Play Reading of
SAUCE
By Ciara Elizabeth Smyth
Directed by John King
WHEN: Saturday, August 17th, 2024 at 3:00pm
WHERE: St. Thomas’ Parish (1517 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20036)
PRICE: Free, donations welcome
This play reading event is currently SOLD OUT, but reservations are available for the waitlist on eventbrite.
'SAUCE will break your heart with a gorgeous vulnerability, while having you smirking at the cleverness of it all and laughing out loud' - The Arts Review
'A really funny show... delights in innuendo and provokes hysterics' - Irish Times
Sauce delves into the lives of friendless Mella - a compulsive liar - and Maura, a kleptomaniac. Recently out of controlling relationships, they are thrust into uneasy freedom. Can they overcome their flaws together to avoid dying alone? Or will their compulsions engulf them in the end?
A play about death and rebirth, Ciara Elizabeth Smyth's Sauce was first staged at Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin, in 2019 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, and revived there in 2022.
Ciara Elizabeth Smyth is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her plays have been presented by the Abbey Theatre, Fishamble, Dublin Fringe Festival, The Lyric Theatre, Belfast, the Project Arts Centre and the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.
She is currently under commission with Prime Cut Productions, Gúna Nua, and the Abbey Theatre for theatre projects and Chapter One, Buccaneer Media and Maia Pictures for television projects. Her most recent play, LIE LOW (Winner Best Theatre Script 2023 Writers Guild of Ireland, First Finalist BBC Writers Room Popcorn Award 2023) was presented in the Traverse Theatre as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023 and will tour in 2024/25, starting with the Royal Court.
Ciara’s debut short film, SLAY + PREPARE, is due to premiere in 2024. She is also developing her debut feature film with support from Short Circuit.
John King is a theatre artist based in Dublin, working between the US, UK and Ireland. As director of Murmuration, he has made the headphone shows One Moment Now (Dublin, Washington D.C., Philadelphia), You’re Still Here (a Dublin Fringe commission, co-presented by the Abbey Theatre at Dublin Castle), Will I See You There (Dublin Fringe), and Summertime (Dublin Fringe, Drogheda Arts Festival, Abbey Young Curators' Festival). John is currently a Resident Director at the Abbey Theatre, a company member of Solas Nua, and an Associate Artist of thisispopbaby. He holds a MA in 'Text and Performance' from RADA and Birkbeck, and a BA in English from the University of Cambridge.
Kimberly Gilbert is a proud Actors Equity member since 2001. In the DC Theatreverse she has frequented the stages of Ford’s Theatre, Round House, Theater J, Studio, The Kennedy Center, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Olney, and is a company member of both Taffety Punk and Woolly Mammoth Theatre. She recently won her 2nd Helen Hayes Award for her supporting performance in Kelsey Mesa’s world premiere La Salpetriere with Taffety Punk. Next up is Cymbelline at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.
Rebecca Ballinger was in Solas Nua's The Honey Trap (Helen Hayes nominated for Outstanding Supporting Performer and Outstanding Ensemble), The Playboy of the Western World, and their reading of Off the Books. You can catch her in Faction of Fools' production of The Moors this summer. She is a Helen Hayes Award Winning Actor for Outstanding Ensemble.
