My cohort Van and I attended a reading last night at the Zipper Theater (336 W. 37th St), which is where the Roundtable's reading series takes place. Although I love readings, last night my primary goal was to check out a reading which was taking place on the set of the Zipper's new production Here Lies Jenny, starring Bebe Neuwirth. Since our readings are this Monday, June 7th and next Monday, June 14th, it was a good opportunity to watch another reading and make sure the props from Here Lies Jenny would not interfere with our reading or distract the audience. Aside from that, it's always a pleasure seeing the very awesome and accommodating folks at the Zipper, the lovely and talented casting director Caroline Sinclair and the phenomenal kid-casting director Kerry Lea.

As the reading began, it was a pleasant surprise to see some familiar faces on stage; a few of which who have participated in prior Roundtable readings and then a few who were simply familiar, such as Ron Rifkin.

Following the reading, we stopped in at a bar down the street only to bump into the Naked Angels/ Tuesdays @ 9 crowd, which is one of my favorite reading series in the city. Tuesdays @ 9 has cold readings of scenes and their premise is to have writers hear their new text read aloud by actors in a public forum. The unique and special aspect of Tuesdays @ 9 is the strong community which they have built made up of primarily creative writers and talented actors. So, we were fortunate to run into some of our friends from Tuesdays; actress Stephanie Brooke, actor Randy Ryan, Joe Hurley of the Irish Echo, and Joe Danisi of Tuesdays @ 9.

(www.nakedangels.com/tuesday.asp)