Time
September 20
8:00pm – 9:30pm

Location
The Other Change of Hobbit bookstore
3264 Adeline Street (two blocks south of Ashby BART)
Berkeley

This is a reading of the first act only of The Jade Stalk, a play in progress by David Scott Marley, based on the novel by Jonathan Fast.

The play takes place in seventh-century China and is based loosely on historical people and events. It’s a dark, sexy comedy about Empress Wu and a young, lowborn swindler she takes as her lover and elevates to high rank.

The first act contains a lot of frank sexual situations. This is just a reading, with actors standing and reading from the script, so there won’t be any actual nudity (unless the actors get really carried away). Still, you may not want to bring young children or anyone who would be shocked.

PLEASE EMAIL ME (David Scott Marley) if you’d like to come! Space is limited and I want to be sure to have a chair for you. You can send me a message through Facebook or email me at scratchings at mac dot com.

We’ll read through the first act, which I expect to take about 40 to 45 minutes. (If it takes longer than that, then I’ll know I have some trimming to do!) We’ll take a short break, and then I will invite you to share with me your reactions. I’m most interested in these things: what you enjoyed, what didn’t work for you, how you feel about the intermission being at this point in the story, and what you’re expecting to happen next. I expect that to take another half hour or so. We’ll probably be finished by 9:30 pm.

Later: The first act is running overlong, so if I haven’t trimmed it down to size by the day of the reading, it may take 50 to 60 minutes.

Readers (in order of speaking):

• LILAC/SINGING GIRL: Kelly Powers
• FISH SELLER/PINCH PURSE: George Arana
• HUAI-I, THE BOXER: Christopher P. Kelly
• THE KOREAN/FALSE BRUSH: Mark Hernandez
• PRINCESS CH’IEN-CHIN: Meghan Dibble
• PRINCESS T’AI-P’ING: Kelcey Poe
• HSÜEH SHAO: Wayne Wong
• EMPRESS DOWAGER WU: Arie Singer