The Public Theatre is creating a PLAY Club, like a book club but members will read plays.

Every year when the season is planned, organizers read tons of great plays that never appear on stage (sometimes for the simple reason that the cast size is too big, according to a news release from the Lewiston-based theater.

Each month a play will be chosen and members will meet on Zoom to talk about it. Executive Artistic Director Christopher Schario will be the moderator and Professor Martin Andrucki of Bates College will provide insights and suggestions for discussion.

PLAY Club members will be responsible for acquiring and reading all scripts prior to each meeting. Those interested should sign up quickly as group size will be limited to ensure great conversations. If demand is high, organizers may consider adding a second group.

The first play to be discuss in October will be the Pulitzer Prize and 2012 TONY award winning play “Clybourne Park.”

Inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking 1959 play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” Clybourne Park is set in two different eras, with conversations happening in the same house 50 years apart. Act One takes place in 1959, when a white couple unknowingly sells their home to the first black family in the neighborhood (the same neighborhood mentioned in “A Raisin in the Sun”) and their neighbors want them to stop the sale. In Act Two, it’s 2009, and the same property is being bought by a young white couple, and the now predominantly African-American neighborhood battles to hold its ground in the face of gentrification. Excruciatingly funny, thought-provoking and squirm-inducing, there’s a reason this play won the Pulitzer Prize, according to the release.

Both “Clybourne Park” and “A Raisin in the Sun” are easily available for purchase online. It is not necessary to read “A Raisin in the Sun,” but club organizers suggest it. A synopsis of “Raisin in the Sun” to those who sign up for the club, will be provided.

At the end of the October meeting four plays for the remaining two sessions will be recommended. October meeting attendees will vote on which two plays we will read for January and March.

The meeting schedule:
• Wednesday, Oct. 28, 7 p.m. PLAY: “Clybourne Park” by Bruce Norris
• Wednesday, Jan. 27, 7 p.m., to be announced.
• Wednesday, March 24, 7 p.m., to be announced.

To reserve a spot, email info@thepublictheatre.org or call 207-782-3200.

For more information about the theater, visit thepublictheatre.org.

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