OTA Reader's Theatre
A staged reading offers audiences a chance to experience a play in its purest form — through the spoken word. In this reader's theatre format, performers read from scripts rather than working from memory, allowing the focus to rest on language, character, and storytelling. With minimal movement and no elaborate sets or costumes, the imagination becomes the primary stage.
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This approach highlights the playwright’s voice and invites listeners to lean in, filling in the world of the play with their own creativity. Staged readings are often used to explore new works, revisit classics, or share stories in an intimate, accessible way. Today’s performance embraces that simplicity, celebrating the power of text, ensemble, and the shared act of listening.
Birth
Directed by Susan Fahlgren
This Mother's Day Weekend, join OTA in celebrating women's diverse birth stories through Karen Brody's play, BIRTH. With humor and passion, Brody gives voice to the stories of childbirth as told by mothers—an experience previously overlooked in theatre. Dr. Christiane Northrup, NYT bestselling author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, called BIRTH 'The Vagina Monologues for childbirth.' This year marks the 20th anniversary of the play BIRTH, which has been performed in cities around the world, raising greater awareness of childbirth issues. Join us in celebrating the deep power available to every woman giving birth!​
Runs May 8th - 10th
A Walk in the Woods
Directed by Cathy Dodd
Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, Lee Blessing’s A Walk in the Woods is an imagined version of real events with hints of the humor that’s characteristic of Blessing’s work. Between 1981 and 1984, American Paul Nitze and Russian Yuli Kvitsinsky met in the mountains along the Swiss and French border for unofficial negotiations to limit the nuclear weapons arsenals in the United States and Russia (then the Soviet Union). What followed was a political and diplomatic back and forth as both countries attempted to save face and emerge as dominant. Blessing’s two-man play is a sharp, engaging look at what might have transpired during those secret meetings in the woods. While the themes specific to the Cold War may not resonate as strongly today, audiences will still recognize the perspectives of the two men, and the play remains a viable launchpad for contemporary conversations.
Runs June 26th - 28th
Proof
Directed by Susan Fahlgren
Catherine has inherited her late father’s mathematical brilliance, but she is haunted by the fear that she might also share his debilitating mental illness. She has spent years caring for her now-deceased father, and upon his death, she feels left alone to pick up the pieces of her life without him. Caught between a new-found connection with Hal, one of her father’s former students, and the reappearance of her sister, Claire, Catherine finds both her world and her mind growing increasingly unstable. Then Hal discovers a groundbreaking proof among the 103 notebooks Catherine’s father left behind, and Catherine is forced to further question how much of her father’s genius or madness will she inherit. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, David Auburn’s Proof is a passionate, intelligent story about fathers and daughters, the nature of genius, and the power of love.
Runs August 14th - 16th
A Year of Magical Thinking
Directed by Cathy Dodd
“This happened on December 30, 2003. That may seem a while ago, but it won’t when it happens to you...”
In this dramatic adaptation of her award-winning, bestselling memoir, which The New York Times called “an indelible portrait of loss and grief... a haunting portrait of a four-decade-long marriage,” Joan Didion transforms the story of the sudden and unexpected loss of her husband and their only daughter into a stunning and powerful one-woman play.
Runs September 25th - 27th
