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. Our group sits at tables with scripts in-hand and enacts dramatic characters for each other and our friends.

Readers Theatre is an open group of Riderwood residents who enjoy choosing plays together, working with directors to audition for roles and rehearse them, reading them with full vocal characterization, 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 first public performance was Under Milkwood by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.  It was performed on November 13 in the Riderwood chapel. Twelve Riderwood residents, each playing several roles, depicted a day in Welsh fishing village. 

In the winter, we’ll be presenting The Crucible, by Arthur Miller.  Our spring production will be The Madwoman of Chaillot, by Jean Giraudoux, with The Revlon Girl following in the summer.

We began Readers Theatre in the Fall of 2022. Our opening production was The Skin of Our Teeth, a comedy by Thornton Wilder, followed in February by The Mousetrap, an Agatha Christie mystery.  We produced Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler in May.

A volunteer Steering Committee together with an Artistic Director head the Readers Theatre group. They select the plays we are doing and determine our casting policy. We are committed to racial- and gender-flexible casting to ensure a broad choice of plays and maximum participation. Double-casting is another useful approach. After a short audition process we rehearse for two hours on Tuesday mornings in the Village Square Card Room before performing the play for other members.

Bruce McConachie is the Artistic Director.  Please contact Maggie Hayes, Chair of our Steering Committee, for more information or about joining the group.  She can be reached by email at ReadersTheatre@RiderwoodLife.com .

Curtain Call in the Card Room for The Mousetrap