Theatre and Poetry to Take Center Stage at Munroe Saturday Nights

The following announcement was provided on behalf of the Munroe Center for the Arts.

The written and spoken word, as explored through plays and poetry, take center stage in the next Munroe Saturday Nights event, to be held at 7:30 p.m. this Sataurday, Dec. 8. 

Munroe’s acclaimed practice of offering staged readings of new plays will continue with the first of this season’s play reading series, which will encompass the first half of the Dec. 8 program. Works by Massachusetts playwrights Don Cohen, Melinda Lopez and Maxine Lopez-Keough, and Michael Towers will be presented.

Cohen, a Lexington resident who will also direct the evening’s plays, offers two compelling monologues, “Anne at Sixteen” and “Samson.” The Lopez duo offers us “Bad Santa,” a modern twist on the mythical meeting of Santa with a disillusioned young believer. In Towers’ “The Contender,” a high school teacher is confronted by his effect on a former student in a taut, two-person drama.

The second half of the evening will feature the Concord Academy Slam Poets Collaborative, a group of talented high school youth who have studied with Lexington’s Regie O’Hare Gibson (an internationally-acclaimed slam poet and performance artist) and with Concord Academy teacher and poet Cammy Thomas, who's also a Lexington resident.

The poets, Adam Sodano, Emerson Davis, Tyler Rost, Will Sodano, Valentina Gregg, Xiomara Contreras, Zora Jackson-Bartelmus, Gracie Mason-Brown, Jack Colton, and Callie Wadler will take the stage and present their original works to round out the evening.

Munroe Saturday Nights is a performing arts series for the Lexington and greater Boston community. Other events during this year’s season will feature medieval music, a capella vocal jazz, a look ‘inside the artist’s studio,’ and more staged readings of original plays. Performances are free to the public with donations gratefully accepted. Seating is limited. All events are held at the Munroe Center for the Arts, 1403 Massachusetts Ave., Lexington. Parking is available in the lot at the rear of the building or on the street. For reservations or further information, email: Saturdays@munroecenter.org. Please include the number in your party and plan to arrive by 7:10 p.m. to claim your reservation.