In Westport, Connecticut, Wendie Malick and Tony Shalhoub will headline Portrait of a Woman in Repose, a new play by Nicky Glossman, when Westport Country Playhouse marks the 100th reading of its Script in Hand series on Monday, October 5, at 7 p.m.
The series began 20 years ago under Annie Keefe, a mainstay of the Playhouse, and is now curated by artistic director Mark Shanahan. Its format is deliberately bare: professional actors, scripts in hand, and no scenery or costumes to lean on.
“For our 100th reading, I knew we wanted to present something truly special, filled with wit, charm, and heart,” Shanahan said, describing the play as “a feast for three wonderful actors.”
James Glossman directs. The play is set in France in 1818, during the Bourbon Restoration. A routine piece of art conservation brings together Madame Anne Dulac, just back from exile, Jean Howlitz, a onetime painter with a complicated history, and Roderick Calley, the sharp-witted man who manages her affairs. As the work on the canvas goes on, all three have to reckon with what they lived through and with the world that has grown up around them since. A third cast member has yet to be announced.
Malick is best known on television as Nina Van Horn in Just Shoot Me!, Victoria Chase in Hot in Cleveland and, most recently, Dr. Julie Barham in Apple TV+’s Shrinking. Shalhoub, a Tony winner and four-time Emmy winner, starred on Broadway in The Band’s Visit and Arthur Miller’s The Price, and recently went back to Adrian Monk for Peacock’s Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie.
Nicky Glossman was first published by Samuel French at 15, after his play Devil won the Baker’s Plays National Playwriting Competition; his workshop and production credits include The Professional with Ed Asner and Titans with David Strathairn. James Glossman, who teaches theater at Johns Hopkins University, will adapt and direct the world premiere of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest in Baltimore in April 2027.
Tickets are $35, from the Playhouse website or the box office at (203) 227-4177. The Playhouse is at 25 Powers Court, off Route 1, in Westport. Script in Hand returns on Monday, November 30, at 7 p.m., with the title still to be announced.
