ENTERTAINMENT

New play ‘Newscaster’s Mother’ receives reading

BILL NUTT
CORRESPONDENT

Some writers may dislike the idea of someone looking over their shoulder while they work, but Morris County author Maryanne Melloan Woods is not one of them.

As a playwright, Woods’ work is meant to be experienced, not as words on a page read by a solitary person, but as dialogue spoken by actors in front of an audience.

“We writers hole up by ourselves and spin our little worlds, and we have no idea how good they are,” says Woods, a Drew University alumna who has also written for TV.

For that reason, Woods is grateful to any chance for the public to see her work interpreted by actors. “It’s invaluable,” she says.

Her current work-in-progress is a comedy called “The Newscaster’s Mother,” which will receive a free staged reading tonight at the Barn Theater on the campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University.

This staged reading is presented by Playwrights Theatre, based in Madison. Woods has been tapped to be one of almost a dozen writers in the theater’s New Jersey Emerging Women Playwrights (NJEWP) Project.

Over the course of more than a year, “The Newscast’s Mother” has received three roundtable readings by professional actors. Woods stresses that hearing her words spoken aloud is an important part of the playwriting process.

“When you have a good cast, as we always do, you realize that if something in the play doesn’t work, it’s going to need a rewrite,” Woods says.

Woods says she originally intended her play to be, as she put it, “a hard-hitting indictment of the media.” The story starts with a young broadcast journalist becoming involved in a scandal. To escape attention, the journalist goes to hide with his mother.

“I became more interested in the character of Joyce, the mother,” Wood says. “She says things most people only think. Two of her three children blame her for their problems, and to a certain extent, they’re right.”

The performers have also inspired Woods to adjust her script. “My training is comedy,” she says. “But these actors are so good that they’ve helped me go deeper into the characters.”

The staged reading in front of an audience will be enlightening in a different way, according to Woods. “At a roundtable, I learn from the actors. At the reading, I’ll get a lot from the audience. You find out very quickly if a play works, especially a comedy.”

“The Newscaster’s Mother” is one of several free staged readings that will be presented at the Barn Theater by Playwrights Theatre over the next two weeks.

On June 1 and 2, entrants in the theater’s Young Playwrights Festival will be read. Excerpts from its Adult Playwriting Workshop will be presented on June 4.

The next staged reading of a full play will be “Happy Yet?” by Joe Sutton on June 5. That will be followed on June 10 by “Midwives” by Suzanne Trauth, another member of the Playwrights Theatre’s NJEWP Project.

John Pietrowski, artistic director of Playwrights Theatre, says that providing these readings and roundtables is all part of the theater’s goal of nurturing playwrights.

“Our commitment is developing writers, as much as plays,” says Pietrowski, who will also take a role in the reading of “The Newscaster’s Mother.” “Poetry and prose can function without public feedback, but plays can’t. You need an audience.”

Pietrowski says is he particularly pleased by Woods, Trauth, and the other women in the NJEWP Project. “It’s very clear that the number of plays by women is nowhere near proportional to the number of women in the field,” he says.

“This project is an 18-month commitment to the writer,” he says. “We don’t require a finished product. It may be that we won’t do a full production of the play. What’s important is giving the writer the opportunity to develop the play.”

THE NEWSCASTER’S MOTHER

WHAT: Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey presents a free reading of “The Newscaster’s Mother,” a new comedy about secrets and family ties by Maryanne Melloan Woods. The reading is part of the theater’s New Jersey Emerging Women Playwrights Project. Following the reading, the audience will have the chance to offer feedback to the playwright and actors.

WHEN: 7 p.m. today

WHERE: Barn Theater at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Barn Theater, 285 Madison Ave., Madison

TICKETS: Free. Reservations strongly recommended

INFORMATION: 973-514-1787 or www.ptnj.org.