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Our 2026-2027 Season
Audition for Is It Love?
Readers Theatre invites residents to audition on December 15 for our second production, Is It Love? An Evening of One-Act Plays exploring the comedy and poignancy of human relationships. Auditions will be held in the LSC Classroom from 9:30 to noon. We will cast one female and one male in each of the four very short plays – American Gothic, It’s About Forgiveness, A Growing Problem, and The Sure Thing. A longer play, Wanda’s Visit, requires two females, one male, and a small part for either gender. Rehearsals will begin on January 5. We plan to welcome a full house for the performance on February 23. Contact the director, Maggie Hayes for additional information.
Our Most Recent Production
A full house in the Riderwood Chapel enjoyed Tales of Murder, Mystery and Stranger Things! on October 27, 2026.
Cast and crew: Karen Morrill, Bruce McConachie, Amy Greenwood, Jonathan Davidson ,
Thea Fine, David Downes, Joy Walton, Gigi Zapiain, Marcia Joiner, Ed Vilade, John Szabo,
Malca Giblin, Barbara O’Malley (director), and Paul Freirich.
And in the Spring….
Shakespeare’s Greatest! On March 16th, come spend an evening with some of the Bard’s greatest characters presented by retired professional actor (and Riderwood resident) Stephen Coleman. The one-hour program will include selections from Henry V, Hamlet, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, Macbeth, As You Like It, and The Merchant of Venice, and perhaps a few more.
The final play of the season will be Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, a politically charged drama with seven women in the cast. Audition on March 9 for two performances on May 15 and 16, directed by Bruce McConachie.
Other Dramatic Opportunities
In September of 2025 Readers Theatre sponsored seven sessions for reading aloud The Great Gatsby in celebration of its 100th anniversary. Without auditions or rehearsals, about two dozen residents participated, some of whom were then cast in 12 Angry Jurors. A short discussion followed each session, along with a party at the end.
On December 8, 2025, four Readers Theatre actors performed a dramatic reading of O. Henry’s short story, The Gift of the Magi, for a group of Arbor Ridge residents.
The week after the Tales of Murder production, some of our actors presented some of the scary stories and poems at Arbor Ridge.
All About Readers Theatre
Do you enjoy reading plays? Have you ever performed in live theatre? Maybe, like many folks our age, you’d like to play a role, but you’re afraid you’ll forget your lines. Not to worry. Readers Theatre is an open group of Riderwood residents who enjoy choosing plays, working with directors to audition for roles and rehearse them, performing them with full vocal characterization, and then discussing our productions. We hope that our subtitle for the group, “The Play’s the Thing” (borrowed from Hamlet), conveys the idea that we want to have some fun with our shows, even when we do serious drama.
Our History
We began Readers Theatre in the Fall of 2022. Our opening production was The Skin of Our Teeth, a comedy by Thornton Wilder, followed the next February by The Mousetrap, an Agatha Christie mystery. The third play we presented was Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler in May of 2023.
Our second season began with a public performance of Under Milkwood. Next we tackled Arthur Miller’s classic play, The Crucible, followed by Jean Giraudoux’s satirical comedy, The Madwoman of Chaillot. That summer we gave a public performance of The Revlon Girl, by Neil Anthony Docking.
For 2024-2025 we began with Continuity, by Bess Wohl, in another public performance. Our winter play was Appropriate, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. We put on Noël Coward’s Hay Fever in the spring, in Maryland Hall before an audience that enjoyed “high tea” during the intermission.
See above for a recap of the 2025-2026 season.
Where Are We Now?
Lately Readers Theatre has been performing in the Riderwood Chapel before a limited audience of invited guests, due to acoustic considerations. When practical, a performance may be open to the general public. For each play there’s a Tuesday morning audition to choose cast members. Then the cast rehearses for the following two months, usually on Tuesday mornings. As Readers Theatre has gained more experience, some of our directors have introduced blocking (having actors move about the stage), more elaborate costumes and props, and even a semblance of a stage set. But the actors always have their scripts in-hand!
A volunteer Steering Committee together with our Artistic Director head the Readers Theatre group. They select the plays we are doing, choose the directors, and determine our policies. We are committed to racial- and gender-flexible casting to ensure a broad choice of plays and maximum participation.
Please contact Bruce McConachie, Artistic Director,or Maggie Hayes, Steering Committee chair, for more information.