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Creative process takes shape with free dramatic readings at the Kimmel Center

See the creative process take shape before your very eyes.

See the creative process take shape before your very eyes.

Obie award-winning playwright Dael Orldandersmith is currently guiding seven local playwrights through collaborations that will take stage in Philadelphia in April. But for three nights only, you can attend a preview with dramatic readings from these upcoming works for free. Audiences are invited to attend these performances December 12- 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kimmel Center's SEI Innovation Studio.

Thursday night you will meet some avant-garde characters including a third-gendered Joan of Arc presented by Mary Tuonamen of the Philadelphia-based Applied Mechanics. The character was co-created with Aaron Cromie for fall's Fringe Arts Festival. You will also meet an outlaw celebrity that was autobiographically conceived by Otto Haas emerging artist award-winner James Ijames. Experimental, sound-based poetry by New York's Edwin Torres concludes the night with different character voices based on "dad."

Friday the 13th features new work from Obie award-winner Deb Margolin, a drama instructor at Yale University. Mary McCool, co-founder of the Philadelphia's New Paradise Laboratories theatre company, will then give a reading of a new original work.

Writer-actor-director-film producer Sheila Tousey, takes the stage on Saturday night, along with actor and director Brian Osborne of Delicious Vaudeville and Pig Iron Theater. To conclude the three-night event, audiences will hear a reading from Orlandersmith herself.

Orlandersmith's residency marks an exciting venture for the Kimmel Center as it now becomes a producer of new works. Through the intimate 200-seat black box of SEI Innovation Studio, local and national artists now have the opportunity and platform to give life to new ideas in Philadelphia. This weekend's free readings offer the rare opportunity for audience and artist engagement.