RACE - Staged Reading, Drama
by David Mamet
Producer: Kit Seidel
Directed by Sandra Renick
STAGED READING
RATING: R
RUNTIME: 120 minutes. + 15 Minute Intermission
ADMISSION: $10+ fees
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE: Purchase tickets for 3 Summer Staged Readings for only $20+ fees
Audience advisory: Race by David Mamet contains mature content, including explicit language, racial slurs, and frank discussions of race, sex, and power. The play is intentionally provocative and confrontational, designed to challenge perspectives and spark honest dialogue. It is not suitable for young audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
RACE is presented by special arrangement with Concord Theatricals servicing the Samuel French Inc. collection.
PERFORMANCES:
Friday, June 13 at 7:30
Saturday, June 14 at 7:30
"Scalpel-edged intelligence!" - The New York Times
CAST:
Susan - Brittany Faye Byrnes
Jack Lawson - Eric Madson
Charles Strickland - Michael Kocken
Henry Brown - Brian Maxwell
Narrator - Nicole McCarty
ABOUT THE SHOW:
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet pulls no punches in this incendiary drama that cuts to the heart of prejudice, privilege, and the tangled intersections of race and justice. When a wealthy white man is accused of assaulting a Black woman, two lawyers—one Black, one white—must navigate a legal and moral minefield. As tensions mount and a new legal assistant enters the fray, unspoken assumptions and simmering biases erupt into sharp, unfiltered confrontation. Provocative, fast-paced, and unflinchingly honest, Race is a gripping exploration of the lies we tell others—and the ones we tell ourselves.
Setting: Modern-day, New York City; primarily set in a law office with minimal set pieces for a staged reading.
WHAT CRITICS SAY:
"Mamet is most concerned with the power and treachery of language: a line of dialogue vital to the prosecution’s case is cynically rewritten by the defense. Mamet’s larger contention is that attempts to create a more equal and tolerant society have made race an unsayable word […] brilliantly contrives here a moment in which the single most taboo sexual expletive is ignored by an audience which then gasps at the word “black” […] Mamet remains American theatre’s most urgent five-letter word." - The Guardian
"Intellectually salacious […] Gripping […] Rapid-fire Mametian style […] Mamet’s new play argues, everything in America – and this play throws sex, rape, the law, employment and relationships into its 90 minutes of stage wrangling – is still about race." - Chicago Tribune