Off the Page Archive
Word for Word's Off the Page staged reading series has been our testing ground for new material. Here is an admittedly partial archive of stories that have been performed.
2023
January 23, 7pm
Raymond’s Run and Blues Ain’t No Mockin’ Bird, by Toni Cade Bambaras
Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe
at Z Below
Two from Bambara’s beloved 1972 collection, Gorilla My Love, feature the sassy and tough young Hazel – known to family and friends as Squeaky – as she defends her title as the fastest runner in her Harlem neighborhood, takes care of her big brother Raymond, and rails against the injustices of childhood.
Cast: Rotimi Agbabiaka, Kevin Clarke*, Norman Gee, Margo Hall*, Fannielee Lowe*, Paige Mayes*, Aejay Mitchell*, Aidaa Peerzada, Aaron Wilton*
*Member, AEA
February 13, 7pm
Cowboys and Angels and Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Miners by Chelsea Beiker.
Directed by Amy Kossow and Joel Mullennix
at Z Below
In Chelsea Bieker's short stories, the Central Valley of California shimmers at the edges with heat, desire, and desperation. Bieker offers an unsentimental view of the hardscrabble lives of the white working class in a less romanticized region of California.
Cast: Patrick Alparone*, Molly Benson+, Jim Cave+, Rosie Hallett*+, Delia MacDougall*+, Nancy Shelby*+, Ryan Tasker*+
*Member, AEA
+Word for Word Core Company Member
March 27, 7pm
Who’s Dead McCarthy and The Wintersong by Kevin Barry
Directed by Paul Finocchiaro
at The American Bookbinder’s Museum
Kevin Barry, a master storyteller, skillfully blends humor and pathos in these two stories: “Who’s Dead McCarthy” is a hilarious tale of a self-appointed messenger of death for his small Irish city. He sways one man to look to his own mortality for meaning. In “The Wintersongs,” two strangers travel by train to Dublin. One, a world-weary old busybody, cautions a younger woman whose life’s journey has just begun.
“I had to quit reading this book the first day I had it in my hands, just so I could have it to read the next day. It's that good."
—Richard Ford
Cast: John Flanagan*, Rosie Hallett*+, Stephanie Hunt*+, Joel Mullennix*†, Howard Swain*
*Member, AEA
+Word for Word Core Company Member
June 12, 7pm
“The Secret Source” by Ben Okri
Directed by Rotimi Agbabiaka
at The American Bookbinder’s Museum
Two young people discover that the water supply has been contaminated with something that is sapping the population’s ability to question those in authority and must evade smugly complacent scientists and hostile fellow citizens in their quest to find a source of true water. Learn more about this story in this author interview in New Yorker.
In the words of author Ben Okri, “the story is a slice of reality, a fable, a satire, a cautionary tale, an immaterial finger writing a warning on a wall, a cry in the dark, a good old-fashioned piece of speculative fiction in a tradition as old as ‘Candide’ or the Decameron, tales that we tell one another in the twilight of strange times.”
Cast: Kevin Clarke*, Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe*+, Gendell Hernández*+: Roommate, Sharon Shao, JoAnne Winter*+
*Member, AEA
+Word for Word Core Company Member
July 17, 7pm
“Come Softly to Me” by David Gilbert
Directed by Delia MacDougall
at Z Below
At a country home in the Berkshires, three sisters and their extended families come together, as they do every summer, to participate in a macabre ritual. “It came from a dream I had of this strange ceremony to honor their dead sister.” says author David Gilbert. Gilbert was struck by, “the sweetness of these sad girls and how their only true power over death was the power of repetition and remembrance.” Past, present and future meet in a generational story of love, loss and the power of the creative imagination to heal. Published in The New Yorker Oct 10, 2022.
Cast: Patty Silver*+, Nancy Shelby*+, Stephanie Hunt*+, Joel Mullennix*+, Gendell Hernandez*+, Molly Benson*+, Andre Amarotico*, Brigitte Losey, Amy Kossow*+
*Member, AEA
+Word for Word Core Company Member
October 30, 7pm
"How Fear Departed the Long Gallery" by E. F. Benson
Directed by Wendy Radford
at Z Below
For the Peverils, the appearance of a ghost in their ancient family home is no more upsetting than the appearance of the mailman at an ordinary house. They relish their dead relatives’ visits - except for the twin toddlers: to set eyes upon them means almost certain death. No one would dare be caught in the Long Gallery after dark...on purpose.
E.F. Benson’s “How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery,” first appeared in Windsor Magazine in 1911, was then published in his 1912 collection, The Room in the Tower and Other Stories, and was Benson’s own personal favorite of all his short tales.
Cast: Ryan Tasker*+, Patty Silver*+, Amy Kossow*+ ,Nancy Shelby*+, JoAnne Winter*+, Sheila Balter *+, Delia MacDougall *+
*Member, AEA
+Word for Word Core Company Member
December 11, 7pm
Field Notes by Brian Thorstenson.
Directed by Delia MacDougall and featuring Word for Word Core Company Members Rotimi Agbabiaka and Stephanie Hunt
at Z Below
A painting. A perch. The horizon line has disappeared. The man's traversing the painting. The woman surveying the expanse. Looking for the line. Until then they're both taking Field Notes.
*This is a special event featuring the work of Brian Thorstenson, a long time friend and collaborator of Word for Word. Thorstenson has repurposed this play specifically for this Off the Page.
Cast: Rotimi Agbabiaka*+, Stephanie Hunt*+
*Member, AEA
+Word for Word Core Company Member
