Rhode Island Community Food Bank Partnership What We’re Reading: Books Our Staff Recommends

What We’re Reading

Even though we can’t share plays on the stage at the moment, we are suckers for a good story and have been doing a lot of reading lately. Here are some recommendations from our staff and actors. To have your recommendations featured in a future issue, email them to communications@trinityrep.com.

Stephen Berenson, resident acting

company: Although it’s been difficult for me to read plays since mid-March, I’ve been able to immerse myself in books of all kinds and have found it refreshing to hear other voices every day. Many of us are using this time to more fully unpack issues of equity and diversity. In this area, I strongly recommend Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Isabel Wilkerson. Her analogy of race in America with the caste system in India and the hierarchy in German concentration camps is brilliant anthropology beautifully written. For anyone who has ever loved a pet, I suggest Steven Rowley’s novel, Lily and the Octopus. This is a funny, truly touching story of a man and his dachshund, Lily, who has an octopus attached to her head. I also recommend John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies, a laugh-out-loud epic covering sixty years about an Irishman and the endless coincidences that form the events of his life.

Kate Brandt, director of marketing and

communications: Back when I was commuting to the theater, I listened to a lot of audio books. This one made me hope for a traffic jam and extra time in the car. The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer combines a haunting World War II story of survival and love with a modern journey of a woman trying to better understand her family.

Jordan Butterfield, director of

education and accessibility: I recommend The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez. This play is one of the longest I’ve ever read and I consumed it in one sitting, unable to put it down. I felt immersed in the world. It reads like a good novel (it’s based on Howards End, after all...) but with the theatricality of a well-constructed play.

Jen Canole, director of development:

I recommend The Library Book (2018). Author Susan Orlean uses the entry point of the 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire to explore how libraries have evolved over the years. Compelling for its true crime elements (the case is still unsolved), the book beautifully captures the importance of public squares and gathering places in our society and sheds light on the less visible services and impact that cultural organizations have on their communities. Curt Columbus, artistic director: I’ve been reading a lot of poetry, including the following collections Mary Oliver’s A Thousand Mornings, And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, and Everyone at This Party Has Two Names by Brad Aaron Modlin. Brad Delzer, major gifts officer: I recommend the play Dutchman by Amiri Baraka. As electric as when it premiered in 1964 (and was also a part of Trinity Rep’s 1964 summer season), this taut allegory about the state of race in America at the height of the civil rights movement — a time of political upheaval not unlike the one we’re in now - remains both resonant and terrifying.

David Merten, MFA acting

student: My current favorite book is The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. It is a sprawling and beautifully intersectional and human story about what it means to forge community and fight for love in the face of personal tragedy. Set both in the AIDS stricken gay community of Chicago 1985 and

Paris, France in 2015, this book shows us two separate, but ever-connected main characters who are devastated, but never defeated by their circumstances. It’s an incredible story of the power of chosen family and choosing life and love over death and defeat. (Editor’s Note: This book was quite popular and also appeared on other people’s lists.)

Anne Scurria, resident acting

company: I would recommend reading August

Wilson’s plays in order. Also, we just read The

Bald Soprano in class and it was good fun.

The Mojo and The Sayso by Aisha Rahman was written in 1989 and could have been written yesterday. Gayle Ulrich, general manager: This summer, I brought 17 books on vacation with me to a cabin on Moosehead Lake in Maine. I read one. Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson is a great book to read when confined because you need to go with Ms. Jackson into the world she creates. Every detail matters. Hangsaman was written in 1951 about a young woman leaving an oppressive family for the glorious freedom of attending an all-girls private college. What is real and what is her imagination continuously intermingles forcing you to stop, go back, and reread looking for clues. If you enjoy a theater experience that has you looking forward to the conversation in the car on the way home so you can all try to figure out just what it was you just saw, this book will get you.