Script-in-hand presentation of a new play followed by a discussion with the author

Playwright Lynn Aylward, author of ‘StreetCART,’ will present a script-in-hand performance of her latest work on Saturday, May 18, at the Cranford Community Center, free of charge.

CRANFORD, NJ — The Theater Project will present a script-in-hand performance of “StreetCART,” by Lynn Aylward, on Saturday, May 18, at 2 p.m. The presentation, the last of the 2024 spring series, will be followed by a lively discussion with the playwright, director, actors and audience.

“StreetCART” is a riff on Tennessee Williams’ play, “A Streetcar Named Desire.” It tells the story of a couple living a quintessential and happy San Francisco life – Will’s in tech, Enrique’s a chef and they live in an overpriced apartment in the Mission. Will is pioneering a new augmented reality technology, CART, with huge implications for psychotherapy. When Will’s drama queen sister, Alice, shows up on the doorstep, the temptation to test the new tech becomes … desirable.

Aylward is an emerging playwright who recently moved from San Francisco via Scotland to New Jersey. Her short plays have been produced in California, Florida and New York. Her full-length plays have been semi-finalists in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the City Lights Theatre (San Jose) Festival. She taught playwriting and directed for Rising Voices, a theater group for incarcerated women in Oakland, California, and is a co-founder of Same Boat Theater, the Bay Area’s first eco-justice performance group. Her full-length play, “Three Chords and the Truth,” was in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2021.

The performance and discussion with the author, cast and director will take place at the Cranford Community Center, 224 Walnut Ave.; admission is free, thanks in part to the sponsorship of the Friends of the Cranford Library and a Union County LAP Grant. The event is part of a monthly series of new play readings presented at the Center by The Theater Project in the fall, winter and spring.

Photo Courtesy of The Theater Project