"COMMUNAL TABLE" by Jenny Lyn Bader

COMMUNAL TABLE: Have you ever had to share a table in a café with the wrong people? On one summer afternoon in June, the day of the summer solstice, three characters end up at the same café table. Minna enjoys eavesdropping, but this time is different — this guy is getting so many things wrong, she may just need to interrupt. Gary loves meeting new people, but it looks like his latest flirtation is getting sabotaged. Allie has come here for some peace but she’s unlikely to find any here.

Written by Jenny Lyn Bader

Directed by Jonathan Cook

Performed by Elizabeth D. Moore as "Allie", Shelby Lauren Smith as "Minna", & Mickey Lay as "Gary".

Intro/Outro music: JK/47

About the writer: Jenny Lyn Bader is a playwright living in New York City. Her plays include Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library (Luna Stage) ("powerful and timely!"—Voice of America), Equally Divine (Theatre at the 14th St. Y), In Flight (Turn to Flesh Productions), and None of the Above (New Georges). One-acts include Worldness (Humana Festival of New American Plays), Miss America (NY Int’l Fringe Festival/”Best of Fringe” selection), Anniversary Season (Mona Bismarck Center, Paris), and My First Time (Voting Writes). A Harvard graduate, she has received the “Best Documentary One-Woman Show” Award (United Solo Fest); Athena Playwriting Fellowship; and the O’Neill Center’s Edith Oliver Award for a playwright who has, in the spirit of the late New Yorker critic, “a caustic wit that deflates the ego but does not unduly damage the human spirit.” For This Is Not a Theatre Company, she wrote Tree Confessions (w/ Kathleen Chalfant), which has streamed on five continents; International Local: 7 (Subway Plays app); co-authored Café Play (Cornelia St. Café) and Play in Your Bathtub 2.0, and wrote Guru of Touch (Edinburgh Festival Fringe). Her work has been published by Dramatists Play Service, Smith + Kraus, Applause, Vintage, W.W. Norton, The Lincoln Center Theater Review, Plays International + Europe, and The New York Times, where she served as a frequent contributor to the "Week in Review.” She has written commissioned scripts for Laura Ziskin Productions/WB Network, NBC Studios/NBC, and HBO, where she developed a pilot with Billy Crystal. A Harvard graduate, she has been a frequent contributor to the NY Times "Week in Review" and a Lark playwriting fellow, nominated by Wendy Wasserstein. She belongs to the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, the League of Professional Theatre Women, and Honor Roll.

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