Categories
New Virtual Event

The Barlow Award Readings are streaming in November!

This summer, Nora’s Playhouse and History Matters: Celebrating Women’s Plays of the Past collaborated online to produce virtual readings and talkbacks for the 2020 and 2021 winners of the The Judith Barlow Prize: Leah Barsanti’s The Almost Emperor of the Unofficial Deestrick of Lake Michigan and Gelaine Vestal’s The Shop.

Nora’s Playhouse Associate Artistic Director Amy S. Green directed the reading of The Shop, and Co-Literary Curator Sharon Friedman and Amy provided feedback and facilitated a full discussion of the plays after each of the readings. The cast of The Shop included Artistic Associate Barbara Drum Sullivan as Greta and Managing Director Rebecca Lovett reading Stage Directions.

We are happy to announce that these readings will be streaming on the History Matters YouTube channel for a limited time this November and both recordings will include the post-show discussion with the playwrights and Amy and Sharon.


November 3-6, 2021:
The Almost Emperor of the Unofficial Deestrick of Lake Michigan

Watch the Zoom reading of Leah Barsanti’s 2020 Barlow Award prize-winning play and a post-show discussion streaming on YouTube for a limited time only.

November 10-13, 2021:
The Shop

Watch the Zoom reading of Gelaine Vestal’s 2021 Barlow Award prize-winning play, and a post-show discussion will be streaming on YouTube for a limited time only.


The Judith Barlow Prize is awarded annually by History Matters to a student playwright for an exceptional one-act play inspired by the work of an historic female playwright. The student winner of the prize receives a $2,500 award and a reading of their work in New York City, with a $500 award to the participating professor of the course in which the inspiring play was taught.

Categories
Staged Readings

Announcing the 2020 Barlow Award-winning one-act play: Leah Barsanti’s “The Almost Emperor of the Unofficial Deestrick of Lake Michigan”

Nora’s Playhouse and our fellow women-in-theatre-focused nonprofit History Matters/Back to the Future are proud to present a staged reading of Leah Barsanti’s Judith Barlow Award-winning play: The Almost Emperor of the Unofficial Deestrick of Lake Michigan this April in NYC.

The Judith Barlow Prize is awarded by History Matters/Back to the The Future annually to a student playwright for an  exceptional one-act play inspired by the work of an historic female playwright. The student winner of the prize receives a $2,500 award and a reading of their work in New York City, with a $500 award to the participating professor of the course in which the inspiring play was taught. Leah Barsanti of Northwestern University was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and sponsored by Professor Roxane Heinze-Bradshaw.

This is Nora’s Playhouse’s first year collaborating with History Matters/Back to the The Future to produce a reading of the Barlow Award winning piece.

The reading will be held at 7:00pm on Monday, April 20, 2020 at the Episcopal Actors’ Guild (1 East 29th Street, NYC 10016). The reading will be followed by a talkback and a brief wine and cheese reception.

Tickets will soon be available.


The Judith Barlow Prize is named for Judith E. Barlow, Ph.D., a Professor Emeritus of English and Women’s Studies at the University of Albany, SUNY and editor of “Plays By American Women 1900-1930,” “Plays By American Women 1930-1960,” and “Women Writers of the Provincetown Playhouse.” Barlow is also the author of “Final Acts: The Creation of Three Late O’Neill Plays, as well as numerous essays on American Drama. 

Past recipients of the prize include Hannah Manikowski (2019) for earth’s most customer-centric company inspired by María Irene Fornés’s Fefu and Her Friends, Audrey Webb (2018) for The Only Hills We’ve Ever Had inspired by Lorraine Hanberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Kara Jobe (2017) for Leaf inspired by Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, Lindsay Adams (2016) for Her Own Devices inspired by Mary Chase’s Harvey, and Selina Fillinger (2015) for Three Landings and a Fire Escape inspired by Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal.

A national coalition of theater professionals with an entirely unique mission, History Matters/Back to the Future promotes the study and production of women playwrights of the past and their plays in colleges, universities, and theaters throughout the country and seeks engagement with those plays by contemporary playwrights.

“History Matters/Back to the Future performs a vital service to both the academic and and theatrical communities. We ensure that masterworks written by women playwrights of the past are routinely read and taught in colleges and universities and that the women who wrote them are held up as significant contributors to the art of playwriting.”

History Matters/Back to the Future Founder, Joan Vail Thorne

For more information on History Matters/Back to the Future or the Judith Barlow Prize, visit www.historymattersbacktothefuture.com.

Teachers interested in joining the One Play at a Time Initiative should visit www.historymattersbacktothefuture.com/programs/oneplayatatime.

Categories
Past Events Staged Readings

Detach with love… How the f*#* does a mother do that?

Next up for Nora’s Playhouse, a staged reading of

Ashes & Ink

by Martha Pichey
directed by Caroline Reddick Lawson

Monday, May 1, 2017 at 7 pm

Guild Hall
1 East 29th Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10016

Suggested Donation: $15

RSVP: reservations@norasplayhouse.org


Molly would do anything for her son, especially since the death of her husband. But trying to keep Quinn on track after he descended into addiction means she’s close to going off the rails herself. Now he’s just out of rehab with the chance to audition for a place at the world’s best drama school. Molly wants to trust him. She wants him well more than anything. But how does a mother move on and make room for new love when she’s consumed with the life of her son?


The cast for this ONE NIGHT ONLY reading will include Jessica Blank (The Exonerated, High Maintenance) as Molly, Stephen Dexter (The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Billions) as Quinn, Cynthia Enfield (Actress, Red Emma) as Bree, and Quentin Maré (Rock ‘n’ Roll, Coram Boy) as Leo.