Renaissance Theaterworks is excited to kick off a new playwriting initiative called Brink! with the debuts of The Griots by Gwendolyn Rice and Janet Burroway’s Parts of Speech. Created by RTW’s Artistic Associate Mallory Metoxen, Brink! is dedicated to developing and advancing Midwestern female playwrights by giving women opportunities to push their works forward in a still strongly male-dominated playwrighting world. “We just really want to shrink the gap between the amount of published female and male playwrights. We still want to do the best plays we can find and not just confine ourselves to one gender or the other, but we are looking to even the playing field and help lessen the disparity,” says Metoxen.
Twenty-nine plays were submitted to Brink! from seven different states and all were reviewed by RTW’s Play Selection Committee, Metoxen, Co-founder and Artistic Director Suzan Fete and Producing Director Julie Swenson. About the chosen plays: The Griots is set in the 1930s and tells of a writer who travels to the South to interview ex-slaves as part of the WPA Writers’ Project; Parts of Speech is the story of Imogen and how she deals with the kidnapping of her journalist brother in the Middle East.
The staged readings will take place at the Broadway Theatre Center, Second Floor Cabaret, 158 N. Broadway; Rice’s at 7 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 18, and Burroway’s at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 19. For more information or to submit your play, call 414-273-0800 or visit r-t-w.com.
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■ Village Playhouse of Wauwatosa is staging a second installment of their Original One Act Play Festival, Aug. 8-24, at Inspiration Studios (1500 S. 73rd St.), which will premiere seven original scripts with unique casts, directors, sets and lighting designs for each. For tickets and more information, call 414-207-4879 or visit villageplayhouse.org.
■ Milwaukee Entertainment Group presents Dial M for Murder, a Frederick Knott play about Tony, a man who married his wife for her money and is trying to plan the perfect murder to cash in…now. Show runs Aug. 21-31 at The Brumder Mansion, 3046 W. Wisconsin Ave. For tickets and more information, call 414-388-9104 or visit milwaukeeentertainmentgroup.com.
■ American Players Theatre brings George Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma to its Up-the-Hill Theatre, Aug. 8-Oct. 3. The story concerns a doctor who has discovered the cure for tuberculosis and a woman who pleads with him to save her ailing husband. APT also presents Travesties, a tale of Henry Carr and his memories shared in a theatrical style similar to that of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, at Touchstone Theatre Aug. 10-Oct. 3. For tickets, call 608-588-2361 or visit americanplayers.org.
■ Peninsula Players will host the Midwest premiere of Richard Strand’s Butler, a sharp-witted Civil War drama about Union Major-General Benjamin Butler and Shepard Mallory, a runaway slave. Show runs Aug. 20-31, at 4351 Peninsula Players Road, Fish Creek. For tickets, call 920-868-3287 or visit peninsulaplayers.com.
■ The World’s Stage Theatre Company presents the Wisconsin premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar, Aug. 21-31, at Tenth Street Theatre (628 N. 10th St.). The provocative comedy follows four aspiring young novelists under the instruction of Leonard, who gives them private writing classes that cause some to thrive and others to flounder. For tickets, visit twstheatre.com.
