It's Tuesday night. Do you know where your play is?

On this particular night, a playwright is having her work read aloud on stage by five people she has never met. This particular reading is the first step toward a national competition and the playwright lives in Tennessee. This is just another Tuesday night with The Brick Playhouse.

Tuesday nights are reserved for the "Inbetween Stage," a reading series in which a new playwright's work is read for an audience of fellow playwrights, actors, directors, theater professionals and whoever else wants to attend. Typically, the playwright is present for the reading and then receives feedback from the audience and performers.

	Brick Regular and Waitstaff head writer Carolyn West.  photo, courtesy of Waitstaff

It's the brainchild, in part, of Albert Benzwie, who ran a similar Tuesday night reading series at the Philadelphia Theater Center. An award for one-act plays is still presented by the Brick in Benzwie's honor. After his death, Linda Lough, one of the participants in the series, brought the concept of having a reading series to Brick founders Harris Eckstut, David Hutchman, and Louis Castelli. They had decided a year earlier to organize a theater company in a brick-face cabaret space on South Street. Promoting Philadelphia-area artists was the mission. Thus the Inbetween Stage was born, and local playwrights have been rejoicing ever since.

"As a writer, I would be lost without the Brick Playhouse," says Artistic Administrator Lindsay Harris, who adds, "You learn so much [here] about what really does and doesn't work for an audience." Even participating in the discussion of others' work has helped local playwright and Brick regular Richard Gary. "It's a dialogue about what is a play," Gary explains, adding, "I understand a little bit better after every good production [and] bad one, a little bit more about what this craft is and what playwriting is."

Until recently, a production arm called the Independent Theater Program had complemented the Inbetween Stage. Plays would go beyond development into full-blown production through this program, which came to be known as the "IT's". At the time, the IT's produced the only ten-minute play festival in town. "Now there are about a dozen," muses Executive Director Bill McKinlay.

Last year, a new owner bought the space used by the Brick. "For ten years we were down on South Street. We lost that last year," explains McKinlay, "Right now, our production programs are spread out over three separate theater spaces in the city." As a result, the IT's have been temporarily suspended. The Inbetween Stage still exists to nurture plays, but the increase in overhead resulting from not owning a space has rendered production costs prohibitive. Renting storage space, for instance, is costly.

This is a problem endemic to a lot of theater companies. "It really just doesn't pay for professional theaters to produce new playwrights. It's a lot easier if the work is public domain," points out Harris, who adds, "They tend to really stick to the stuff that they know is going to make money." As a result, most playwrights have to turn to independent theaters like the Brick for their work to see any sort of an audience. "Without places like the Brick," explains Harris, "there really is very little to no new theater."

For the up-and-coming playwright who wishes for his or her work to be read, the submission process is simple. Show up to a Tuesday night reading and participate. After that, Brick staffers will be happy to take a look at what you've got. Be warned, though, their perusal of your manuscript does not guarantee an on-stage reading. "We don't read [onstage] everything that people give us," explains McKinlay, "There are certain things that have to be in a script before it would be beneficial for it to go up on a Tuesday night. And if those aren't there, we'll go back to the writer and say that these are the things that we feel are missing."

In addition to playwrights, The Brick has proven to be fertile ground for new ensembles. Harris teamed up with fellow Brick regulars Mary Jones and Carolyn West to form a production company called "The Surface Tension Project," which will be performing at this year's Fringe Festival. Another Brick offshoot was a sketch comedy troupe called "The Dive," now better known as "The Waitstaff," for which West is head writer and performer. Brick Regular and Waitstaff head writer Carolyn West will perform at the Fringe Festival with her new company The Surface Tension Project.

Various other Brick programs nurture local talent. In the early days of the Brick, a program called "The Playground" had catered to performance artists. Explains McKinlay, "Two of the first six Barrymore Awards for an emerging playwright came specifically out of that program." During two weeks in February, the Brick puts on over 70 two-minute plays using over 100 theater artists for a festival called "Night of a Thousand Plays." Gary points out the advantage of the format, "You can have bigger risks. You know, things can fall flat on their face because two minutes later you've got another piece coming on."

Longer plays also fall within the scope of the Brick's agenda. For the past three years, the Brick has held contests to search for the best full length plays in the area. The Roger Cornish Award, named after the late, legendary Rutgers Theater professor who had been instrumental in the development of the Inbetween Stage, is presented to the playwright who penned the best, local full-length play. Nicholas Wardigo, whose play Editorial Decisions later earned its author fellowships from the Pew Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, was the 2003 winner.

Along with theater groups in several other cities, the Brick participates in the "GOT's," which stands for "Guaranteed Overnight Theater." A playwright, director, and actors meet on a Friday night and have 24 hours to write and produce a short play to be performed off-book (lines memorized) during the following night. Says Harris, "It's absolutely exhilarating to create something in 24 hours. Sleep deprivation is a powerful drug."

For 11 years' worth of Tuesday nights (and just about every other day of the week) the Brick has strived to serve the needs of local artists. In the future, McKinlay hopes to find a permanent space for the Brick, "where theater artists can come and play."

The Brick Playhouse's Inbetween stage is held every Tuesday night (except in August) at 7:30pm in the Mum Puppet Theater at 115 Arch Street. For more information, contact the Brick at (215) 592-1183 or e-mail them at admin@thebrickplayhouse.org or visit the website at www.thebrickplayhouse.org.

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