The Pessimistic Play Reading Series

Name: The Pessimistic Play Reading Series
Start: 2025-10-16T18:30:00-06:00
Location: Bookin' It

Schedule

Thu, 16 Oct, 2025 at 06:30 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

Bookin' It | Casper, WY

The Pessimistic Play reading series. A Bookinit! and Boo-Hiss Productions collaboration.
Join us for Six FREE by-monthly play readings. Open to the public for listening or participating in. Perfect for actors and non actors of all types.
These plays will be performed out loud as a table read as collaborative effort of Boo Hiss productions and Bookinit! So come grab a friend, a cup of coffee, find a comfy seat, and enjoy a series of award winning plays read aloud.
A month before each play, a message will go out regarding available roles, how to pick up a script in advance, and further information. For more info about playing a part in the readings contact [email protected]
Dates and plays with descriptions are as follows: ( Note: all selections are for 17 years +)
October16th: An Adult evening with Shel Silverstein
An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein is a collection of ten darkly comic, short plays by the beloved children's author Shel Silverstein, first published in 2003. The plays feature his signature wordplay and whimsical style but explore adult themes like prostitution, homelessness, and violence, often with a sinister or explicit edge. The collection is intended for an adult audience and showcases the raunchy and sinister side of Silverstein's personality, using clever wordplay to expose the underbelly of American culture.
Dec 18th: A Long Christmas Ride Home by Paula Vogel

play about a dysfunctional American family's disastrous Christmas Eve road trip to the grandparents' house, which is revisited in the present through the use of Bunraku-style puppets and memory.
Feb 12th: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf- Edward Albee
History professor George and his boozy wife, Martha return late one Saturday night from a cocktail party at the home of the college president, Martha's father. Martha announces that she invited another couple, newly appointed instructor Nick and his timid wife, Honey over for a nightcap. When the younger couple arrive, the night erupts into a no-holds-barred torrent of marital angst and verbal tirades.
April 16th Top Girls: Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (1982) is a seminal play exploring women's success, sacrifice, and the complexities of feminism in the early Thatcher era. It opens with a surreal dinner party where Marlene, a newly promoted executive, hosts historical and fictional female figures, setting the stage for a nonlinear narrative that contrasts the lives of women in the 1980s with those from the past. The play questions the cost of ambition, the nature of female solidarity, and whether the gains of feminism have truly benefited all women.
June 18th:
Fat Pig is a 2004 play by American playwright Neil LaBute that explores themes of body image, societal pressure, and personal cowardice through the story of Tom, a man who falls for a plus-size woman named Helen. When Tom's shallow friends and co-workers mock Helen, he struggles to defend their relationship, forcing him to confront his own prejudices and the superficial standards of beauty. The play, which premiered off-Broadway in 2004, is a sharp critique of societal ideals and questions our ability to overcome personal biases.
August 13th: Evelyn in Purgatory-
A Breakfast Club for teachers!
When a complaint is filed against one of the 70,000 teachers in New York’s public schools, they’re sent to a Reassignment Center, one of a series of empty offices in the Department of Education Building. There, they sit and wait for their case to be reviewed. Usually for months. Sometimes for over a year.
A claim of improper behavior by a failing student lands Evelyn Reid in “the rubber room,” where she encounters a group of teachers, some guilty, some not, who have long since lost any hope of returning to a classroom.
Over the course of the school year, these colleagues form an unlikely alliance, reminding each other of forgotten passions, emerging to face life outside in unexpected new directions. They also learn French and workshop a screenplay.