A set of readings featuring the cast from the play's original staging—Deborah Eisenberg, Larry Pine, and playwright Shawn. The work was last staged in New York City in 2013 at the Public Theater in its first revival, directed by André Gregory. Produced independently by Shawn, these reading builds off the direction of Gregory’s initial, and is co-directed by Lucas Kane.
Heavily inspired by Shawn's many trips to Nicaragua in the early nineties and his mid-life politicization, The Designated Mourner focuses on a familiar phase of capitalist accumulation: the descent into fascism. The play recounts the lives and dramas of a dissident poet-intellectual, his daughter, and her daughter's new lover. Slowly, and almost imperceptibly, the familial drama widens to include state violence, protests, and assassinations, until all three are inescapably embroiled in them, and each makes different decisions on where they stand.
* Jewish Currents Live, October 11th
* Brooklyn Mason Temple, October 21st
* Brooklyn Mason Temple, October 22nd
