Centenary Stage Company’s Women Playwrights Series returns this spring with three brand-new play readings held on Wednesdays throughout April at 7:30 pm in the Sitnik Theatre of the Lackland Performing Arts Center at 715 Grand Avenue, Hackettstown, on the campus of Centenary University.

The readings are free to but donations are welcome and advanced reservations have a $5 fee. The readings will also be live streamed, free, through the Centenary Stage Company website. For more information, go to centenarystageco.org or call the Centenary Stage Company’s box office at (908) 979-0900. The 2021-22 Women Playwrights Series selections are:

“Apartment 3F” by Sarah Vander Schaaff. A tiny New York apartment is the scene for the collision of humans brought together by a bewildering and frightening circumstance. When a Chinese food delivery man is struck by a car outside Rebecca and Rob’s apartment, it sets off a sequence of events no one could have imagined. How they care for each other and respond in a time of need reveals the best and worst of our natures, with a touch of grace and humor to boot. It will be presented on Wednesday, April 13.

“The Buddha’s Wife” by Mary Poindexter McLaughlin. The lives of Princess Yasodhara and PhD candidate Diane Brewster interweave in spite of 2500 years separating them. This is a story of romantic love, of motherhood, and of dreams-on-hold, revealing the very real world of challenges and choices women face throughout time, alongside revelations of the deeper meaning of love and friendship. It will be presented on Wednesday, April 20.

“Off the Map” by Christine Foster, Denny and Claire have retired to the wilds of Central America, where they quickly discover that things are not as they were expecting, neither in their relationship, nor in their new property, where archaeologists discover a mysterious mound which will challenge all their beliefs about what is real and what is imagined. It will be presented on Wednesday, April 27.

Centenary Stage Company’s Women Playwrights Series has featured the work of more than 80 emerging playwrights. The program has also taken 19 plays to full production from the series. Led by program director Catherine Rust, the series offers playwrights the opportunity to work with professional actors and directors in a workshop rehearsal process, and to hear their work in front of a live audience – a critical part of the development process. Lively talkbacks with the playwright and cast follow each presentation, and one play is selected each year as the winner of the Susan Glaspell Award and receives a full production in the following main-stage season with CSC.

Playwright Kirschner Offers Insights

Playwright Ruth Kirschner will take questions after the April 1, 8 p.m., performance of her play “Whippoorwill.”

Centenary Stage Company is presenting the world premiere of “Whippoorwill” and invited Kirschner to speak to the audience.

Kirschner has been a finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, CulturalDC’s Source Festival, and the Humana Short Play Festival. Her one-act play Fifteen Notes was produced at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, directed by Curt Dempster. Other one-acts have been produced at L.A.’s West Coast Ensemble; the Actor’s Theatre of Santa Rosa; San Francisco’s Cutting Ball Theatre; The San Francisco Fringe Festival (2 Best Play Awards); SF’s Phoenix Theater; The Marin Fringe Festival (2 Best Play Awards).

Her full-length play Remember Me was part of Centenary Stage Company’s 2004 Women Playwrights Series. She was sponsored by the Marin Shakespeare Company to work weekly from February 2019 through January 2020 with incarcerated veterans and civilians at San Quentin State Prison for an improv and storytelling workshop. On December 16, 2021, the group performed The Field, Ruth’s full-length play based on their stories. The Field is nominated for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.