The Spotlight Series presents a staged reading of Laurence Klavan’s Simprov, Tuesday March 11th at 7:00 on the third floor of Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancey Street, Philadelphia, PA. The reading is free and open to the public. The cast includes Barrymore Award Winners Mary Martello and Buck Schirner along with Brian Cowden and Katy O’Leary. The reading will be directed by Kevin Glaccum.

Simprov takes place in the not too distant future, where two actors bounce from night time drama, to on-line soap opera to live reenactments of whatever anyone is willing to pay them to do. One woman’s obsession with these performers threatens her marriage and her sanity! Simprov offers us a hilarious look at the new age of entertainment while pondering the question; What happens once we've lost the 'You' in 'YouTube'?

LAURENCE KLAVAN received two Drama Desk nominations for the book and lyrics to Bed and Sofa. It received two Obie Awards, and an Outer Critics Circle nomination for Best Musical, and was subsequently produced by the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, where it won two Barrymore Awards. Mr. Klavan has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and received commissions from the Actors Theater of Louisville, Vineyard Theater and the Wilma Theater, where he wrote the musical, Embarrassments, with composer Polly Pen. It was developed at the O'Neill Music Theater Conference and premiered at the Wilma in December, 2003.

The Spotlight Series is Azuka Theatre’s new play reading program. Every season two or three new works are read aloud by professional actors. Each reading is followed by a talk back session with the audience. Previous work read includes The Boys and An Artist’s Workshop, both of which were later given full productions by Azuka Theatre.