DEPOT Play Reading Series

The last Depot script reading of the 2018 season took place, not at the old barn-like structure at the Depot, but at the United Congregational Church in Norwich, Connecticut.  OIt was a joint venture with The Chelsea Players.

Jeanne Beckwith

The Rhode Island Chapter,by Jeanne Beckwith, is the story of New England vampire hysteria and certain  who have been given very long, but not eternal, life by a mutation in the tuberculosis bacterium.

The 200 and 300 year old characters insist that they are not vampires and do not kill anyone. “We just outlive them.” They use Facetime to communicate with others in their “chapter” of the Antiques Consortium.

The story is based on actual New England folklore. The humor comes from the situation and the dialogue, not from bunch of jokes laid over the action.

Faye Ringel & Greer Gilman

O Brave New World by Faye Ringel and Greer Gilman is a 10 minute play in Blank Verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). The 10 minute play looks at the founding of New London, Connecticut as an “academical colony”.

Influenced by Shakespeare’s Tempest, the lines of ten syllables are sometimes begun by one character and finished by anther. Sometimes a single line of 10 syllable verse starts with one person is picked up by another, and then finished by  the first character. Iambic Pentameter is not easy to read. The actors who did a cold reading were practically pitch perfect. Many people in the room were associated with the Flock Theatre that often performs Shakespeare. All of this held together as tight drama in terms of character, plot, and dialogue.