTURAL CENTER
may.11.22 at south dallas cultural center
Clean drinking water is not a thing anymore. Clean air is not a thing anymore. Infrastructure is gone, order is mythic, and no one believes that help is coming. Roe lives in isolation, with nothing but a collection of canned food and a solitary Bible. Until she meets Bell. Bell shows Roe a game: take off your mask and see if you can breathe. Try this vegetable, see if you wake up. Read a poem. Do more than just not-die. But friendship can prove more dangerous than isolation.
Winner, Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award 2019
FOR THE PEOPLE by Carol Mullen
directed by Sasha Maya Ada
fEATURING:
Robin Clayton, Lauren Floyd, Kat Lozano,
Cindee Mayfield, and Carrie Viera.
with stage directions by kateri cale.
NOV.8.22 AT south dallas cultural centeR
NOV.9.22 at THE bATH HOUSE CULTURAL CENTER
Pittsburgh City Councilor Meg Cabot is the first openly lesbian elected official in Pennsylvania. Less than a month into her first term, a vicious hate crime targeting the city’s LGBTQIA+ Community Center launches Meg in a media maelstrom. But this tragedy leads to new national visibility and Meg’s rising star catches the attention of Democratic Party leaders. Facing a once-in-a-lifetime professional opportunity, Meg must decide how far she’ll go to advance her career and whether it’s possible to be both a good politician and a good person.
Season 23 Echo Reads Summer Salon Series via Zoom
Friday, July 23, 2021, 8:00pm
Saturday, Juley 24, 2021, 8:00pm
CATCH AS CATCH CAN by Mia Chung / Directed by Eric Berg
Long-time neighbors Theresa Phelan and Roberta Lavecchia enjoy sharing a plate of rainbow cookies and piles of family gossip. Theresa’s son Tim, the family golden boy, is back in town and newly engaged to a Korean American woman. Roberta’s son, Robbie, lives at home and is smarting from a divorce. Her daughter, Daniela, is waiting for her boyfriend to propose. This is what the mothers believe, because these are the roles and tropes they recognize. They are almost entirely wrong. Two blue collar New England families grapple with a spiraling crisis that threatens not just their relationships, but their very identities. Three actors take on the six roles, crossing both generation and gender, upending the kitchen sink drama in a theatrical tour-de-force.
Friday, June 18, 2021, 8:00pm
Saturday, June 19, 2021, 8:00pm
BRIGHT HALF LIFE by Tanya Barfield / Directed by Caroline Hamilton
Bright Half Life follows Erica and Vicki through the ups and downs of their relationship over the course of 1985-2031. Scenes are told a-chronologically, hopping between multiple points in their life within each scene. The play is a moving love story that spans decades in an instant: marriage, children, skydiving, and the infinite moments that make a life together. Tanya Barfield's play Blue Door was a 2015 Pulitzer Prize Nominee.
Friday, May 21, 2021, 8:00pm
Saturday, May 22, 2021, 8:00pm
THE GREAT LONELY ROAMER AND THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING by CQ / Directed by vicki washington
Only two polar bears are left on the planet. On New Year’s Eve, one bear searches suburban Texas for a new, air-conditioned home, while his sister attempts to track him down in New York City. A gun-toting trucker tries to race his pregnant wife to the hospital. A first date laced with supercharged marijuana takes a turn at a police stop. A wild night ensues that will affect the future of an entire species. Christina Quintana (AKA: CQ) is a queer, cross-genre writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots.
Readings Programmed and Produced by Elly Lindsay, Eric Berg, and Randy Bonifay...
Season 22 Echo Reads Salon Series (cut short by COVID 19)
Saturday, February 15, 2020, 7:30pm at Half-Price Books Flagship Store
Sunday, February 16, 2020, 2:30pm at Lochwood Library Black Box Theater
I AND YOU by Lauren Gunderson / Directed by Eric Berg
Caroline hates poetry. Home-bound from a life-threatening illness, she has decided isolation is the safest way to spend her few remaining days. But Anthony, a devoted Walt Whitman enthusiast, has other plans, This is a play about how a mundane school project on "Leaves of Grass" can grow into a life-altering event. An examination of youth, human connections, and what it means to be human. Lauren Gunderson is our most produced American Playwright.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020 at Arts Mission Oak Cliff
Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at Lochwood Library Black Box Theater
CHURCH by Young Jean Lee / Directed by Caroline Hamilton
Korean-American Playwright Young Jean Lee transforms her life-long struggle with Christianity into an exuberant church service that tests the expectations of religious and non-religious alike; blurring the line between the stage and the pulpit. Never content with simple parody, Lee aims to give her audience a true religious experience.
Season 21 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, November 5 2019
Winning monologues from the Big Shout Out 3 International Special Project Contest for Women
HEAR ME - The #MeToo Monologues by Gwen K. Adams, Jill Brady, Christy Brothers, Allie Costa, Mara Dresner, Christine Emmert, Emily Hageman, Aadrise Johnson, Donna Latham, Tristan Young Mercado, Lesley Moreau, Marj O'Neill-Butler, Isabella Russell-Ides, and Germaine Shames / Curated and Directed by Kateri Cale
Raw. True. Impactful. In the spirit of the #metoo and #timesup movements, Echo Theatre has created a compelling new work distilled from fourteen award-winning monologues from our Big Shout Out. A frank, unexpected take on sexual harassment and an Echo Theatre Original.
* BONUS PERFORMANCE *
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Selected monologues from HEAR ME - The #MeToo Monologues were presented as part of the Burning Woman 2019 Festival at The Wild Detectives performance venue produced by Over the Bridge Arts. Performed were pieces by Germaine Shames, Emily Hageman, Christine Emmert, Donna Latham, Aadrise Johnson, Tristan Young Mercado, and Allie Costa.
Readings Programmed and Produced by Elly Lindsay and Randy Bonifay...
Tuesday, May 20, 2019
THE SWEETEST SWING IN BASEBALL by Rebecca Gilman / Directed by LisaAnne Haram
Dana's the toast of the art world, but when her work hits a crisis she goes into decline. Holed up in a psychiatric hospital, help comes, not from her insurance company, but from a carefully planned comic deceit. Contemporary societal issues explored.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
THE CHILDREN’S HOUR by Lillian Hellman / Directed by Terri Ferguson
(1934) This play had a controversial premiere that caused the author to be blacklisted from Hollywood. A haunting story of how intolerance wreaked havoc on women's lives.
March 18, 2019
WINE IN THE WILDERNESS by Alice Childress / Directed by Guinea Bennett-Price
Wine in the Wilderness (1969), a controversial work, addressing issues of socioeconomic and gender conflict within the African-American community. A director's pick selection.
Season 20 Echo Reads Salon Series
Season 20 contains additional programming due to Echo Theatre adjusting the Production Year to a Calendar Year schedule.
December 18, 2018
THE WORLD OF GEORGIA DILL - A MUSICAL RETROSPECTIVE Music by Georgia Dill / Libretto by C.J. Critt / Conceived by Diana Savage / Director/Choreographer: Linda K. Leonard / Musical Director/Arranger: Rebecca Cordes
The Unsung Secrets of a Wife and Mother who boxed up a Dream for the Next Generation. Co-produced with Diana Savage.
November 13, 2018
TWO ONE ACTS / Directed by Kathleen Campbell
TRIFLES by Susan Glaspell - 1916 Feminist Murder Mystery dissects the ways women and men approach solving a crime.
CALM DOWN MOTHER: A Transformation for Three Women by Megan Terry - 1966 Experimental Theater that splintered women's roles at the height of the Feminist Movement. Two Feminist works, 50 years apart!
October 16, 2018
OUR WHITE BOY Adapted by Nancy Smith Munger and Kathleen Sullivan / Directed by Michael Scudday
True story of the white pitcher from Texas Tech who played in the Negro League. Based on the books Our White Boy and Pitching for the Stars: My Seasons Across the Color Line by Jerry Craft and Kathleen Sullivan. Playwrights and Jerry Craft in attendance!
May 22, 2018
MY GOD IS SO BIG by Allison Hibbs
This immersive work on religion and capitalism follows a family whose business dealings may not be completely in line with their faith.
Playwright in attendance!
April 17, 2018
WHITE MONKEY CHRONICLES, THE COMPLETE TRILOGY by Isabella Russell-Ides
A book based on THE EARLY EDUCATION OF CONRAD EPPLER, an award-winning play written by Isabella Russell-Ides and produced by Echo Theatre in 2012. The evening explored the process of "play" to "book". The author read excerpts from the book, followed by and audience Q & A hosted by Pam Myers-Morgan. The author attended and ended the evening with a book signing.
March 20, 2018
THE MONARCH by Anyika McMillan-Herod / Directed by Rhonda Boutté
A thirteen-scene play that offers an inspiring, compelling, and even humorous journey through breast cancer. Developed in the Dallas Theater Center's Dallas Playwrights Workshop in 2014/2015, an abbreviated version of THE MONARCH was produced for Soul Rep Theatre Company's 9th New Play Festival in September 2015. Playwright in attendance! [In Co-Production with Soul Rep, a main stage production was staged June 15-30, 2018.]
November 28, 2017
CLEILDA HELLER'S LAST HURRAH by Lauren McCune / Directed by Michael Scudday
Cleilda Heller’s Last Hurrah is a portrait of a strong, Texas Panhandle family as they come to terms with the impending death of their matriarch, a vibrant and tenacious woman. Themes of elder care and end-of-life decisions yield a surprising celebration of a mother who blessed her family with her unusual life lessons. Playwright in attendance!
October 17, 2017
TEEN DAD by Adrienne Dawes / Directed by Brandon White
When Tanya gets engaged to John, a mild-mannered social worker, her teenage daughter Abby orchestrates an invitation for her biological father Tom to join them on a weekend vacation to a beachfront property in a conservative gated community. The family is forced indoors to heal the wounds of the past, let go and grow up. Playwright in attendance!
September 12, 2017
CASSANDRA (an ongoing tragedy) by Ruth Cantrell / Directed by Kathleen Campbell
Blending myth and history, past and present, Cassandra (An ongoing tragedy) probes the experiences of innocent victims of violence and searches for the possibility of compassion and forgiveness. Playwright in attendance!
Season 19 Echo Reads Salon Series
May 16, 2017
CARLA COOKS THE WAR by Laura Maria Censabella / Directed by David Meglino
A Finalist Honoree from the Big Shout Out 2 International New Play Contest for Women
Carla was with the partisans during World War II. Antonia, her daughter, survived with her. Olivia, Antonia's daughter, tries to survive them both. A non-traditional play about heroism, betrayals, the costs of surviving a war, gnocchi and the ephemeral nature of truth.
April 18, 2017
POTATO GUMBO by Jean Ciampi / Directed by Terri Ferguson
A Finalist Honoree from the Big Shout Out 2 International New Play Contest for Women
“You don’t quit having dreams because you get old.” A tale of Gretchen, her friends, and the adult children who must walk the delicate line of parenting their parents. A recipe for a very real and gently comic serving of the daunting challenges of getting older.
March 21, 2017
CYGNUS by Susan Soon He Stanton / Directed by Elly Lindsay
A Finalist Honoree from the Big Shout Out 2 International New Play Contest for Women
Cydney believes an angel rescued her from an ineffable trauma, and the truth may prove stranger than she imagines. In this mythic, hilarious, and poetic new play, a burnt feather may illuminate the possibility of a divine intervention.
Nov 15, 2016
THE MARBLE MUSE by Diane Baia Hale / Directed by Michael Scudday
A Finalist Honoree from the Big Shout Out 2 International New Play Contest for Women
Rome Italy -1858. The encounter between Louisa Lander, an aspiring American sculptor defying gender convention, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, a writer in search of a new muse for his next work. Intrigue, slander and romance intertwined drive this compelling story.
Oct 18, 2016
MAGDALENA’S CROSSING by Carolyn Nur Wistrand / Directed by Priscilla Rice
A Finalist Honoree from the Big Shout Out 2 International New Play Contest for Women
A tale of border towns: Juarez and El Paso. A young girl is trapped between her past in Juarez, her present in a mystical "between" state and her possible future in El Paso. Violence erupts when her past and her future confront each other. In the background is the ongoing violence in Juarez, particularly the unsolved murders of hundreds of young girls. Playwright in attendance!
Tuesday, Sept 20, 2016
100 DEGREES CELSIUS by Marin Gazzaniga / Directed by LisaAnne Haram
A Finalist Honoree from the Big Shout Out 2 International New Play Contest for Women
What happens when a researcher, a neuroscientist and a priest collide? Does science or religion give us clear rules for living our lives? In exploring this, Regina, a researcher, struggles with her relationships with her scientist father, Alan and a priest, Carlos. Playwright in attendance!
Readings programmed and produced by Miller Pyke...
(Season 18 under re-construction)
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
BURY ME by Brynne Frauenhoffer / Directed by Alexander Ferguson
Josh and Michelle didn't mean to get pregnant. Five months along, they return to Josh's rural hometown to visit his fiercely loving but overworked mother, outspoken teenage sibling, and ailing stepfather. Upon arrival in Pacific, Missouri, a fateful fender-bender brings new and old truths to light that force everyone to evaluate their beliefs about parenthood, in God, and the plans they've made for their lives. This is a fascinating play where complicated former relationships collide, converge and coalesce.
Season 17 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
THE CHASM by Laura Neubauer / Directed by Kateri Cale
In Spearfish Canyon, Black Hills South Dakota, brothers Jay and Benny Swift Foot enter Wind Cave. One hopes to experience a vision quest; the other must get back something he has hidden there. The Lakota trickster spirit, Inktomi, who roams the earth in the shape of a spider, follows at their heels. The wild love of brothers who have never led lives of possibility is laid bare in this unpublished script from Laura Neubauer. An entry from Echo's first Big Shout Out International New Play Contest, THE CHASM was presented to kick off the 2nd Big Shout Out, whose finalist honorees and winners were spotlighted in the 2015-16 season.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
HONEY DROP by Erin Courtney / Directed by Elly Lindsay
Honey Drop follows an acclaimed poet as she travels cross-country in a rented RV with her young protégée Xander in search of her long lost son. From back yards, to trampolines, to pet cemeteries, the poet tries to outrun her own demons but finds they travel right alongside her. When Diane’s husband comes looking for her, Xander must confront the reality of his hero’s frailty. Presented by special arrangement with the playwright.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
WE LIVE HERE by Zoe Kazan / Directed by Lisa Anne Haram
Allie Bateman's wedding is Sunday. When Dinah, her precocious younger sister, returns to their parents' home for the festivities, she brings more than anyone expected: a new boyfriend, whose hidden history resurrects passions and painful memories for the whole family. Over one emotionally charged weekend, the Batemans find they must acknowledge and accept loss to gain hope for regeneration.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
RUINED by Lynn Nottage / Directed by Phyllis Cicero
Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Ruined tells the story of Mama Nadi, a shrewd businesswoman surviving in a land torn apart by civil war. But is she protecting or profiting by the women she shelters? How far will she go to survive? Can a price be placed on a human life? "A full-immersion drama of shocking complexity and moral ambiguity. What's more surprising is the exquisite balance the playwright brings—of brutality and poetry, hope and even humor" — Variety [In Co-production with Denise Lee Onstage, a main stage production of RUINED was presented in September 2017.]
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
THESE SHINING LIVES by Melanie Marnich / Directed by David Meglino
Catherine and her friends are dying, it's true; but theirs is a story of survival in its most transcendent sense, as they refuse to allow the company that stole their health to kill their spirits -- or endanger the lives of those who come after them. “Perfect, touching and wistful ... beautifully tragic" — Talkin' Broadway
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
ASSISTANCE by Leslye Headland / Directed by Ariana Cook
For these young assistants, life is an endless series of humiliations at the hands of their hellacious boss. In rare moments of calm, when the phone calls stop rolling, Nick and Nora and their traumatized co-workers question whether all their work will lead to success -- or just more work. Assistance is a biting, high-octane satire about our attraction to power and what we’re willing to sacrifice to stay in its orbit.
"A Gen Y Glengarry with a sweeter finish and a place for women" — Time Out NY
Season 16 Echo Reads Salon Series
Friday, June 13, 2014
A BONUS READING FOR PRIDE MONTH:
BRIDES OF THE MOON by The Five Lesbian Brothers* / Directed by Terri Ferguson
A crew of female astronauts in the year 2069 is set adrift when space trash (in the form of a 1997 Winnebago) crashes into their rocket ship's hull. On their way to “support” a colony of men, their pre-programmed sexual urges are accidentally triggered and suddenly the ship is the love boat to Lesbos. The only person who can save their vessel is a dotty housewife back on Earth with a dysfunctional family and an unexpected past. (*The Five Lesbian Brothers are Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey, and Lisa Kron.) Co-Produced by the Bath House Cultural Center. [A main stage production of BRIDES OF THE MOON was presented in June 2017.]
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
EMILIE: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends her Life Tonight by Lauren Gunderson / Directed by Kateri Cale
“…the laws of the heart …are starved and overwhelmed and destructive to good behavior. The laws of the universe are clean and predictable. To know the universe? Be diligent. To know the heart? Be brave.” Tonight, 18th century scientific genius Emilie du Châtelet is back and determined to answer the question she died with: love or philosophy, head or heart? In this highly theatrical, fast, funny, sexy rediscovery of one of history's most intriguing women, Emilie defends her life and loves; and ends up with both a formula and a legacy that permeates history. Caution: Emilie contains strong language and adult themes.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
GOD'S EAR by Jenny Schwartz / Directed by Terri Ferguson
"If misery loves company, then why am I standing here alone?" In God’s Ear, a couple suffers a tragic accident, and their grief propels them into a fantastical world where the Tooth Fairy sings, their flight attendant is a cross dresser, and GI Joe offers family counseling. It’s a lyrically absurd journey of love, loss, and laughter. Caution: God's Ear contains intense adult themes.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
CROOKED by Catherine Trieschmann / Directed by Shelby-Allison Hibbs
Fourteen-year-old Laney arrives in Oxford, Mississippi with a twisted back, a mother in crisis, and a burning desire to be writer. When she befriends Maribel Purdy, a fervent believer in the power of Jesus Christ to save her from the humiliations of high school, Laney embarks on a hilarious spiritual and sexual journey that challenges her mother's secular worldview and threatens to tear their fragile relationship apart. "The work of a big accomplished writer's voice...a gem of a discovery." - The New York Times.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Echo Theatre's 3nd Annual HOLIDAY HOUSE PARTY
* A special holiday event! *
Your friends at Echo invite you to our annual holiday fundraiser. Enjoy music and munchies. Decorate our 2014 Giving Tree. Toast the Holidays with Echo's Producing Partners and mingle with the cast of our upcoming musical revue The Echo Room Presents. Echo's Holiday House Party is one-of-a-kind and one night only!
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
RECOMMENDED READING FOR GIRLS by Ellen Struve / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
Step into a storybook. When Amy returns to her childhood home to care for her ailing mother, she discovers uninvited guests from her favorite childhood novels. Beloved heroines -- Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, a Little Princess, a Girl Detective -- turn the household topsy-turvy as Amy struggles to reconcile the characters she grew up with, the people she loves, and the stories she has told herself. Following the show's May 2013 premiere, the Omaha World-Herald raved simply: "'Recommended Reading' is, well, recommended!"
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
HOLY SPIRIT by Toni Press-Coffman / Directed by Andrew Berardi
Once upon a time, a little girl was murdered and all her little friends grew up. The boy who killed her was sent away and no one ever heard from him again. Until they did. Inspired by the death of a grade school classmate, Toni Press-Coffman gives us a play about the power of faith, friendship, and the gift of our lives -- no matter what ghosts we might confront as we lead them.
Season 15 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
THE PIANO TEACHER by Julia Cho / Directed by Kateri Cale
Mrs. K is an elderly widow who lives by herself in a small suburban town. She whiles away her time reminiscing about her late husband and the children she taught long ago as a piano instructor. One day, she finds herself compelled to call her old students -- but is it out of loneliness or some other, darker need? As Mrs. K discovers, it may not be what we cannot know that troubles us the most; it may be what we cannot bear to know. A Producer's Pick selected by Kateri Cale.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
AFTER THE REVOLUTION by Amy Herzog / Directed by Brandi Andrade
The brilliant, promising Emma Joseph proudly carries the torch of her family's Marxist tradition, devoting her life to the memory of her blacklisted grandfather. When history reveals a shocking truth about the man himself, the entire family has to confront questions of honesty and allegiance they thought had been resolved. AFTER THE REVOLUTION is a bold and moving portrait of an American family thrown into an intergenerational tailspin. A Producer's Pick from Producing Partner Pam-Myers-Morgan!
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
[sic] by Melissa James Gibson / Directed by Terri Ferguson
In tiny adjacent apartments, three neighbors push the limits of their friendship while demonstrating that language can be both an instrument of intimacy and a weapon of defense. Theo is a composer trying to create a heroic theme for an amusement park ride called the Thrill-o-Rama; Babette is a writer who is trying to finish -- or even start -- a book theorizing that temper tantrums are the major motivating force behind historical events; and Frank is a would-be auctioneer, preparing for his future career by constantly practicing tongue twisters. Melissa James Gibson has created a unique play that is as witty and wise as it is stylistically groundbreaking and unexpected. A Producer's Pick from Echo Associate Miller Pyke! [A main stage production of [sic] was presented in September 2014.]
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Echo Theatre's 2nd Annual HOLIDAY HOUSE PARTY
* A special holiday event! *
Join your Echo friends for an evening of holiday entertainment, music, readings, drink, food, and mingling. Find gifts for your loved ones (or yourself!) in our silent auction. Echo's Holiday House Party is one-night-only and one-of-a-kind! Featuring Brandi Andrade, Annie Benjamin, Ellen Connelly, Alexander Ferguson, Terri Ferguson, Lisa Anne Haram, Jennings Humphries, Linda Leonard, Carolyn McCormick, Mary Medrick, Marlhy Murphy, Bob Myers-Morgan, Casey Myers-Morgan & the Santa Babies, Jill Peters, and Jodi Wright.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
WEDDING BAND: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White by Alice Childress / Directed by Marjorie Hayes
In the summer of 1918, there is a war in Europe and a smaller war in South Carolina. Julie is an African-American seamstress. Herman is a Caucasian who has kept company with her for years. As their growing attraction accelerates into an affair, they must, of course, deal with the prejudices and wrath of ignorance in early 20th century America.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
THE ART OF DINING by Tina Howe / Directed by Cynthia Hestand
A mouth-tingling satire of the social and cultural mores that surround the simple act of eating, The Art of Dining is a sensuous and hilarious account of diverse appetites and eating styles.
Season 14 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
JUMP/CUT by Neena Beber / Directed by Rhonda Blair
Three bright urbanites want to make their mark on the world. Paul, a master of irony and distance, is a hardworking filmmaker on the rise. His girlfriend Karen, a graduate student, must get on with her thesis or find a life outside of academia. Dave, a lifelong friend whose brilliance is being consumed by increasingly severe episodes of manic depression, is camping on Paul's couch. When Paul and Karen decide to turn Paul into a documentary, the camera is on 24 hours a day. Love, moviemaking, friendship, and ambition collide." A remarkable, absorbing, complex and intelligent play." - Variety.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
MATT & BEN by Mindy Kaling & Brenda Withers / Directed by Kelly Thomas
Matt & Ben depicts its Hollywood golden boys -- before J-Lo, before Gwyneth, before Project Greenlight, before Oscar ... before anyone actually gave a damn. When the screenplay for Good Will Hunting drops mysteriously from the heavens, the boys realize they’re being tested by a Higher Power. And, in this alternate reality, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are played by 2 actresses! "Absolutely delightful and deliciously spiteful! Sharp and clever." — The New York Times. [A main stage production of MATT & BEN was presented in September 2013.]
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
LEVELING UP by Deborah Zoe Laufer / Directed by Terri Ferguson
How do you straddle the fuzzy line between reality and virtual reality when you’re playing video games 20 hours a day? Ian, Zan, and Chuck are two years out of college when the government comes looking for expert gamers to launch remote missiles. Echo brings North Texas audiences one of the first opportunities to experience this new, unpublished work-in-process by the author of End Days.
Readings programmed and produced by Kateri Cale...
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Echo Theatre's 1st HOLIDAY HOUSE PARTY
* A special holiday event! *
Drop in to the Bath House for songs and storytelling from the Echo family. Then stick around for mingling, food, and merriment! Featuring Annie Benjamin, Kateri Cale, Terri Ferguson, Bob Myers-Morgan, Miller Pyke, Jordan Willis, Jodi Wright, the Santa Babies, and more!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
HIGH DIVE by Leslie Ayvazian / Directed by Reis Myers McCormick
An American woman about to turn fifty is standing on a high dive at a hotel pool in Greece. Her son dared her to jump and she ascended the ladder despite her fear of heights. Will she jump or won’t she? Audience participation transforms High Dive into a one-woman show with a very large cast! Arrive by 7pm to play a part -- We DARE you to jump in!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
BRILLIANT TRACES by Cindy Lou Johnson / Directed by David Meglino
As a blizzard rages outside, a lonely man is awakened by the insistent knocking of an unexpected visitor— a distraught young woman who has driven all the way from Arizona to flee her impending marriage. Thrown together by the confines of the storm, they explore the pain of the past and consider the possibilities of the present through theatrically vivid exchanges. “…characters, story, and dialogue so fantastic that they could exist only within the enchanted realm of the stage." - NY Times.
Season 13 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
THE GARDEN OF MONSTERS by Mara Lathrop / Directed by Marianne Galloway
A Finalist Honoree from The Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women.
In the waning days of WWII, a Jewish G.I. encounters a Holocaust survivor holding the last shred of hope in all the world. In the year 2045, a theatre director rehearses a new play about the liberation of Dachau and forgets how to hope when she learns she has a fatal disease. In present-day London, a writer's stories are hijacked by a couple of clowns with a secret hope to heal the world. This time-jumping play asks the ultimate question: Is this the end of the universe?
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
LOVE (AWKWARDLY) by Maryann Carolan / Directed by Sarah Weeks
A Finalist Honoree from The Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women.
Written in collaboration with actual high school students, Love (Awkwardly) follows eight teenagers as they experience the wonderful, painful, exhilarating, and -- yes -- awkward moments of first love.
Tuesday, April 5 and Wednesday, April 6, 2011
BHUTAN by Daisy Foote / Directed by David Meglino
BONUS READING: Echo Theatre's contribution to the Dallas/Forth Worth Horton Foote Festival!
American teenager Frances Conroy wonders how she ended up here. Her mother is driving her crazy. Her aunt is stalking a married man. Her brother is in prison. She dreams of Bhutan but can barely find the kitchen door.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
THE EARLY EDUCATION OF CONRAD EPPLER by Isabella Russell-Ides / Directed by Raphael Parry
A Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women WINNER
Imagine: Earth is the hope of heaven, not the other way around. Imagine: The myths we believe believe us. Imagine: Something new has appeared on the planet. Could it happen -- like quark or quanta -- jump time and enter space because someone expected to see it... Or decided to be it...? And who is Conrad Eppler? Playwright in attendance! [A main stage production of THE EARLY EDUCATION OF CONRAD EPPLER was presented in FEBRUARY 2012.]
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
THE OTHER FELIX by Reina Hardy / Directed by Rene Moreno
A Finalist Honoree from The Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women.
"Sometimes a person might happen to meet another person who happens to make that person do or think things that are kind of incredible." Case in point: Gambler Felix Bettleman, whose name and reputation have been assumed by an identity thief, and Marlow Sharpe, private eye, a woman with a keen mind, a kind heart -- and a disinclination to reveal either. Together, Sharpe and her reluctant client attempt to unravel the mystery of the other Felix and discover that, no matter how hard you try, you can't lie to everyone. A comic noir about the power of obsessive love.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
A MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN by Cathy Tempelsman
A Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women WINNER
"You may try -- but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl" - George Eliot. It is the year 1858, and the English public demands to know: Are the most popular and “Christian” novels of the century written by a woman living in sin with a married man? Marian Evans—the real George Eliot—faces a crisis. Should she expose herself and her unconventional life or continue her work in secret, denying the truest part of herself? Playwright in attendance! [A main stage production of A MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN was presented in September 2011.]
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
AMERICAN HOME by Stephanie Walker
A Finalist Honoree from The Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women and a World Premiere.
“To possess one’s own home, however small, is the hope of every family in our country. That is the American ideal.” – President Herbert Hoover, 1932. What happens when we fail at achieving that ideal -- the possession of one’s own home? What happens when we achieve it only to have it taken away? What makes a house an AMERICAN HOME? In 2008, playwright Stephanie Walker faced foreclosure and lived to tell the tale through her blog, Love In The Time of Foreclosure, which has been called “A heartbreaking work of staggering acceptance” and has been featured on NPR’s Planet Money and American Public Media’s The Story with Dick Gordon, as well as in The Los Angeles Times and The Huffington Post. AMERICAN HOME is based on that experience.
Season 12 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
THE GAMBLER'S EARRINGS by Carolyn Nur Wistrand
A Finalist Honoree from The Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women.
In the swamps of the South Carolina Low Country, Gambling Gullah Jack offers up ruby earrings to his Voodoo lover, unleashing night creatures that feed off desire, lust, and rage. Their violence and passion span four generations linked by blood, fate and conjure. Featuring Tyrees Allen as Gambling Gullah Jack.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
DEVIL DOG SIX by Fengar Gael
A Finalist Honoree from The Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women.
What do you see when you look into a horse's eyes? What do you see when you look through a horse's eyes? Join Devon, a female jockey in a male dominated sport, and Devil Dog Six, the mount of her dreams, on their wild theatrical gallop. How far will Devon go ... to ride a winner?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
APPALACHIAN GEISHA by Kim Stinson / Directed by Kateri Cale
A Finalist Honoree from The Big Shout Out New Play Contest for Women and a World Premiere
After 35 years of marriage, does familiarity breed...attempt? The answer may lie in playwright Kim Stinson's funny and moving blend of butterfly dreams, sea vegetables and Emperor's Mark Green Tea.
Friday, December 11, 2009
THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Jay Presson Allen
Adapted from the novel by Muriel Spark
Echo is proud to welcome Ronnie Claire Edwards, well-known television actress and author, as she relives one of her favorite stage roles. “I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life!” So declares the iconoclastic Miss Jean Brodie. Muriel Spark's famous novel is the basis of this equally famous stage adaptation by Jay Presson Allen (an alumna of Dallas' "Miss Hockaday’s School for Young Ladies").
* BONUS PERFORMANCE *
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
WHAT USE ARE FLOWERS? by Lorraine Hansberry / Directed by Rhonda Boutte
Lorraine Hansberry won the praise of critics and audiences with her award-winning 1959 drama A Raisin in the Sun. Echo has unearthed her 1961 teleplay What Use Are Flowers? This fable about a hermit who discovers a group of wild children who are the only survivors of nuclear holocaust raises provocative questions about what it means to be civilized. Written just a few years before Hansberry's sudden death, this unusual play is one of only a handful produced by this talented writer.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
THE HOLLOW by Agatha Christie / Directed by Kateri Cale
The world's most acclaimed mystery writer and mistress of suspense has numerous, rarely produced treasures. Join us this October as Echo "unearths" The Hollow, a whodunit with all the classic ingredients. A weekend house party brings an array of assorted relations to the grand country estate of Lady Lucy Angkatell. During Friday night cocktails, a glamorous stranger arrives and a mood of jealousy, hatred and intrigue soon colors the happy gathering ... before a gun shot is heard! Through the course of the drama, a complex web of love affairs and past secrets is slowly revealed.
Season 11 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 19 2009
WONDERLAND by Brooke Berman / Directed by Kristin McCollum
“Early in her career, Marilyn Monroe gave this interview and the interviewer asked her what she wanted and she said ‘I just want to be wonderful’. Well, yeah. Me too. Don’t we all just want to be wonderful?”
Mia is about to give up on her career as a performance artist when Jesus Christ visits earth and happens to catch her show. After this “blessing”, all her dreams come true – an LA agent, a movie star boyfriend and her own television show! But when Jesus tries to become a TV star and Mia’s co-stars keep “spinning off”, she realizes that her Wonderland is becoming curiouser and curiouser.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
COWBIRD by Julie Marie Myatt / Directed by Valerie Hauss-Smith
"You know I never kiss and tell. Now who wants to buy me a drink? All these questions are making me thirsty!"
Everyone’s favorite Good-Time Gal is back from another vacation with risqué tales and a brand new wardrobe. Will the lies behind her mysterious lifestyle be revealed when a series of teenagers arrive at her door? Cowbird questions motherhood, commerce and expectations – and the answers are as troubling as they are entertaining.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
DEATH OF A CAT by C. Denby Swanson / Directed by Terri Ferguson
"I think God is a cat. That’s why he ignores us for long periods of time."
This 19th century home has seen seven deaths; Father is dying and Mother has sequestered her odd twins, son and daughter, in the nether-regions of the house. Has the “final accountant” set up shop in the person of the country doctor? Is the Father’s death an allegory for the death of God? With its outré atmosphere and Gothic humor, Death of a Cat wrings laughs from our fear of and fascination with death.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
TALLGRASS GOTHIC by Melanie Marnich / Directed by Rhonda Blair
Set on the Midwestern prairie of the Present, a young woman's torrid affair spins a web of brutal deceit among friends and lovers. From small town America, where longing is secret and fury unspoken, comes a harrowing tale of lust, retribution, and dark dead-end roads in the Heartland. Inspired by the classic Jacobean tragedy The Changeling.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC by Arlene Hutton / Directed by Larry Randolph
Christmas week in 1940 on a train somewhere west of Chicago, Raleigh takes a seat next to May. He is a teasing young man in uniform with pretensions of being a writer. She is sincere, honest, smart (but naïve) and headed back to Kentucky. Secrets told and promises made bind the two in doubtful hope. A truly endearing wartime romance. [A main stage production of the Three-Play "Nibrock Trilogy" was presented in February 2009. The Trilogy follows the couple from the war years to the first uneasy days of racial equality and consists of LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC, SEE ROCK CITY, and GULF VIEW DRIVE. The Trilogy was remounted at Theatre Too! (hosted by Theatre 3) in May 2009.]
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
GOING TO SEE THE ELEPHANT by Karen Hensel and Elana Kent; based on an idea by Patti Johns; characters created by Patti Johns, Sylvia Meredith, Elizabeth Shaw and Laura Toffenetti / Directed by Kateri Cale
Outside a sod hut in the Kansas wilderness of the 1870s, four frontier women wrest a living from the stubborn soil. As they cope with wolf attacks, the constant fear of Indians and the isolation of the prairie, they talk of "going to see the elephant" -- living a life fueled by curiosity, wonder and hope -- and reminding us that the West was not tamed by men alone.
Readings programmed and produced by Dr. Brandi Andrade...
Season 10 Echo Reads Salon Series
Thursday-Friday, June 4-5, 2008
Tyne Daly reading OIL! by Neil Tucker & Raelle Tucker / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
Produced in association with Marshall Saul Stackman.
Also Featuring Brandi Andrade, Bradley Campbell, Lydia Mackay, Vickie Washington and Ashley Wood.
Magritte Holes, the ailing, notoriously outrageous, matriarch of one of Houston’s most prominent oil families, has been hiding out in her bedroom for months, guzzling whiskey, planning the annual Holes Barbecue, and developing an outlandish strategy to save Texas, and her family’s fortune, from imminent collapse. Playwright, Raelle Tucker, in attendance!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
WAITING TO BE INVITED by S.M. Shephard-Massat / Directed by Vickie Washington
In 1961 Atlanta, four women decide to stage a sit-in at a White's Only lunch counter. A funny and moving look at the bravery of ordinary American women.
* BONUS PERFORMANCE *
Monday, May 19, 7:30 pm at Jubilee Theatre, 506 Main Street, Fort Worth
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
WAVING GOODBYE by Jamie Pachino / Directed by Lisa Taylor and Mallory Harwood
After the tragic death of her father, Lily Blue must get to know the mother who abandoned her. A boldly theatrical story about love, loss and art.
* BONUS PERFORMANCE *
Wednesday, April 9, 7:30 pm at Church in the Cliff, 901 N. Zang Blvd.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
‘TIL VOICES WAKE US by Louella Dizon / Directed by Doug Miller
A young girl meets her Filipino grandmother and discovers the truth about her mysterious dreams. A magic and poetic journey.
* BONUS PERFORMANCE *
Thursday, March 27, 7:30 pm at Unity Church, 6525 Forest Lane
Tuesday December 11, 2007
DREAM OF A COMMON LANGUAGE by Heather McDonald / Directed by Mallory Harwood
A re-reading of Echo's very first mainstage production, originally presented August 1998.
* BONUS PERFORMANCE *
Wednesday, December 12, 2007, at CityGallery
Tuesday November 13, 2007
WHY WE HAVE A BODY by Claire Chafee / Directed by Terri Ferguson
A re-reading of Echo's first smash hit, originally presented January 1999.
Tuesday October 9, 2007
FEFU AND HER FRIENDS by Maria Irene Fornes
A re-reading of one of Echo's most successful productions, originally presented July 1999.
Season 9 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007
MY HIDEOUS PROGENY (REAL, REAL GONE) by Melissa Cooper / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
A brand new play by one of Dallas’ most exciting and innovative artists. The newest work off the pen of the author of THE ANTIGONE PROJECT and A MACBETH. Playwright in attendance!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
365 DAYS/365 PLAYS (WEEK 22) by Suzan-Lori Parks / Directed by Rhonda Blair
On November 13, 2002, Suzan-Lori Parks got an idea to write a play a day for a year. She began that very day, finishing one year later. The resulting play cycle is a daily meditation on an artistic life. Some plays are very short, less than a page. Others last forever. Week 22 includes: Father Comes Home From the Wars (Part 6), Flag Waver, Blue Umbrella, The Mr. Lincoln Rose, Sunshine, The Man Upstairs and Mother Comes Home From the Wars, plus the constants Action In Inaction and Inaction In Action.
* BONUS FEATURE *
FLYIN’ WEST by Pearl Cleage / Directed by Brandi Andrade
Three African-American sisters head west under the Homestead Act of 1860, determined to find peace and freedom in the wake of the Civil War. Cleage’s story of their struggle to honor the past and fight for the future defies pioneer stereotypes and celebrates a legacy of courage and sisterhood.
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
STRING FEVER by Jacquelyn Reingold / Directed by Rhonda Blair
Reingold explores the chaos and humor of midlife love in this offbeat romantic comedy. Pulling together the strands of everything from etiquette to mortality, STRING FEVER "applies the elusive rules of string theory to the conundrums of one woman’s love life." (NY Times) "Sometimes the calculus of love is as difficult to get a handle on as quantum physics!" (Peter Marks, Washington Post)
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
THE LANGUAGE OF ANGELS by Naomi Iizuka / Directed by Marianne Galloway
Eight friends are forever haunted by the disappearance of Celie Gaines, an angel-ghost girl lost deep in the caves of North Carolina. Told as a triptych of ghost plays, the story travels through time and space, blending working class characters with soaring poetic language in a haunting exploration of redemption.
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
THE MYSTERY OF ATTRACTION by Marlane G. Meyer / Directed by Ellen Locy
A darkly comic exploration of that primordial force that makes us slow down at the scene of an accident. Eavesdrop on brothers Ray and Warren during the night they discover that their catastrophic life choices have less to do with bad luck and everything to do with the mystery of attraction. "Rarely have a pair of pathetic, degenerate and whiny losers been as much fun to listen to." (New York Daily News)
* BONUS PERFORMANCE
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at the Hampton-Illinois branch of the Dallas Public Library
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006
THE LITTLE FOXES by Lillian Hellman / Directed by Lisa Cotie
This 1939 classic follows the corrupt machinations of a wealthy Southern family as they scheme mercilessly to make a fortune on a new cotton mill. In her search for wealth and power, vicious Regina will stoop to the unthinkable to crush anyone who stands in her way.
Season 8 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, April 18th, 2006
UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS by Wendy Wasserstein
A tribute to Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein and her contribution to American theatre. In Uncommon Women and Others, five women reminisce and relive their college days, weighing their goals and aspirations against their actual lives. "I have not read plays by a woman about women such as these before...The seriousness was juxtaposed with warmth and a tremendous sense of comedy." - Andre Bishop.
Tuesday, April 4th, 2006
ECHO SINGS: BIBLE WOMEN by Elizabeth Swados / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
This song cycle highlights women from the Bible in rock and cabaret versions of their traditional stories. The variety of musical influences and feisty spirit displayed here are the qualities that have made Swados an influential figure in both contemporary musical theatre and Jewish religious life. Come hear musical storytelling so dynamic it was selected for the NASA space shuttle!
*BONUS PERFORMANCES:
* Monday, April 3rd, 2006 at Northaven United Methodist Church and * Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at Unity Church of Dallas
[A production of BIBLE WOMEN (with additional text by Vicki Caroline Cheatwood) was presented as part of the Festival of Independent Theatres in July 2010. A revival was presented at FIT in July 2018.]
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006
ECHO SINGS: LETTERS AND LIEDER by Jackie and Bill Lengfelder / Directed by Ellen Locy
Felix Mendelssohn's sister, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, received the same musical education as her celebrated brother but her father discouraged her: "Perhaps for Felix music will become a profession, while for you it will always remain but an ornament." Discover the energetic and adventurous nature of Fanny's music and her soul though this intriguing, poetic work-in-progress. Playwrights in attendance!
Tuesday, February 7th, 2006
ECHO SINGS: OH, WHAT A LOVELY WAR by Joan Littlewood / Directed by David Fisher
An award-winning 1963 creation from Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, Oh, What a Lovely War chronicles World War I through source material and songs from the period in a story told by a company of clowns.
Tuesday, December 6th, 2005
ECHO SINGS: A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN
Book by Betty Smith and George Abbott / Lyrics by Dorothy Fields, Music by Arthur Schwartz
Directed by Bruce Coleman and Ricky Pope
This tender and funny 1951 musical combines Betty Smith's story with lyrics by one of Broadway's masters, Dorothy Fields. Tracing the hopes and dreams of two immigrant sisters, the show follows the adventures of one and the struggles of the other, ultimately reaffirming the transformative power of love.
* BONUS PERFORMANCE *
Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at Winfrey Point on White Rock Lake
Tuesday, November 1st, 2005
ECHO SINGS: I'M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD
Book and Lyrics by Gretchen Cryer, Music by Nancy Ford / Directed by Scott Eckert
39-year-old singer-songwriter Heather explores her budding ideas about life, love, and womanhood in the first women's liberation musical of the 1970s.
Tuesday, October 4th, 2005
ECHO SINGS: ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Book and Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Music by Cy Coleman / Directed by Bob Hess and Lynn Ambrose
Comden and Green are one of the most celebrated teams in musical theatre, and this 1978 gem is one of their classics. A delightful comedy involving a down-and-out theatre producer who books the adjoining cabin on a cross-country train ride to convince a capricious movie star to rescue his flagging career.
* BONUS PERFORMANCE *
Monday, October 3rd, 2005 at the Trinity River Arts Center
Season 7 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 3, 2005
WOMEN AND HORSES AND A SHOT STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE by Mary F. Casey / Directed by Bruce Coleman
A story of mothers, daughters, bronc riding, heartache, and unconditional love -- all colliding in the moment of one cowgirl's fateful ride.
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
LITTLE JOE MONAGHAN by Barbara Lebow / Directed by Doug Miller
The true life adventures of Josephine Monaghan, who lived in an Idaho mining town in the late 1800s... disguised as a man!
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
MY VISITS WITH MGM (MY GRANDMOTHER MARTA) by Edit Villarreal / Directed by David Lozano
Marta Feliz returns to the rubble of the Texas home where she was raised by her grandmother and her great aunt. As she remembers Marta Grande and Florinda, the family's struggle to find a new identity somewhere between a new world and the old is revealed.
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
FIRST LADIES by Dana Gillespie / Directed by Pam Dougherty
Gillespie's charming story, commissioned by the Great American History Theatre, dramatizes an early winter in the lives of Minnesota's pioneer women, revealing their strength, ingenuity, and solidarity while exploring the budding relationship between child bride Mary and a mysterious Indian woman.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
THE ANASTASIA TRIALS IN THE COURT OF WOMEN by Carolyn Gage / Directed by Kateri Cale
Personalities and politics clash as a feminist theatre group uses the lottery system to cast their play about the women who betrayed the famous Russian Royal -- and the audience acts as their jury. This Christmas, our "wacky, dysfunctional family" is Sisterhood!
Tuesday, November 9, 2004
THE SINGULAR LIFE OF ALBERT NOBBS by Simone Benmussa / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
Enter into the extraordinary life of Albert, a young man working hard as a porter at an exclusive English hotel, and guarding a precious secret. Come feast on this potent stew of gender, economics and theatricality.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
HOW THE VOTE WAS WON by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John / Directed by Linda Leonard
As we prepare to exercise the 19th Amendment this November, we revisit the theatrical efforts that helped put it in place. This charming farce was the most popular of the suffrage plays in England and the U.S.
Tuesday, September 14th, 2004
APPROACHING SIMONE by Megan Terry / Directed by Trey Walpole
This innovative recounting of communist, pacifist philosopher Simone Weil's life exemplifies the ensemble-based, avant-garde feminist theatre of the 1970s.
Season 6 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
THE DAUGHTERS OF THE LATE COLONEL by Katherine Mansfield / Directed by Ellen Locy
Adapted by Brandi Andrade, Kateri Cale and Ellen Locy
Spinster sisters reel and regroup after their father's death in this curious nineteenth-century short story. Join us in the early stages of our adaptation process!
* BONUS PERFORMANCES *
Sunday, May 16, 2004 at the Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library and
Friday, May 21, 2004 at the Dallas Museum of Art (part of the Arts and Letters Live Literary Café)
[A production of THE DAUGHTERS OF THE LATE COLONEL was presented as part of the Out of the Loop Festival March 2005.]
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
WHORES D'OEUVRES by Michelene Wandor / Directed by David Fisher
Two prostitutes float down the swollen Thames river on a raft after a freak hurricane sweeps through London. This courageously controversial feminist classic is a surreal satire on economics, sexual politics and the personal cost of the choices women make. "More than any single figure, Wandor is responsible for articulating and supporting the interaction of feminism, theatre, socialism and gay liberation in Britain." - Helene Keyssar
* Bonus Feature *
THE DOVE by Djuna Barnes / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
Tuesday, March 9, 2004
FOOD AND SHELTER by Jane Anderson / Directed by Molly Moroney
Jobless and homeless, a woman struggles to keep her belief in magic alive while holding her family together. Fierce, funny, sad and timely.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
LOVE POEMS BY WOMEN / Compiled and Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
*A Valentine's Day Special Event!*
A journey through time and across the globe with the voices of women speaking their hearts through verse. Sometimes tender, sometimes angry, often funny and always passionate, the poems of these extraordinary women show us that, while cultures evolve and borders shift, love has remained constant for more than 4,000 years!
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
HANNAH FREE by Claudia Allen / Directed by Pam Dougherty
An unusual love story just in time for Valentine's Day! Two women in a nursing home recall the glories and trials of a love that spanned a lifetime.
Tuesday, December 9, 2003
FREEDOMLAND by Amy Freed / Directed by Margaret Loft
1999: Our annual holiday offering of a whacked out, dysfunctional family play!
[A main stage production of FREEDOMLAND was presented in January 2005.]
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
A LATE SNOW by Jane Chambers / Directed by Tyne Vance
1974: Five women trapped by a snowstorm struggle to define their sexuality on their own terms in this groundbreaking work by a pioneering lesbian playwright.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
HOLY DAYS by Sally Nemeth / Directed by Elizabeth Ware
1936: A heartbreaking story of two marriages set in the dust-bowl of heartland America.
[A production of HOLY DAYS was presented as part of The Festival of Independent Theatres in July 2005.]
Tuesday, September 9, 2003
MISS LULU BETT by Zona Gale / Directed by Terri Ferguson
1920: 'An American Comedy of Manners' with 2 different endings to explore. With this play, Gale became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
Readings programmed and produced by Ellen F. Locy...
Season 5 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
SAILING TO BYZANTIUM by Sandra Deer / Directed by Linda Leonard
Kensington, London, Spring, 1916. While the Dublin Uprising rages not far away, Olivia and Hope Shakespear host a group of friends -- poets, lovers, ex-lovers, and fierce patriots -- for a brief and winsome reunion. A witty and wistful ode to love and to love's confusing joy. "From what I've observed of love, people don't give their hearts. Their hearts fly out from them and they must follow or not." [A main stage production of SAILING TO BYZANTIUM was presented in September 2005.]
Tuesday, April 8, 2003
INDIA SONG by Marguerite Duras / Directed by Sheila Landahl
India, 1937. Unseen voices narrate this story of the affair between the haunting Anne-Marie Stretter and the disgraced French vice-consul in Lahore. In the India of 1937, with the smells of laurels and leprosy permeating the air, the characters perform a dance of doomed love to the strains of a dying colonialism. A rarefied work of lyricism, despair and passion, INDIA SONG is imbued with a primitive emotional hunger that is all the more moving for its austere setting.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
BEST FRIENDS by Anat Gov / Directed by Niki Flacks
Tel Aviv, the Present. Is it true that girls are always friends in threes, so that any two of them can dissect the other one when she's not present, and so maintain the equilibrium? Brassy, upbeat and authentic, BEST FRIENDS captures the truth -- the love and dependency, the jealousies and gossip, the frankness and support -- of such a threesome from adolescence to middle age. Gov's play has been running for four years in Tel Aviv. In its Israeli context, the play's theme of reconciliation poignantly echoes larger hopes for ethnic and political peace.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY by Jean Kerr / Directed by David Fisher
Paris, 1923. Nineteen year-old socialites Emily and Cornelia venture on their first trip to Europe, largely unchaperoned. With hilarious results, they try to shed their provincial and childish ways, embracing all things artistic and Parisian. Based on the autobiography of Cornelia Otis Skinner, this charming and utterly delightful play withstands the passage of the years, evoking the simpler joys and values of a seemingly more innocent time. Perfect for audiences of all ages!
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
HEAVENLY SOMEWHERE by Sidney Brammer / Directed by Sidney Brammer
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas and time for our annual dysfunctional family tale! Written by Austin playwright Sidney Brammer and premiered in an early version in NYC with Ellen Burstyn, this dark comedy wrestles with loneliness, love, family and faith early in the decade of Reagan's America. When weed, booze, speed and profanity don't make a dent in the holiday blues, what will?
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
NIGHT OF JANUARY 16TH by Ayn Rand / Directed by Patty Lewis
Murder. Adultery. Deceit. Embezzlement. Philosophy. Objectivist philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand's courtroom drama was written sixty years before Court TV -- and it's a real potboiler. Is Karen Andre guilty or not guilty? You decide. A jury of twelve audience members determines the outcome of the case -- and the play!
Tuesday, October 8, 2002
DUMB SUPPER and MUD FLAP GODDESS by Deborah Pryor / Directed by James Venhaus and Kristina Baker & Joe Calk
A pair of creepy short plays, not for the faint of heart! Two teenage girls in the North Carolina mountains, curious about a local legend, make a DUMB SUPPER at midnight in hopes of seeing their own true lover walk through the door. MUD FLAP GODDESS finds a mother and her grown son living together in a small suburban Virginia house, entwined in a sadistic cat and mouse game involving a forbidden toaster, chicken nuggets, hanks of hair and a padlocked freezer. [A production of DUMB SUPPER was presented (indoors) as part of the Out of the Loop Festival in March 2003, and (outdoors) as part of the Festival of Independent Theatres in July 2003.]
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
TISSUE by Louise Page / Directed by Niki Flacks.
In anticipation of Breast Cancer Awareness month in October, Echo presents TISSUE, one woman's journey through breast cancer. Boldly theatrical, poignant, and funny, TISSUE celebrates struggle, survival and the ultimate triumph of life.
Season 4 Echo Reads Salon Series
Tuesday, May 7, 2002
VITA AND VIRGINIA: Selected Letters-Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West Compiled by Eileen Atkins / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
Love, lust and literature! Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West met in 1922 and began a nearly twenty-year correspondence which today bears witness to their instant and lifelong friendship. Their adventure was filled with love and expectation, their letters with excitement, hope and verbal caress. And yet, beneath the words, we sense the strange alchemy of love mixed with uncertainty and of compulsion mingled with constraint. [A production of VITA AND VIRGINIA was presented as part of the Festival of Independent Theatres in July 2002.]
Tuesday, April 2, 2002
THE TRESTLE AT POPE LICK CREEK by Naomi Wallace / Directed by Elizabeth Rothan
It is 1936, a town outside a city somewhere in the U.S. Two lonely teens plan to do what no one's ever done, 'run the tracks' on a dare to beat the train over the trestle at Pope Lick Creek. Tough yet beguilingly vulnerable, Pace Creagan and her unassuming friend Dalton Chance experience first love and its tragic consequences in this spare, beautiful and mysterious piece by Naomi Wallace, the multi-award winning playwright of ONE FLEA SPARE and IN THE HEART OF AMERICA.
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
RIO ESMERELDA by Erin Cressida Wilson / Directed by Kateri Cale
It takes an act of enormity to escape forever the world of the mundane. Esmerelda journeys to the Rio Grande to keep a thirty year-old promise to a former lover. A phone booth appears in the desert. Eggs fall from the sky. Renewal is tantalizingly close ... then her daughter appears on the horizon. Sexy and profane, surreal and hilarious, RIO ESMERELDA takes its audience to intimate places of primal truths and achingly irreversible retributions.
Tuesday, February 4, 2002
LOVE ALL by Dorothy L. Sayers / Directed by Kerri Cole
A breezy bonbon about love and loyalty to get you in the Valentine's mood. A villa in Venice and London's theatrical world in 1938 provide the backdrops for this delightful comedy of manners with a feminist twist! One of only two plays written by the popular detective story writer, LOVE ALL features a trademark Sayers heroine: a bright, educated woman working in a man's world. She and a colorful cast of characters amuse you with the unmistakable Sayers touch -- part irony, part whimsy, pure delight!
Tuesday, December 11, 2001
THE CHEMISTRY OF CHANGE by Marlane Meyer / Directed by John Navarro
Prepare for your own holiday season with a dysfunctional family tale in which the connections between marriage and death, evil and love, destiny and luck are not as contradictory as you might expect. A domineering mother, her reproductively-challenged sister, an angry dutiful daughter, 3 slackish sons, and a demon who achieves a state of grace will make your own family gatherings look like the Waltons.
Tuesday, November 6, 2001
HE AND SHE by Rachel Crothers / Directed by Linda Leonard
Echo returns to a theme from their debut production, DREAM OF A COMMON LANGUAGE - artistic rivalry under the same roof - as conflicts arise between a loving husband and wife, both working artists, when the woman is forced to choose between motherhood and career. This revival of a classic feminist drama, by the early 20th century's most esteemed female playwright, was written in 1911 and was the first comprehensive examination on stage of the implications of increasing numbers of women professionals.
Tuesday, October 2, 2001
THE WAITING ROOM by Lisa Loomer / Directed by Ellen F. Locy
Time collapses and women from three different eras - and three different male-dominated societies - meet in a doctor's waiting room. The politics of medical care, the dignity of choice, and the link between physical oppression and psychological oppression make this dark comedy especially timely in light of our nation's confounding health care industry.
Tuesday, September 4, 2001
GUM by Karen Hartman / Directed by Lisa Lawrence Holland
Two sisters in a foreign, eerily familiar, yet vaguely sinister land share a forbidden pleasure, Gum! Join them on their journey from innocence to experience as they explore their emerging sexuality in a country where women are not allowed that freedom, a journey that exposes them to great tenderness and almost incomprehensible savagery at the hands of those who love them. With poetic beauty, Hartman challenges us to look beyond headlines directly into the glare of how women are treated around the globe.
The Echo Reads Salon Series kicked off in September of 2001.
Season 1 Play Readings produced by Echo Theatre Producing Partners...
Thursday, November 12,1998
TRUE WOMEN by Anne Charlotte Leffler Edgren / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
Part of the Playwright's Voice Reading Series
The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas
May 2, 1998
MARSINAH: A SONG FROM THE UNDERWORLD by Ratna Sarumpaet / Directed by Pam Myers-Morgan
A reading at Northaven United Methodist Church, Dallas