LaWanda, a young black woman dressed as a Confederate housewife, leads a tour of Stonewall Jackson's house. Suffering from a toothache and a life full of inner-city horrors, LaWanda begins to imagine herself a slave. Seduced by rosy thoughts of being taken care of, LaWanda offers herself in slavery to a white couple with a farm in Ohio. Suddenly the lights come up, and a theater company responds to the play they (and we) have just seen. A no-holds-barred argument ensues in which nothing - multiculturalism, feminism, racism, art - is safe.

Jonathan Reynolds was a writer/producer for Dick Cavett and David Frost and a political strategist for Eugene McCarthy prior to his successful debut at The American Place Theatre in 1975 with two one-act plays, YANKS 3 DETROIT 0 TOP OF THE 7th and RUBBERS (both directed by Alan Arkin). Their production led not only to a Rockefeller grant, but also to a three-month stint in the Philippines working on the Coppola film "Apocalypse Now." From this experience he wrote GENIUSES, which was produced by Playwrights Horizons and ran for a year. In all he has had seven plays staged in New York and written the books for two musicals - STYNE AFTER STYNE at the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Broadway revival of WHOOPEE! His major Hollywood-studio film credits include the screenplays for "Micki and Maude" and "Switching Channels"; the first draft of Eddie Murphy's "The Distinguished Gentleman" and the last draft of "My Stepmother is an Alien." STONEWALL JACKSON'S HOUSE, his most recent play, was first produced at The American Place Theatre in 1997. Educated at Denison University in Ohio and LAMDA in London, Jonathan Reynolds is a Council Member of The Dramatists Guild and lives in New York.

Reservations are recommended for this free play reading. For further information and tickets, call the Wilma Box Office at 215.546.STAGE or reserve online at www.wilmatheater.org.

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