When it comes to choosing plays to perform each season, members of Silverthorne Theater Company’s season selection committee have their work cut out for them.
The committee considered 40 submissions before selecting the four plays that have been incorporated into the 2019 season.
“We get new plays sent to us all the time,” said Silverthorne’s Artistic Director Lucinda Kidder. “I guess we’re getting a name on the playwright circuit!”
Because of the overwhelming number of submissions, Silverthorne is launching a new play reading series called Theater Thursdays, which kicks off March 21 with a reading of “Mother, May I” by Dylan Brody, a popular humorist and Northfield Mount Hermon School alumnus.
“We had several directors who we were not able to hire for our upcoming season, but we’d like to keep them busy!” Kidder explained.
The readings, which are free for the public to attend, will not involve any planned movement by the actors or any props. Instead, the actors and actresses, who are selected by the directors themselves, will read their lines from their positions at music stands. The directors will narrate any action.
Kidder said those who participate in play readings often don’t have the time for full productions, but still want to be involved in theater. The actors and actresses also must rely even more heavily on their voices than their counterparts in full productions.
“Shakespeare used to talk about hearing a play, and that’s exactly what happens with something like this,” Kidder explained. “It’s the actors’ voices that really matter because there’s not that much visually going on. … It takes a lot of audience concentration because listening to the play, you’re not getting the visual cues.”
Silverthorne has scheduled six play readings through October, with the plays being chosen from about 20 submissions. Kidder said she hopes the series will “expose people to a new world of theater.”
“(Our audiences) get to hear many more plays than what we can afford to produce,” she said of the play reading series. “But it also gives them some insight into what we’re looking at when we’re considering plays.”
She added that Silverthorne especially supports plays that spark conversation, posing questions without necessarily answering them.
“All of these are intended to spark discussion,” Kidder said. “We hope people will stay after and really think about what they’ve heard.”
While providing playwrights with a platform to showcase their new work, the series also allows them to get feedback from their audiences. Perhaps in the process, Kidder said, Silverthorne will discover a play that is particularly beloved and that the theater company will consider producing in future seasons.
The current Theater Thursdays schedule is as follows:
■“Mother, May I” by Dylan Brody — March 21, 7 p.m. at 12 Federal St., Greenfield.
Directed by David Rowland of Gill, “Mother, May I” is a witty tale of intergenerational misunderstanding. A well-off, older Boston couple named Ellen and Paul Grunman spend most of their son Daniel’s rare visit home failing to discover the truth about his life in Los Angeles. They are equally obtuse about their grown daughter’s dreams and sexual preferences.
■“Sandwich” by Steve Henderson — April 18, 7 p.m. at 170 Main St., Greenfield.
Brianna Sloane directs this story of three women from three different generations and with different problems, who all live in one house. The combination proves to be a recipe for flying sparks.
■“Restoration Room” by Harley Erdman — May 16, 7 p.m. in the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Theater Department Room 204, located within the Fine Arts Center.
Two academics, each married to someone else, struggle to resist the power of their mutual intellectual and physical attraction in this play directed by Chris Rohmann of Northampton.
■“Dear Galileo” by Claire Willett — June 13, 7 p.m. at 170 Main St., Greenfield.
Three women in three different times wrestle with their identity, the conflict between science and religion, and what it means to be their fathers’ daughters in this play directed by Rebecca Daniels of Turners Falls. As the three stories move toward their point of convergence, the destinies of each become inextricably bound with the others.
■“Campus Unrest” by Talya Kingston — Sept. 12, 7 p.m. The location has not yet been determined.
Director Trenda Loftin oversees this play about an interracial British academic couple who recently arrived on the campus of a troubled American college and have some complex choices ahead of them.
■“Veritas” by Betty Shamieh — Sunday, Oct. 13, 3 p.m. at the Deerfield Community Center, 16 Memorial St., Deerfield.
In the 1660s, Harvard College’s governors insisted that Native American youths be trained as Christian ministers who could convert their tribes to Christianity. This play explores the lives of the first four early converts (played by local Native Americans) and the attitudes toward them at the time.
“Veritas” is being held in conjunction with Silverthorne’s production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” starting Oct. 17, with Kidder explaining that the two plays involve the same concepts of religious intolerance and persecution. “Veritas” will be followed by a discussion led by historians and local Native Americans.