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27 Nov
The Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts
Nov 27, 2017 | 7:00 PM-9:30 PM

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Play Reading: Veritas by Betty Shamieh

Please join us for a reading of Veritas, by Betty Shamieh, a play inspired by the true story of how Harvard accepted four Native American students in the 17th century. Veritas explores the lives of the students of John Eliot, a deeply radical preacher who was determined to keep colonists and Native Americans in the same classroom. Targeted as traitors by both their own tribes and the colonists, only one would live long enough to graduate in 1665. Veritas is a tale about affirmative action at an American college before America formally existed as a country.

An Actors’ Equity-approved reading, featuring Brandt Adams,* Doug Chitel,* Jonathan Christopher,* Darien LaBeach, Manfred Lion,* Sera-Lys McArthur, Megan O'Leary,* Rick Schnieder, and John-Paul Steward.* Director: Janet Bobcean. Stage Manager: Derek Bado. The reading has been organized in conjunction with the Producing Artistic Director of the Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company, Joseph W. Rodriguez. This is the fifth installment in Playhouse Creature’s Fall 2017 Women’s Playwright Series. Veritas is free and open to the public. With an introduction by Gallatin faculty member Julie Malnig, the event will also include a talkback with playwright Betty Shamieh and Gallatin faculty member Kristin Horton after the reading.

Betty Shamieh is the author of fifteen plays. Her off-Broadway premieres include The Black Eyed (New York Theatre Workshop, Director: Sam Gold) and Roar (The New Group, Director: Marion McClinton), which was selected as a New York Times Critics Pick. In 2016, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Drama and Performance Art. She is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, was selected as a winner of The Playwrights' Center’s McKnight National Residency and Commission, and was named a UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue in 2011. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, Shamieh was awarded an NEA/TCG grant to be a playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre. She was selected as a Clifton Visiting Artist at Harvard in 2004 and named as a Playwriting Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies in 2006. She has taught playwriting at Columbia/Barnard, Denison College, and Marymount Manhattan College and is a member of New Dramatists.

* Denotes Member of Actors' Equity Association