Reserve your tickets

Tickets for the Rootstock Reading Series are free and can be reserved by clicking HERE. Capacity is strictly limited.

Good Apples Collective is thrilled to be launching our inaugural Rootstock Reading Series as part of our company’s mission to create opportunities for emerging theatermakers of marginalized genders to collaborate professionally in New York City.

A rootstock is “a stem to which part of another plant is joined so that both parts can grow together” (Cambridge Dictionary). Good Apples is excited to be using our collective’s structures and resources to support the growth of other emerging artists and expand our orchard.

Performances will take place throughout the day on Sunday, October 6th at A.R.T./New York’s Spaces @ 520 (520 8th Avenue Suite 319, New York, NY 10018). Tickets are free and available via the link above. Each reading will run approximately 90 minutes with no intermission. There will be two-hour breaks between each of the day’s readings.

The three selected plays and their respective creative teams are:

  • Among the Coats, written by Noma Mirny and directed by Kenny Castro

  • I Am Malala Book Club Meeting on Sunday, November 12 2023, written by Mehrnaz Tiv and directed by Sabina Sethi Unni

  • The Morbs, written by Jen Diamond and directed by Britt Berke

schedule

12pm — Among the Coats
by Noma Mirny, directed by Kenny Castro

It’s the year of our lord and savior — 2003. It’s hot, dry, and deadly boring — Utah. Lee is a butch lesbian who's one hell of an actress and one nightmare of a waiter. When she gets cast in a non-Equity summer production, she flies down to Utah, excited to finally get work after coming out. There, she meets Jane, a Mormon kindergarten teacher who's fresh out of high school and freshly engaged to a man whose eyes she secretly imagines scooping out with grapefruit spoons. And she's just gotten her first gig as a seasonal acting apprentice. But when the two of them are cast in a regional production of the worst play you’ve ever seen, they are forced to replay the same scene of intimacy over & over again. And with a reckless director, a poorly written script, and lack of intimacy coordinator, the two of them begin to become attracted to one another — and all of a sudden, find themselves unable to perform the show.

4pm — I Am Malala Book Club Meeting on Sunday, November 12 2023
by Mehrnaz Tiv, directed by Sabina Sethi Unni

In Western Pennsylvania suburbia, a Sunday book club meeting at the local public library stumbles their way around discussing this week’s section of I Am Malala. Then the world ends. Through humor, Greek mythology, and an examination of who we are when no one is looking, this piece asks if our privilege in modern, mundane American culture is a blessing or a curse, and if suburban desire has consumed us beyond repair. This play examines suburban complicity, American consumerism, neoliberalism, white feminism, model minorities, and the tokenization of the marginalized.

7:30pm — The Morbs
by Jen Diamond, directed by Britt Berke

Tatum, Trish, and Wendy are best best BEST friends from college, but haven't stayed in touch during the five years since they graduated :( On their way home from a sorority homecoming weekend, they find themselves stuck in a cabin during an outbreak of a terrifying illness known as The Morbs. There's no running water, Harriet the cabin-owner is really creepy, and the snow is starting to pile up. Good thing the three girls know each other better than anyone... Right? A comedy-thriller about female friendship, cold soup, and the people we become.

content warnings

  • Sexual content, violence, homophobia, and domestic abuse.

  • Islamophobia, racism, homophobia, fatphobia, and gun violence.

  • Pandemics, violence, death, suicide, and sexual violence.

artist bios

Noma Mirny (Playwright, Among the Coats, they/them) is a Brooklyn-based playwright, actor, director, comedian, and beautiful bastard hailing from Boston, Mass. Noma received a multi-hyphenate theatrical training at NYU Tisch, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, while double-majoring in TV Writing in the Dramatic Writing department. Their writing has gone up at Playwrights Downtown, Broke People Play Festival, and Uproar Theatre Corps. As a director – Noma’s most recent work was Lowlands, which went up as part of their senior showcase at the Cabaret Theater. In addition to writing for theater, Noma has also written numerous scripts for TV & film! You can keep an eye out for more of their work @nomamirny, or on their website (nomamirny.com). Upcoming projects include a role in the New York City Children’s Theater workshop of The Pocket Park Kids on September 27th, and their scripted adaptation of Tillie Walden’s Eisner-award winning graphic novel Are You Listening? which will be running October 31st - November 2nd, under the direction of Sil Rivera. They’re so excited that Among The Coats was selected for the Rootstock Reading Series, and they can’t wait to dive into this collaboration with Good Apples Collective & the talented Kenny Castro! Let’s bite this apple.

Kenny Castro (Director, Among the Coats, they/them) is a Brooklyn based theatre director with Las Vegas sentiments. Originally from Sin City, you will see spectacle, grandeur, a little bit of silliness, and just the right amount of trashiness in all the art that they touch. Kenny has a BFA in drama from NYU Tisch where they studied theatre directing at Playwrights Horizons. Some of their recent credits include The Aliens (Director, Majestic Repertory Theatre), ASÍ (Director, The Tank NYC), The Tragedy of Macbeth (Director, PHTS) and Party in the SubOrbs (Associate Director), an immersive experience for the Life is Beautiful Music Festival in collaboration with arts production company, Meow Wolf. In addition to theatre, Kenny loves New York, gay people, cigarettes, diners, their friends, and everyone on earth. They are so excited to be working with Noma Mirny and Good Apples Collective, and hope you’ll say hello via Instagram or email :-) @kenny_cstro // kennycastro224@gmail.com

Mehrnaz Tiv (Playwright, I Am Malala…) makes character-driven, liberationist, and theatrically bold comedies fueled by experimentation and collaboration centering queer people of color. Recently, her play Squishy Emotional Insides was a 2024 Eugene O'Neill Playwright's Conference finalist. Their work has been developed with City Theatre, Asia Society, Noor Theatre, the Tank, Breaking and Entering Theatre Collaborative, and more. She is currently amember of the SWANA Writer’s Co-op at New York Theatre Workshop and TAG at the Tank.

Sabina Sethi Unni (Director, I Am Malala…) is a public theater artist, community organizer, and urban planner who tells funny stories about our changing climate in public spaces. She is the co-founder of Fresh Lime Soda, a contemporary South Asian political theater ensemble. She’s proudest of performing and directing in open spaces in every corner of the city: Hunts Point Riverside Park, 34th Avenue Open Street, Queens Botanical Garden, Qawah House, Washington Square Park, Newkirk Open Street, La Plaza Cultural, Lt. Frank McConnell Park, Rockaway Beach, Gowanus Dredgers Community Boathouse, PYO Chai, Edgemere Farm, Rockaway Community Park, 31st Avenue Open Street, PS Family NYC, & more… www.sabinasethiunni.com

Jen Diamond (Playwright, The Morbs) is a Brooklyn-based playwright, screenwriter, and very chill girl. She writes spooky, funny plays about friendship, girlhood, and the performance of self. Her work has been developed at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Baltimore Center Stage, Dixon Place, American Lives Theatre, The Tank, and others. Jen was recently awarded a Fall 2024 Woodward Residency. She has been a Finalist for the National Playwrights Conference and SPACE on Ryder Farm’s Come to the Table Residency, as well as a semi-finalist for the Terrence McNally Fellowship. Her original TV pilot, co-written with Pam Hugi, won the Austin Film Festival’s Warner Bros. Entertainment Pilot Award. Jen holds a BA in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University and a MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College. www.jen-diamond.com

Britt Berke (Director, The Morbs) is an NYC-based director whose work interrogates love, power, and how these entities are intertwined and revolutionized. Recent projects: the World Premiere of Betty Smith’s Becomes a Woman (Mint Theater Company - Outer Critics Circle Nomination for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play); watch me (NYTW Adelphi Residency); DOGS (Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep); Anne Carson’s Antigonick (Torn Out Theater); Springtime (Chautau-qua Theater Company); I Don’t Trust Adults (Joe’s Pub); Scenes with Girls (TheaterLab); and workshops with Mabou Mines, La MaMa, Cherry Lane, and November Theatre. Britt is an alumna of the Drama League Directors Project, Roundabout Directors Group, MTC Directing Fellowship, and Mercury Store Directing Intensive. BA, Barnard College of Columbia University. brittberke.com

additional finalists

Bedfellows
by Zoe Senese-Grossberg, directed by Maeve Hogan

Por Lo Que Soy
by Jordanna Hernandez, directed by Gregory Keng Strasser

The Blackpilled Synthesis
by Alex Beige, directed by BT Hayes

Mira and Dill
by Ally Merkel, directed by Abigail Holland

You Should Be So Lucky
by Alyssa Haddad-Chin, directed by Michelle Chan