Webster University's Conservatory of Theatre Arts Joins Dozens of Theatres to Present Play Reading in Honor of Women Veterans

The Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University, in collaboration with NoPassport theatre alliance & press, proudly presents a staged reading of SPARK by Caridad Svich. The performance, which will be offered at no cost to audience members, will take place on Tuesday, November 20, 2012, at 6:30 pm, at the Conservatory Spaces, 17 S. Old Orchard Avenue, St. Louis, MO, 63119. To reserve your free tickets or to get additional information, email Gad Guterman, at gadguterman95@webster.edu. Space is limited.

From the 2012 OBIE Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, SPARK is a play about three sisters living in the US caught in the aftermath of a recent war. It is about what happens when soldiers come home, when women of little economic means must find a way to make do and carry on, and about the strength, ultimately, of family—a contemporary US story of faith, love, war, trauma, and a bit of healing.

The Conservatory’s staged reading is directed by Michael Fling and features other students from Webster’s nationally recognized theatre program. With this reading, Webster’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts joins professional, university, and community theatres across the US and abroad who will present free script-in-hand readings of SPARK in the month of November 2012 in honor of Veterans Day. Theatres in over twenty states have scheduled readings, as well as a theatre group in Australia. (For a full list of theatres, see http://www.nopassport.org/Spark/spark-theatre-near-you)

SPARK addresses in particular issues faced by female veterans. In a 2009 New York Times article, Damien Cave writes, “Never before has this country seen so many women paralyzed by the psychological scars of combat. As of June 2008, 19,084 female veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan had received diagnoses of mental disorders from the Department of Veterans Affairs, including 8,454 women with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress — and this number does not include troops still enlisted, or those who have never used the V.A. system” (October 31, 2009).

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