The REC throws the book at the Recession!
New company inaugurates with a reading series tackling today’s largest worry.

The Reader’s Ensemble Company presents four staged readings at
The University of the Streets
130 East 7th Street
New York City
$8 All Seats (check the website for discounts)
www.readersensemblecompany.org for reservation or further information.

Monday, July 20 at 7:00 p.m.:Press Cuttings by George Bernard Shaw, Laura Livingston, dir.
Monday, July 27 at 7:00 p.m.:The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giraudoux, J. Michaels, dir.
Tuesday, August 4 at 7:00 p.m.:He Who Gets Slapped by Leonid Andreyev, Erik Gratton, dir.
Monday, August 10 at 7:00 p.m.:Intimate Apparel by Lynn Notage, Leslie Guyton, dir.

New York – The Readers’ Ensemble Company (Justin Flagg & Dana Iannuzzi, producers) opens its doors in downtown Manhattan with “REC Summer Festival ’09,” a month-long series of fully staged readings of rarely performed works. Presented at the University of the Streets for its casual and accessible setting, each piece depicts part of the Recession Cycle: Greed, Collapse, Revolution, and Rebirth. The company’s goal is to reintegrate these forgotten masterpieces into the active dialogue on pop-culture and current events. In much the same way Encores! breathes life into forgotten musicals, REC plans to spotlight plays on the edge of obscurity and make them again worthy of production and discussion. A Q & A follows each performance.

The roster for 2009:
Monday, July 20 at 7:00 p.m.:Press Cuttings by George Bernard Shaw, Laura Livingston, dir.
This early 20th Century comedy pits a greedy general and prime minister against women’s rights activists, the fear of foreign invasion, the consequences of universal draft, the arms race, and a population that now takes democracy seriously!

Monday, July 27 at 7:00 p.m.:The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giraudoux, J. Michaels, dir.
Paris, 1945 or New York 2009 – hard to tell – as the city is overrun with bankers and financiers collapsing the economy for their own profit. The only ones left to save the world are the artists, tradesmen, and vagrants – led by an enigmatic “madwoman” whose plot might be crazy enough to work!

Tuesday, August 4 at 7:00 p.m.:He Who Gets Slapped by Leonid Andreyev, Erik Gratton, dir.
Paris, 1920. The lure of fame and the bitter aftertaste of celebrity are seen in this Russian revolutionary drama about a great scientist wronged by a larcenous financier. Eventually the scientist becomes nothing more than a circus attraction in which humiliation is his gimmick.

Monday, August 10 at 7:00 p.m.:Intimate Apparel by Lynn Notage, Leslie Guyton, dir.
NYC, 1905. Esther, a black seamstress, must choose between two suitors: a Caribbean man she knows only through letters and a Hasidic clothing merchant. Esther’s choice and what she does with her life because of it is the basis for this tale of rebirth – her own and that of the entire world.