Kickshaw Theatre will begin its inaugural season with a free staged reading of The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence by Madeleine George, on Friday, October 30 at 7:00 p.m., at Workantile, 118 S. Main Street, Ann Arbor.

Madeleine George is a young playwright from Amherst, Massachusetts, who now lives in Brooklyn. Her plays include The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Pulitzer Prize finalist; Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award), Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England (Susan Smith Blackburn Award finalist), Precious Little, produced last summer to enthusiastic reviews by Detroit’s Matrix Theatre Company, and The Zero Hour (Lambda Literary Award finalist). She was a founding member of the Obie-winning playwrights’ collective 13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc.), and is a resident playwright at New Dramatists.

In 2013, George wrote a fascinating essay for Playwrights Horizons on what she attempted with Watson. In it, she said, “…we’re living through a sea change in our relationship with objects.  Our most cherished objects no longer seem inert and dependent on us, waiting breathlessly in an empty room for us to come and make them useful.  Increasingly, our objects seem to dictate the terms of their own use, and we’re growing ever more dependent on them for our survival.  The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence is my attempt to puzzle out the problem of dependency – on devices, political institutions, and other people.”

Ms. George does not stop at authoring provocative, award-winning plays. She has also written two books for young adults. Her first, “Looks,” was one of Booklist’s 2008 Top Ten First Novels for Youth, and a 2009 ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Her second book, “The Difference Between You and Me,” was a Kirkus Best Teen Book of 2012, a Junior Library Guild selection and an ALA Rainbow List selection.

For more information about the reading of Madeleine George’s play, contact Kickshaw Theatre at KickshawTheatre@gmail.com.