A reading of “Apartment 3F” by Sarah Vander Schaaff will kick of the Centenary Stage Company Women’s Playwrights Series on Wednesday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Sitnik Theatre of the Lackland Performing Arts Center at 715 Grand Avenue, Hackettstown.

Women’s Playwright Series readings are free to attend with donations welcome. Advanced reservations are taken with a $5 fee. The readings will also be live streamed, free of charge, 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.

Sarah Vander Schaaff (photo above; credit Kapu Patel), a playwright and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in many national outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post, where she writes about issues affecting women’s health, children, parents, and Gen X. Recent plays include “Sustain Me,” produced by the Ground and Field Festival; “Daughters of the Amendment,” a second-round finalist at The Austin Film Festival stage play competition, and “Balls in the Game,” part of the Mid-Atlantic Theater Conference Fringe Festival in Chicago. She has a B.S. from Northwestern University and MFA from University of Alabama/Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Her “The Whitman Project,” will be workshopped this summer.

She lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, with her two teenaged daughters and husband. For more information go to: www.writeonsarah.com

“Apartment 3F” is set in a tiny New York apartment which becomes 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.

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 Women Playwrights 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. 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.

The box office is open Monday through Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. and two hours prior to all performances. This event is part of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance 2022 Stages Festival, made possible by support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts; Bank of America; The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey; OceanFirst Foundation; New Jersey Historical Commission. www.njtheatrealliance.org/stages.

Centenary Stage Company remains committed to the health and safety of our community and adheres to all requirements set forth by the State of New Jersey. For more information regarding CSC COVID-19 policies and policy updates, visit centenarystageco.org/faq.