Reginald Edmund travels to Boston Playwrights' Theatre in Sister City Playwrights Exchange

Playwrights Foundation-led program connects new play centers in USA, Canada, and England

Two-time Many Voices Fellow Reginald Edmund will travel to Boston Playwrights' Theatre for a staged reading of his acclaimed play Southbridge. The project, organized through the Sister City Playwrights Exchange, is a partnership between the Playwrights' Center, Boston Playwrights' Theatre, and the Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco, CA, a center for new play development.

Currently under the leadership of Playwrights Foundation, the Sister City Playwrights Exchange swaps talented and under-recognized playwrights in several regions of the U.S. and in Canada and England. The program provides playwrights with play development opportunities and allows them to forge new relationships with writers, artists, and audiences of different regions. Edmund will receive a Frank Manley Roundtable Reading through the program, providing for travel, housing, actors, and a public reading of his play Southbridge. 

The second part of Edmund's City of the Bayou series, Southbridge takes place in the late 1800s. When a white widow is assaulted, an angry mob gathers at the door of a jail house screaming for the lynching of the accused, Christopher C. Davis. As Davis looks back on the events of his life, the truth of the story is untangled. Southbridge was a runner-up for the 2009 Lorraine Hansberry Award and the 2009 Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, winner of the 2010 Southern Playwrights Competition, and was recently developed in the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, the Black and Latino Theatre Conference, and by the Diversity Players of Harlem.

"Since becoming a Jerome Many Voices fellow in 2008, Reggie has become an important member of our Playwrights' Center family," said Producing Artistic Director Jeremy B. Cohen. "He's not only a whipsmart writer with a provocative new voice, but also works diligently towards ensuring a diversity of voices in the theater."

The reading will take place May 2 at 7 p.m. at Boston Playwrights' Theatre. Admission is free.

For more information about the Sister City Playwrights Exchange, please visit www.playwrightsfoundation.org.