Playwrights’ Theatre of East Hampton founded by Mitzi and Perry Pazer Present a Staged Reading of “Before Vinson”

LTV Studios and Playwrights’ Theatre of East Hampton series, founded in 1992 by Mitzi and Perry Pazer and now revived with their blessings by producer Josh Gladstone will host “Before Vinson” on Saturday, September 16 at 7:30 p.m. Written by Michael O’Day and produced by Josh Gladstone, Before Vinson is a companion piece to Arthur Miller’s Death of Salesman. Before Vinson was featured this June at the Valdez Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska. General admission tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door and can be purchased online at https://www.ltveh.org.

ABOUT PLAYWRIGHTS’ THEATRE

The Playwrights’ Theatre was founded in East Hampton in 1992 by producer and Springs resident Mitzi Pazer from The Roundabout Theatre Company along with her husband, attorney  Perry Pazer. They started the series at LTV where it operated every summer for 10 years before shifting to the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall for another ten seasons. Incredible stars took part: Eli Wallach & Anne Jackson, Judd Hirsch, Estelle Parsons, Dianne Wiest, Peter Boyle, Jack Klugman, Mercedes Ruehl, Tovah Feldshuh and Charles Durning among countless others. Playwright’s Theatre gave a chance for East Hampton audiences to meet and mingle with these luminaries in a relaxed setting where process and dialogue were encouraged with great talkbacks and informal garden receptions. The emphasis was on the written and spoken word, with playwrights being selected by Mitzi and afforded a remarkable, focused and hospitable workshop in which to hear and shape their developing plays. When Michael Clark invited the producer Josh Gladstone to join the team at LTV in early 2023, Gladstone reached out to the Pazers with an invitation and sure enough the Pazer’s responded, excited to see their legacy of 30 years reignited and reimagined for a new generation of East Hampton theater lovers and artists. LTV is proud to welcome The Playwrights’ Theatre back home to Studio 3 in Wainscott, where the work of the Pazers will continue, offering creative opportunities to theater-makers to develop their voices and imaginations throughout the year.

ABOUT BEFORE VINSON:

It’s early spring in 1949, and a young attorney named Bernard is about to argue his first case before the United States Supreme Court. As he makes his final preparations for oral argument, however, he learns that the outcome of the case will depend not upon his legal acumen, but on backyard tennis games, men’s fashion, breakfast pastries – and a certain traveling salesman who

lived next door when Bernard was growing up.

A companion piece to Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Before Vinson was featured this June at the Valdez Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska. Prior to that, it was workshopped by the Dead Playwrights Society and thru the Tuesdays at Nine reading program of the Naked Angels theatre company.

ABOUT MICHAEL O’DAY:

Michael C. O’Day is a theatre artist based in New York City. His work last appeared in the Hamptons at the John Drew Theatre, where his play The Tragedy of King John Falstaff was presented in a developmental workshop. King John Falstaff was also one of two of his plays, along with Wolf Crossing, named as a finalist in the Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries competition. He made his playwriting debut with Dragon’s Breath, which was produced as part of the 2014 New York International Fringe Festival. His full-length play An Arctic Confederate Christmas was featured at the 2022 Valdez Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska. Other short plays of his have been performed at the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, the Secret Theatre in Woodside, the Kraine Theater, the Core Artist Ensemble, and Boston University’s Stage Troupe. Also an actor, he was a company member of the Obie award-winning Classical Theatre of Harlem, appearing in eight of their productions as well as their installment of Suzan Lori-Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays at the Public Theater. He has served as co-Creative Director of Naked Angels’ Tuesdays at Nine cold reading series for the past four years.

ABOUT LTV STUDIOS

LTV provides a free-speech television and media platform to share all manner of public discourse, education and creative expression within our community and the world at large. LTV broadcasts live government meetings on CHANNEL 22 on cable in the town of East Hampton and via the live-stream on their website.