By Melyssa Allen

Stillwater Theatre will present a staged reading of "Electric City Suite" on Saturday, Oct. 7 at 8 p.m. in Meredith College's Studio Theatre. This event is free and open to the public. There will be a talkback session with the playwright following the performance.

"Electric City Suite," a new play by Ed Simpson, is a combination of radio plays created for public broadcast. The staged reading is the world premiere of this work, which is being developed into a mainstage musical.

Simpson "writes about the magic present in everyday life and sees hope everywhere he turns," said Meredith theatre faculty member and Stillwater Theatre Artistic Director Steven Roten. "Theatre at its best has the power to transform the mundane into the extraordinary, and we feel Ed's work does just that."

Simpson's work as a playwright includes "Additional Particulars," which won both the 2000 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the Backstage-West Garland Award for Playwriting, and "Elephant Sighs," which received highly acclaimed productions in Los Angeles, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. As a screenwriter, he wrote for the acclaimed ABC Family Channel television series, "State of Grace," and he has written the screenplays "Apparently Leaving," "Elephant Sighs" and "Vin Fiz." From 1980 to 2006, he was professor of theater and playwright-in-residence at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

"A big part of Stillwater's mission is to foster new works and when we learned that Ed had these plays ready for production, we jumped at the chance to offer a staged reading of all four pieces," Roten said.

Stillwater Theatre is a professional theatre company in residence at Meredith College. The company was formed in 2005, with a mission to create stirring, passionate and thought provoking theatre that will engage and inspire the audience.

For more information, visit www.still-water-theatre.org or call 919-760-8757.