WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — They're going from mise en place to mise en scène.
A new dinner theater-style series at a popular restaurant is using some star power to provide spark to Uptown's stage scene.
“Play with Your Dinner” is a six-week series of staged play readings at Coogan’s Restaurant organized by theater veteran and Coogan’s employee Maggie Low.
The series kicks off Wednesday with a reading featuring two regular actors from “Orange is the New Black," Catherine Curtin and Joel Marsh Garland, both of whom play corrections officers on the hit Netflix series.
Low, a longtime resident of the Village, said she is excited to bring staged readings to her adopted Uptown community.
“I’ve kind of fallen in love with Washington Heights. I think it’s a real crossroads of a neighborhood,” she said. “It feels like old Manhattan to me.”
Low said the idea came about when she and Coogan’s co-owner Dave Hunt were working one day in the restaurant’s private event room.
“He asked me, ‘Do you think you can do anything with this room?’” she recounted. “I said, ‘Oh yeah I can,’ so he gave me the space for six weeks.”
Low, who has worked in theater for more than 30 years as an actor, director and coach, said she had no problem filling the time.
“It took me about seven phone calls to book the six nights,” she said. “Every playwright I called said yes, yes, yes, which to me was a sign that this is a good idea.”
The readings will be held every Wednesday night through April 1. Low is featuring both new and previously produced works, including a piece co-written by Uptown resident Josh Liveright.
The first week will showcase “A Long Hard Rain,” by Jason Furlani, which Low described as a dark comedy about a large Irish family. Catherine Curtin and Joel Marsh Garland, who both play corrections officers on the hit Netflix series “Orange is the New Black”, will read the play.
Despite welcoming the "Orange" actors Wednesday, Low might be most excited for the second week of the series. She is directing seven fellow Coogan’s employees, most of whom have no acting experience, in two one-act plays by Mel Nieves.
“We have been having such a blast rehearsing together,” she said. “Some of them are really wonderful. They’ve got real chops.”
Although the readings are free, Low is trying to raise $3,000 through IndieGoGo in order to provide a small stipend to the actors and cover the costs of things such as printing the scripts and advertising the events.
In the 1990s, Coogan’s played host to the Bridge Theater Company, a local group that later disbanded.
Hunt said he is happy to once again provide a space for arts in the community.
“We know artists of all types are living in Washington Heights and we have lots of organizations here, but space is such an issue,” he said.
If the series is well attended, Hunt sees the opportunity for similar events in the future.
“Maggie has the skills and the contacts to do this,” he added. “As long as it’s a success, we’ll keep doing it."
Low is hoping to capture the spirit of the Village's cafe theaters of the 1960s, which provided an alternative space for people to share new plays.
"I see this as an opportunity to bring together a collective of artists that I've worked with over the last several decades to share their new work in an intimate and relaxed atmosphere," she said.
