Staged Readings 2016 Week 2

Mercy Killing
by Rikki Schwartz
Waterford, MI
Produced by Prime Stage Theatre

Mercy Killing examines a post-coital conversation, in which Abby reveals to her lover how the most damaging result of her adulterous choice (years earlier) was the forgiveness she received (from her then-husband).

Rikki Schwartz has had two of her original plays produced.

We Got This!
by Sheila Rinear
San Antonio, TX
Produced by Pittsburgh New Works

When Don finds Lenore reading a stack of cook books in his kitchen, he rails against more than Lenore’s invasion of his culinary territory.

Sheila Rinear, an award-winning, published playwright and screenwriter,  has had over forty-five of her plays produced. Her full-length stage plays, Women of Letters, Chasing the Blues, Mission Improbable, Calais, and Watch and Prey have all won competitions and been produced in San Antonio and Austin, TX; Norman and Tulsa, OK; and, Los Angeles, CA. Many of her short stage plays have won competitions and been produced in Texas and NYC.

Rinear worked as a Public School Theatre Arts teacher and won North East Independent School District’s Teacher of the Year Award as well as the Trinity University Prize for Teaching Excellence. She is the Austin-San Antonio Regional Rep for The Dramatists Guild of America. She is also a member of ScriptWorks, San Antonio Theater Coalition, and International Centre for Women Playwrights. For complete bio and résumé you may visit: www.sheilarinear.com

That Time at Black Lake
by Vicki Riba Koestler
Alexandria, VA
Produced by Retro Red Theatre Productions

It’s a tense Sunday morning at Amanda and Charles’s upscale Manhattan apartment. Amanda’s about to have a long-awaited meeting with her old camp bunkmate, Betsy. Amanda has something very important to tell Betsy, and she’s nervous. Charles reassures her that everything’s going to be alright….He’s wrong.

Vicki Riba Koestler’s full-length comedy We Gather Together was produced by The Chameleon Theatre Circle; her one-acts Googling Fin, Snedekker’s, Bad Move, and Minna Kwasnik’s Stupid Blouse have been staged in one-act showcases; and many other of her plays have had staged readings and placed in competitions. Her short play Orange Sunset was published in the volume Stage This! Too. Vicki’s personal essays have appeared in The New York Times, Child magazine, and New Jersey Monthly, among other places. She has also coauthored two books with self-help author Gary Null: Choosing Joy and The Baby Boomer’s Guide to Getting it Right the Second Time Around.

A native of New York City, Vicki now lives in the Washington, DC, area.