Category: Announcements

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Announcements Nora Salon Salon South Upcoming Events

Nora’s Salon South: “Back Porch Play” is January 15th!

After a bit of a hiatus, Nora’s Playhouse’s Salon South readings are BACK and we can’t wait to see all of y’all!

Our next gathering of Nora’s Salon South in Montgomery, Alabama will be January 15th! We hope you’ll join us for a glass of wine, friendly conversation, and informal reading of Back Porch Play by Adrian Lee Bush.

It appears to be sunset in a suburban neighborhood. We see a covered, open porch on a clapboard house with several empty rocking chairs on it. Ceiling fans are turning overhead.

Nora’s Salon South: Back Porch Play
by Adrian Lee Bush

Thursday, January 15th at 7pm
at The NewSouth Bookstore (105 S Court Street)
in Downtown Montgomery, AL

Maribelle Johnston is on her death bed and her four children have been called to her bedside to say their goodbyes. Will they all come as asked? Will they run out of time to say goodbye? And how will the urgency and their new life circumstances dredge up long-hidden family secrets?

Playwright Adrian Lee Bush is currently obtaining her MFA in Playwriting at Hollins University Playwright’s Lab. She has penned and staged nine full-length shows in Alabama, most of them plays with music. Adrian is also a director, dramaturg, performer, diploma-carrying intimacy choreographer, and certified actor combatant. She earned her BFA in Theatre Studies from Niagara University and spent eight thrilling years performing in Los Angeles, where she co-founded a nonprofit theatre company, Above the Curve, and performed with the Satin Dollz. Adrian is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA and the Dramatists Guild.

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SPACE IS LIMITED. RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED. Please email us at reservations@norasplayhouse.org with the subject “RSVP for 1/15 Salon South” to add your name to the guest list.

Suggested donation: $10

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Announcements

Congratulations to Martha Pichey on the NYC premiere of ASHES & INK!

Congratulations to Nora’s Playhouse collaborator Martha Pichey on the Off-Broadway premiere of her play Ashes & Ink, being presented by Paper Birch Productions at AMT Theater October 16-November 3, 2024. All of us at Nora’s Playhouse are so excited that New York audiences are getting chance to see this play!

The Nora’s Playhouse team first met Martha in April 2016 after reading her play submission, Ashes & Ink. Following some dramaturgy, discussions, and a developmental table read, we presented our first staged reading of the piece at the Episcopal Actors’ Guild in NYC in May 2017. A second staged reading followed at the debut of Nora’s Salon South at Mission House in Montgomery, Alabama in October 2018. We were enjoying working with Martha on the play’s continued development with an eye toward a full production in Alabama in 2020 when our plans–everyone’s plans–were interrupted by the pandemic. In September-October 2022, we were thrilled to finally bring Ashes & Ink to the stage in its world premiere production at The Sanctuary in Montgomery, Alabama.

Read on for Martha’s recollection of working with Nora’s Playhouse on her debut play:

Two years ago, something amazing happened: Nora’s Playhouse produced ASHES & INK, my first play. After a slew of readings and ‘development opportunities for emerging playwrights’, I’d just about given up on seeing it produced. So when it was chosen for Nora’s first production in Montgomery, Alabama, I was thrilled!

We had a reading there too, a reading with a big plan. It was wonderful way to meet so many people committed to the play. It was a successful money raiser, and the energy kept on building, thanks to Artistic Director (and the play’s director!) Caroline Reddick Lawson, along with an incredible team of dedicated Nora’s Playhouse members and supporters. Then came covid, and I thought, ‘Well, there goes that opportunity…” But that didn’t throw them. And in August of 2022, I found myself in Montgomery listening to actors read my words, learning their lines, and asking me incisive, challenging questions about character motivation.

What a gift for a new playwright who had never been produced before! Here was a development process with a deadline:  characters deepened, the story tightened. Some scenes lengthened and others went the way of ‘kill your darlings’. I loved getting to know Montgomery too, a city that was once the epicenter of America’s domestic slave trade. I came away feeling so strongly that every American should make a pilgrimage to this heartening, and heartbreaking, city. 

AND NOW? What makes this moment different from any other?!  

ASHES & INK is opening Off Broadway on October 16th!   And I would never be delivering this great news if it weren’t for Nora’s Playhouse believing in me from the start.

I owe my biggest and loudest THANK YOUS to this wonderful group of dedicated women.

Tickets to Paper Birch’s production of Ashes & Ink are available now at www.ashesandinktheplay.com. Use the promo code Sparrow35 for a discount. (Thanks for the code, Martha!)

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Announcements Nora Salon

Calling all NYC Women Playwrights!

We are now accepting submissions for NYC’s The Nora Salon!

The Nora Salon (TNS) in NYC is an opportunity for emerging women playwrights from diverse backgrounds and life experiences to hear their work read aloud in a casual setting. TNS is also an informal gathering of artists and Nora’s supporters who want an inside look at how plays get from page to stage and the opportunity to participate in the development process.

We welcome submissions of any genre and length for The Nora Salon provided they:

  1. Are by women playwrights in the NYC area,
  2. Centrally feature women’s stories and perspectives,
  3. Have not yet had a production.

Finished pieces and works-in-progress are both welcome.

In order to complete your submission, email your script attached as a pdf to Sharon Friedman at submissions@norasplayhouse.org. Please include a brief cover letter in the body of your email that contains the following information:

  • Your location (all playwrights will ideally live in the greater NYC metro area since the expectation is that they would attend the in-person reading),
  • Your brief bio,
  • A brief 150 to 200 word synopsis of the piece,
  • The estimated running time of your play,
  • and confirmation that your play has not yet been produced.

(For some answers to frequently asked questions about our salons, please visit the FAQs page on our website.)