The Roaring Quill

The Awakenings Reading Series

August 1-3, 2025
The Studio Theatre at 520 8th Avenue

Exhibit by Regina Taylor
Friday, August 1 at 8pm

Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit Broadway Advocacy Coalition

EXHIBIT is a powerful exploration of erasure, memory, and the battle to preserve history. At the center of the story is Iris, an African American artist whose work is being removed from museums and whose biography is vanishing from databases. Faced with the threat of cultural erasure, Iris is triggered to recall fragments of her own martyred childhood—memories of integrating a school during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

These flashbacks are windows into a sharply divided America, a nation at a crossroads—caught between progress and regression. Iris grapples with the haunting question: Are we moving forward, or are we moving backward?

Regina Taylor (Playwright/Director Exhibit) Actress/director/playwright/educator/activist. TV credits include: Taylor in her TV role as Lily Harper in "I'll Fly Away” received a Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actress, 3 NAACP Image Awards and 2 Emmy Award nominations. Taylor was first African American lead in Masterpiece Theatre’s "Cora Unashamed”, starred as Anita Hill in HBO’’s “Strange Justice” (Gracie Award), “A Good Day to Die” (Sidney Poitier), “The Unit”, “CSI Vegas", “Justified”, “First Lady”, “Love Craft Country” and “The Wonder Years”. Film credits include: "The Negotiator,” (Samuel Jackson), "Courage Under Fire,” (Denzel Washington),” Clockers,” (Spike Lee), “Losing Isaiah” (Halle Berry) "Lean on Me”, (Morgan Freeman) among others. Taylor was the first Black woman to play Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" on Broadway. Playwright credits include: “Crowns” (Helen Hayes award Best Director), "Oo-Bla-Dee,"(Jeff Award, Steinberg-ATCA award) and "Drowning Crow," (Broadway, MTC), “The Trinity River Plays” (Edgerton Award) and “stop.reset” (Signature Theater Residency Five), Bread” (Edgerton Award), “Magnolia” and “The Ties That Bind” (Goodman Theater). www.thereginataylor.com

Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit Broadway Advocacy Coalition, an arts-based advocacy nonprofit that uses storytelling and the arts to drive systemic change, particularly around issues of racial justice and the criminal legal system. BAC brings together artists, advocates, and legal experts to address issues of systemic racism and injustice through various initiatives.

Still All Told by Erik Ehn
A Benefit for City Harvest
Saturday, August 2 at 8pm

Purchase tickets here

Still All Told centers around a woman who is in and out of homelessness. Her daughter looks for (and sometimes finds) her while going through the struggle of being on and off her psych meds. Contemporary Albuquerque.

All proceeds from ticket sales will benefit City Harvest, a local nonprofit whose commitment to rescuing fresh produce and delivering it for free to help feed New Yorkers across the five boroughs experiencing food insecurity speaks loudly to the themes in the play.

Erik Ehn (Playwright) Work includes The Saint Plays, Soulography, Beginner, Vireo (w/ composer Lisa Bielawa). Founder & former Co-Artistic Director, Tenderloin Opera Company; Graduate, New Dramatists; Graduate, Jesuit School of Theology, (MTS). Currently Professor of Practice, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Glory Kadigan (Director) is known for directing Vivian’s Music 1969 (Helen Hayes-nominated, 59E59, Edinburgh Fringe, DC transfer), and multiple premieres at La MaMa including The Weak and The Strong and Clover by Erik Ehn. Other credits include Bank by Lucy Thurber (14th Street Y- PFAC), Biting the Bullet by Regina Taylor (The Atlantic -PFAC), and St. Anne’s Soup by Israel Horovitz with Oscar winner Melissa Leo (CSC). She directed Neil LaBute's Over the River and Through the Woods (Signature Theatre, NYC - PFAC) with Estelle Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger, and other LaBute works at Gloria Maddox Theater. Additional credits span Guild Hall, NY Theatre Workshop, The Brick, Esplanade Theatre (Singapore), and HERE. Kadigan is an alum of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, La MaMa Symposium, and Labyrinth’s Master Class. She received a Meritorious Achievement Award in Direction from the Kennedy Center and is a member of the Actors Studio PDW.

Trip of a Lifetime by Catherine Filloux
Sunday, August 3 at 2pm

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Trip of a Lifetime - Accompanied by her ceremonial anthem, the Second Lady hides beneath the veneer of diplomacy and white blouses, while a deeper truth flickers, one that resists containment. In muscular, spiraling monologues, she veers between rehearsed compassion and imaginative rationalizations as she navigates topics of immigration, war, addiction, identity, and sexual misconduct. All the while, insisting on the kindness, decorum, and sanctity of her family. As she omits and distorts, we watch her unravel in abstract performance, not always certain of who is her ultimate choreographer. Filloux’s play illuminates how truth may not always be determined by fact or reality but could instead be engineered out of language and the need for ascension. Trip of a Lifetime is a lyrically blistering meditation--an urgent and captivating mirror of our present

Catherine Filloux (Playwright) is an award-winning French Algerian American playwright and librettist, who has been writing about human rights for decades. Her plays and operas have been produced nationally and internationally. Filloux’s new epistolary play “Third Person” opens soon at CultureHub, and “Orlando” will be at the Opera Komische Berlin. Her musical “Welcome to the Big Dipper” (composer Jimmy Roberts) premiered Off-Broadway at the York Theatre, and her play “How to Eat an Orange” premiered at La MaMa. Catherine’s new play “White Savior” was nominated for The Venturous Play List and is the story about two U.S. sisters set now in 2025. www.catherinefilloux.com

Arpita Mukherjee (Director) is an NYC-based, award-winning writer and director and the co-founder and Artistic Director of Hypokrit. Recent film credits include: director for the short film Running (Best Short Film - Chicago South Asian Film Festival); co-writer feature film Gulmohar on Hulu and Hotstar (Filmfare Best Screenplay Award, National Award); short film The Cycle ( in film festival circuit); and projects for SWIIP, AMC, Sony, and Netflix. Theatre directing highlights include: The Kite Runner (Broadway); Bollywood Kitchen (Geffen Playhouse); House of Joy (San Diego Rep), and Eh Dah: Questions for my Father (New York Theatre Workshop). Arpita is the co-book writer of Monsoon Wedding, The Musical (St. Ann’s Warehouse)

Someone Should Start by Kelsey Puttrich and Your Name Means Dream by José Rivera
A Benefit for Girls Write Now
Sunday, August 3

Both performances run consecutively with an hour break. Tickets may purchased together or separately.

Purchase tickets here

4pm

Someone Should Start is an absurdist comedy with a beating heart. In a riotous and raunchy first scene, we meet a group of friends in New York City desperately seeking connection. At the fringes is Marv, awkward, earnest, painfully sincere, and hopelessly in love with Karen, a kind soul who would rather blend into the wallpaper than be seen for who she really is. Although everyone hates Marv, Karen likes him…and she’s not sure why.

What follows is a time-hopping, emotional journey through sex, spirals, self-discovery, and the masks we wear (and sometimes glue on). By embracing the ridiculous and the raw while pushing experimental form, Someone Should Start unpacks what it means to be seen, heard, and absurdly, excruciatingly human.

7pm

Your Name Means Dream takes us to the 2050s. Álom, a hoarder and shut-in, elderly and trapped in the past. His ramshackle home is a visual metaphor for his loneliness and melancholy. Into this messy world comes a super-advanced AI entity named Stacy with abilities beyond anything Álom can imagine. Stacy's job is to keep Álom alive and healthy. As Stacy says, "All this must seem like magic to you."

Kelsey Puttrich (Playwright) is a playwright and actor based in New York City. As a first-year member of The Actor’s Studio PDW Unit, Kelsey spent the last year developing this piece. Her other works include Saddled, The Itch (currently in production at The Studio Players in Lexington, KY), Ripe for the Taking, I Can’t See You Clearly (Clementine Players), AFI’s Top 100 (The Chain Theatre), And They Lived Beneath the Waves (In Death’s Company), and Start Video (Playdate Theatre’s “Screen-Play” Festival). Her short films include Ellipses (third place at New York’s 48 Hour Film Festival) and The Master of Secrets (finalist in the “Yes We Cannes” Festival). Her most recent short film, Warm/Fuzzy, will screen in New York this month as a finalist of the Organization of Independent Filmmakers’ Festival. She has been a part of the acclaimed Naked Angels community, and has workshopped and developed a full-length play, 4 essays, and six one-acts in her two years there. www.KelseyPuttrich.com

José Rivera’s (Playwright/Director) plays Marisol (Obie Award), References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot (Obie Award), Cloud Tectonics, Massacre (Sing to Your Children), Boleros for the Disenchanted, Another Word for Beauty, Sueño, Sonnets for an Old Century, School of the Americas, Brainpeople, Adoration of the Old Woman, The House of Ramon Iglesia, Each Day Dies with Sleep, Lovesong (Imperfect), The Hours are Feminine, Your Name Means Dream, and A Lunar Rhapsody have been produced around the country and translated into a dozen languages. “The Motorcycle Diaries” was nominated for 2005 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar -- making him the first Puerto Rican writer so honored. Other honors include a BAFTA, a Writers Guild Award, and a Goya Award (Spain). Other films include “On the Road” (2012 Cannes Film Festival), “Trade” (the first film to premiere at the United Nations), “The 33” and “Letters to Juliet.” Rivera wrote and directed the award-winning short films “The Fall of a Sparrow” and “The Civet,” co-created and produced “Eerie, Indiana” (NBC), and was a consultant and staff writer on “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels” (Showtime) 2019. He is currently working on a remake of “La Bamba,” and a film about the Molina baseball family from Puerto Rico. He was the head writer of all 16 episodes of the Netflix series based on One Hundred Years of Solitude, which the London Telegraph called “a spellbinding adaptation of an unfilmable novel.” www.broadwayplaypublishing.com/authors/jose-rivera

All proceeds from ticket sales will benefit Girls Write Now, a local nonprofit that encourages young women and gender-expansive youth through mentorship in writing and creative expression. They connect young writers to their own voices through meaningful relationships with professional female writers.